the making, and all he sees is of interest. Were it not of
interest he would not have been sent to report it. He watches men
acting under the stress of all the great emotions. He sees them
inspired by noble courage, pity, the spirit of self-sacrifice, of loyalty,
and pride of race and country.

In Cuba I saw Captain Robb Church of our army win the Medal of
Honor, in South Africa I saw Captain Towse of the Scot Greys win his
Victoria Cross. Those of us who watched him knew he had won it just
as surely as you know when a runner crosses the home plate and
scores. Can the man at home from the crook play or the home run
obtain a thrill that can compare with the sight of a man offering up his
life that other men may live?

When I returned to New York every second man I knew greeted me
sympathetically with: "So, you had to come home, hey? They wouldn't
let you see a thing." And if I had time I told him all I saw was the
German, French, Belgian, and English armies in the field, Belgium in
ruins and flames, the Germans sacking Louvain, in the Dover Straits
dreadnoughts, cruisers, torpedo destroyers, submarines,
hydroplanes; in Paris bombs falling from air-ships and a city put to
bed at 9 o'clock; battle-fields covered with dead men; fifteen miles of
artillery firing across the Aisne at fifteen miles of artillery; the
bombardment of Rheims, with shells lifting the roofs as easily as you
would lift the cover of a chafing-dish and digging holes in the streets,
and the cathedral on fire; I saw hundreds of thousands of soldiers
from India, Senegal, Morocco, Ireland, Australia, Algiers, Bavaria,
Prussia, Scotland, saw them at the front in action, saw them
marching over the whole northern half of Europe, saw them wounded
and helpless, saw thousands of women and children sleeping under
hedges and haystacks with on every side of them their homes blazing
in flames or crashing in ruins. That was a part of what I saw. What
during the same two months did the man at home see? If he were
lucky he saw the Braves win the world's series, or the Vernon Castles
dance the fox trot.

The war correspondents who were sent to this war knew it was to
sound their death-knell. They knew that because the newspapers that
had no correspondents at the front told them so; because the
General Staff of each army told them so; because every man they
met who stayed at home told them so. Instead of taking their death-
blow lying down they went out to meet it. In