the men who had risked their lives and bore on their
bodies the scars of war? The pensions doled out to blinded soldiers
would not keep them alive. The consumptives, the gassed, the paralyzed,
were forgotten in institutions where they lay hidden from the public
eye. Before the war had been over six months "our heroes," "our brave
boys in the trenches" were without preference in the struggle for
existence.

Employers of labor gave them no special consideration. In many offices
they were told bluntly (as I know) that they had "wasted" three or four
years in the army and could not be of the same value as boys just out
of school. The officer class was hardest hit in that way. They had gone
straight from the public schools and universities to the army. They had
been lieutenants, captains, and majors in the air force, or infantry
battalions, or tanks, or trench-mortars, and they had drawn good pay,
which was their pocket-money. Now they were at a loose end, hating the
idea of office-work, but ready to knuckle down to any kind of decent job
with some prospect ahead. What kind of job? What knowledge had they of
use in civil life? None. They scanned advertisements, answered likely
invitations, were turned down by elderly men who said: "I've had two
hundred applications. And none of you young gentlemen from the army are
fit to be my office-boy." They were the same elderly men who had said:
"We'll fight to the last ditch. If I had six sons I would sacrifice them
all in the cause of liberty and justice."

Elderly officers who had lost their businesses for their country's sake,
who with a noble devotion had given up everything to "do their bit,"
paced the streets searching for work, and were shown out of every office
where they applied for a post. I know one officer of good family and
distinguished service who hawked round a subscription--book to private
houses. It took him more courage than he had needed under shell-fire
to ring the bell and ask to see "the lady of the house." He thanked God
every time the maid handed back his card and said, "Not at home." On the
first week's work he was four pounds out of pocket... Here and there
an elderly officer blew out his brains. Another sucked a rubber tube
fastened to the gas-jet... It would have been better if they had fallen
on the field of honor.

Where was the nation's gratitude for the men who had fought and died, or
fought and lived? Was it for this reward in peace that nearly a mi