ut I think so. Anyway,
while I was in Spokane, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles I
did not think people were greatly concerned about the war. Denver
people appeared not to realize there was a war. But here in New York
everything is war. You can't escape it. You see that war will soon
obsess rich and poor, alien and neutral and belligerent, pacifist
and militarist. Since I wrote you last I've tried to read the
newspapers sent to us. It's hard to tell you which makes me the
sicker--the prattle of the pacifist or the mathematics of the
military experts. Both miss the spirit of men. Neither has any soul.
I think the German minds must all be mathematical.

But I want to write about the women and girls I see, here in New
York, in the camps and towns, on the trains, everywhere. Lenore, the
war has thrown them off their balance. I have seen and studied at
close hand women of all classes. Believe me, as the boys say, I have
thought more than twice whether or not I would tell you the stark
truth. But somehow I am impelled to. I have an overwhelming
conviction that all American girls and mothers should know what the
truth is. They will never be told, Lenore, and most would never
believe if they were told. And that is one thing wrong with people.

I believe every soldier, from the time he enlists until the war is
ended, should be kept away from women. This is a sweeping statement
and you must take into account the mind of him who makes it. But I
am not leaping at conclusions. The soldier boys have terrible peril
facing them long before they get to the trenches. Not all, or nearly
all, the soldiers are going to be vitally affected by the rottenness
of great cities or by the mushroom hotbeds of vice springing up near
the camps. These evils exist and are being opposed by military and
government, by police and Y.M.C.A., and good influence of good
people. But they will never wholly stamp it out.

Nor do I want to say much about the society women who are "rushing"
the officers. There may be one here and there with her heart in the
right place, but with most of them it must be, first, this something
about war that has unbalanced women; and secondly, a fad, a novelty,
a new sentimental stunt, a fashion set by some leader. Likewise I
want to say but little about the horde of common, street-chasi