Life — April 11, 1918 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Swen iE APRIL 11, 1918 “While there is Life there's Hope” VOL.71 No. 1850 Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY J. A. Mitcnete, Pres‘t. 17 West Thirty-first A. Minter, Sec’y and Treas Street, New York English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. 'HINGS go better over there. The German drive ischecke europa rer possibly stopped. At this writing they have not ar- rived at Amiens, much less Paris. One reads that they are digging in, One reads that their casualties on April ist have reached three hundred thousand The main thing is that there is confi dence that the huge German onset has not strength enough to overwhelm the defenders of France. All we know— all we read or hear—makes f on fidence in the defense of There are enough Frenchmen, British- ers, Americans and Portuguese to hold off the monster in this rush. More important still, there is the ex- perience, the training and the general- ship to do it. Haig knows how; Pe- tain knows how. Preeminently Foch knows how. We have all refreshed our memories of Foch since he was made supreme commander, and everything that comes back to knowledge about him strengthens confidence that he is the man for the place he has been put into. His office, as understood, will be especially to handle the mobile reserves of all the armies, and drive them at the proper point at the proper time. That kind of generalship won the battle of the Marne, and this second great-Ger- man onslaught may be nicked, frus- trated and thrown back as that one ce. was. Meanwhile it is a serious business, and likely to continue so. and to call for every effort the Allies can make, and especially that we can make. We are assured that our government is rushing troops to Europe much faster than heretofore, and expects to far outdo all previons expectations, and to have aim no fighting men in France and England before you know it, and a mill present twelve-month. TI lf within: the noand at at assurance, which comes through the newspapers is all we can expect, so long as the government does not advertise sailings nor tell the number of men that go. We shall know, however, whether it is being made good. It looks quite as though the German war-masters intended this time to have a settlement one way or the other, and either win a decision in Fi fy themselves that they cannot do it. If that is so, this will he a long fight, another Verdun, hospitable to all troops from any quarter that can he put into it, And perhaps when it ends, if it ends right, we shall begin to see day- light ahead. ance or satis these times people must under- stand one another. Whole nations of dissimilar people have to work together for a common purpose that cannot he accomplished without united effort. Inside of the nations people of dii- ferent social groups have to make acquaintance, join forces, create or ac- cept management, and work together. Even in families there has to be me peration than usual, more agree- c c ment as to food, economies, scale of living, entertainment and domestic duties, if members living under one roof are to pursue their varied war duties to advantage. The war is an extraordinary force to drag people out of retirement and separation and drive them into co- operative exertions. Any great catas- trophe has that effect locally. When the Titanic was sinking social distine- tions vanished and human relations were all that was left. When San Francisco was shaken and burned it was the same. The people put aside selfishness and rose to a level of hu- manity on which each was for all. The great war is doing on a huge world- scale what was done locally in San Francisco by the fire and what must have heen done in Halifax by the ex- plosion, Niter the war it may be much the same. If there is to be peace on earth the people must get together. The war is drawing them together as nothing else could. There has been a tradition, more than a century old and very widespread in the United States, that the British are our rivals The temporary vets in which it originated have long since ceased to he. The facts of the last half century have argued quite the contrary. But) among people who know more of ancient history than of modern, the tradition lingered. And history is apt to he ancient before it reaches the masses of the people. Be- fore it is sifted, analyzed, corrected, and the lie has ceased to pass about it, and it has been put into books and dis- tributed to the schools, it is usually pretty old. But the old traditional anti- British animosity in this country has been dying, especially for the last three years, and by the time a million Amer- icans are fighting in France alongside of the French and British, it will be dead beyond even the power of Sinn Fein to resuscitate it. and natural enemies. H RY ADAMS is dead, an old man as mortal years go, and very interesting. He had seen much, comicbook Px yi