ther nation, I have my standards of comparison by
which to judge and I frankly state that I was amazed with the progress
that had been made. It is a progress based on a huge scale and
therefore less impressive to the layman than if the scale had been
less ambitious. What I saw were the foundations of an organisation
which can be expanded to handle a fighting-machine which staggers
the imagination. What the layman expects to see are Hun trophies and
Americans coming out of the line on stretchers. He will see all that,
if he waits long enough, for the American military hospitals in France
are being erected to accommodate 200,000 wounded.

Unfounded optimisms, which under no possible circumstances could ever
have been realised, are responsible for the disappointment felt in
America. Inasmuch as these optimisms were widely accepted in England
and France, civilian America's disappointment will be shared by
the Allies, unless some hint of the truth is told as to what may be
expected and what great preparations are under construction. It was
generally believed that by the spring of 1918 America would have
half a million men in the trenches and as many more behind the lines,
training to become reinforcements. People who spoke this way could
never have seen a hundred thousand men or have stopped to consider
what transport would be required to maintain them at a distance of
more than three thousand miles from their base. It was also believed
that by the April of 1918, one year after the declaring of war,
America would have manufactured ten thousand planes, standardised all
their parts, trained the requisite number of observers and pilots,
and would have them flying over the Hun lines. Such beliefs were pure
moonshine, incapable of accomplishment; but there are facts to be told
which are highly honourable.

So far I have tried to give a glimpse of America's fighting spirit in
facing up to her job; now, in as far as it is allowed, I want to give
a sketch of her supreme earnestness as proved by what she has already
achieved in France. The earnestness of her civilians should require
no further proof than the readiness with which they accepted national
conscription within a few hours of entering the war--a revolutionising
departure which it took England two years of fighting even to
contemplate, and which can hardly be said to be in full operation yet,
so long as conscientious objectors are allowed to air their so-called
consciences