ntrasts which are rather
quaint. I went to stay with a friend who had just completed as his
home an exact reproduction of a palace in Florence. Whoever went
short, there was little that he could not afford. At our meals I
noticed that I was the only person who was served with butter and
sugar, and enquired why. "It's all right for you," I was told; "you're
a soldier; but if we eat butter and sugar, some of the Allies who
really need them will have to go short." A small illustration, but one
that is typical of a national, sacrificial, underlying thought.

Later I met with many instances of the various forms in which this
thought is taking shape. I was in America when the Liberty War Loan
was so amazingly over-subscribed. I saw buses, their roofs crowded
with bands and orators, doing the tour of street-corners. Every store
of any size, every railroad, every bank and financial corporation had
set for its employes and customers the ideal sum which it considered
that they personally ought to subscribe. This ideal sum was recorded
on the face of a clock, hung outside the building. As the gross
amount actually collected increased, the hands were seen to revolve.
Everything that eloquence and ingenuity could devise was done to
gather funds for the war. Big advertisers made a gift of their
newspaper space to the nation. There were certain public-spirited men
who took up blocks of war-bonds, making the request that no interest
should be paid. You went to a theatre; during the interval actors and
actresses sold war-certificates, harangued the audience and set the
example by their own purchases.

When the Liberty War Loan had been raised, the Red Cross started its
great national drive, apportioning the necessary grand total among all
the cities from sea-board to sea-board, according to their wealth and
population.

One heard endless stories of the variety of efforts being made.
America had committed her heart to the Allies with an abandon which it
is difficult to describe. Young society girls, who had been brought
up in luxury and protected from ugliness all their lives, were banding
themselves into units, supplying the money, hiring the experts, and
coming over themselves to France to look after refugees' babies.
Others were planning to do reconstruction work in the devastated
districts immediately behind the battle-line. I met a number of these
enthusiasts before they sailed; I have since seen them at work in
France. What str