the Kaiser out of your
front yard."

Chapter XIV: England the Slacker!

What did England do in the war, anyhow?

Let us have these disregarded facts also. From the shelves of history I
have pulled down and displayed the facts which our school textbooks have
suppressed; I have told the events wherein England has stood our timely
friend throughout a century; events which our implanted prejudice leads
us to ignore, or to forget; events which show that any one who says
England is our hereditary enemy might just about as well say twice two
is five.

What did England do in the war, anyhow?

They go on asking it. The propagandists, the prompted puppets, the paid
parrots of the press, go on saying these eight senseless words because
they are easy to say, since the man who can answer them is generally not
there: to every man who is a responsible master of facts we have--well,
how many?--irresponsible shouters in this country. What is your
experience? How often is it your luck--as it was mine in front of the
bulletin board--to see a fraud or a fool promptly and satisfactorily
put in his place? Make up your mind that wherever you hear any person
whatsoever, male or female, clean or unclean, dressed in jeans, or
dressed in silks and laces, inquire what England "did in the war,
anyhow?" such person either shirks knowledge, or else is a fraud or a
fool. Tell them what the man said in the street about the Kaiser and our
front yard, but don't stop there. Tell them that in May, 1918, England
was sending men of fifty and boys of eighteen and a half to the front;
that in August, 1918, every third male available between those years
was fighting, that eight and a half million men for army and navy were
raised by the British Empire, of which Ireland's share was two and three
tenths per cent, Wales three and seven tenths, Scotland's eight and
three tenths, and England's more than sixty per cent; and that this,
taken proportionately to our greater population would have amounted
to about thirteen million Americans, When the war started, the British
Empire maintained three soldiers out of every 2600 of the population;
her entire army, regular establishment, reserve and territorial forces,
amounted to seven hundred thousand men. Our casualties were three
hundred and twenty-two thousand, one hundred and eighty-two. The
casualties in the British Army were three million, forty-nine thousand,
nine hundred and seventy-one--a million more