ital that service is to the boys "over there." They could not
live without the ships.

Then I came from Newport News to Washington, on my way home, and we
entered that great city by night. The Capitol dome was flooded with
light. As I looked at it I said to myself: "To-day from this city
emanates the light of the world. The eyes of the whole of humanity are
turned toward this city. That lighted dome is symbol of all this."

As I looked out of the train window as we entered Washington from
Richmond, Virginia, I thought: "Surely not the shipbuilding but the
ideals that go out from the Capitol are the most important 'Services of
Supplies.'"

The next morning I was in Pittsburgh. As my train pulled into that
great city, all along the Ohio River I saw great armies of laboring men
going and coming from work. As one tide of humanity flowed out of the
mills across the bridges, another flowed in, and I said: "Surely not
the shipbuilders, nor the ideal-makers at Washington, but this great
army of laboring men in America forms the most important part of 'The
Services of Supplies'!"

Then I came to New York. In turn I spoke before two significant groups
of men and women. One was a group of women meeting each day to make
Red Cross bandages, and knowing the scarcity of such in France, and
knowing how at times nurses have had to tear up their skirts to bandage
wounds of dying boys, I said: "Surely this is it!"

Then I spoke before the artists of New York, with Mr. Charles Dana
Gibson heading them, and as I had seen their stirring posters
everywhere arousing the nation to action, and knew what an important
part the artists and writers in France had played in "The Services of
Supplies," I said: "Surely these are the most important!"

But I have found at last that none of these are the most important of
all. There is another section to "The Services of Supplies," and that
is more important than the mechanic behind the pilot, more important
than the man who assembles the motor trucks and the ambulances in
France, more important than the ship-builders, more important than the
lawmakers themselves, more important even than the President, more
important than that great army of laborers which I saw in Pittsburgh,
more important than the artists and the Red Cross workers, and that
supreme and important part of the great "Services of Supplies" is the
father and mother, the wife, the child, the home, the church, the great
mass o