Life — April 25, 1918 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

APRIL 25, 1918 J. A. Mirenete, Pres’t. 17 West Thirty-first English Offices, Kolls House, Breamis Bligs., London, HARLIE CHAPLIN has been draft- ed, Count Czer- ninhas resigned, Senator Will- iam Joel Stone of Missouri has died, and Haig and Foch seem to be holding the Germans. We get plenty of news now, such as it is; too much sometimes. It is worri- some to have the Germans sweep over so large a triangle in France, but we must consider that what has been tem- porarily lost in acres haz been saved in lives, Acres can be reclaimed, but not lives once lost, On this day of writing stocks are up a little, showing increased composure in the financial district, which, to do it justice, has not been much rattled at ny time by this German drive. There is no use of anybody being rattled. Once is cnough to be beaten; once is enough to dic. Let us by no means an- ticipate defeat, or die beforehand of fear. It is a bad end and very unpleas- ant, and for us is quite unnecessary. If one s going to be beaten in war it is necessary to ¢ all one’s strength for it. Still more desi ple is it to use one’s strength to win: strength of mind, strength of will, strength of faith, as well as strength of body. Our side is going to win the war. Nota doubt of it! Victory will be dearly bought, but the Allies mourn that so large a proportion of it is being paid by F ve the price. We may well nce and Britain; it is right that we should so mourn; but in so far as that can be helped it is be- ing helped now, Our troops are in this “While there is Life there's Hope” vol. 71 No. 1852 ablished by LIFE PUBLISH COMPANY A. Mitre, $ Street, New York 'y and Tress. battle in appreciable force, and we know they are going over as fast as all available ships can carry them, and we know that is pretty fast Would that it were faster, but Iet us not depreciate unduly what we have done and what we are doing! Our allies by no means depreciate it. They know more about it than most of us do, They see what we don't. The: feel what we don’t. It makes a differ- ence to them to have reserves piling in. They are almost too polite about what we do, but it is not all politeness. There is a lar, substance indicated by such signs as that white flour is disappearing from use hereabouts that England, France, Belgium and some of the straitened neutrals may have it. and increasing underlying UR war aff have neither gone so ill as was since we got in feared, nor so well as was hoped. In ships and airplanes we are several months behind the expectations of the sanguine: in troops, trained or partly trained, we are abreast, if not ahead of them. In war-relief, Y. M,C. A. work, and all activities of that sort, our rating is high. We read very little of what our engineers and construction armies have done in France. Ik of n all about our failures and delinquencies, and very little about late has be what we have accomplished. That is all right. What we have done is done and doesn’t need to be talked about, and what we have failed to do needs talking up. Talk about that is salutary, though not always luminous. The airplane miscarriage has been talked about now for at least a month, and not, we hope, hout benefit to reorganization and construction. Some bluffs have been called; some premature bragging has been punctured. The machines that should be helping to win the fight in Picardy do not exist; the all-American motor that v to do everything for airplanes that a motor could do is still very much a speculation in mechanics, and though it is not a failure, it is far from being the universal success that its great advertisement heralded, and it is some distance still from quantity production on a great scale. Neverthe- less it is not the only airplane motor that is being made in this country, and the production of other and better ones of French and Ei al ble and is being in- nglish designs is ready conside} creased. The work already done is by no means all lost. There are plants which did not exist last year; mistakes have been demonstrated to he mistakes, and are in rapid process of correction, Misfit men have been demonstrated to be misfits, and are being superseded. By such processes as these huge jobs of novel rush-work usually creak through, It is a common human habit to find the right way by trying the others, but in war that method is liable to involve defeat. It won't in our case because our allies have had their sea- son of experiment and instruction, and have attained to actual efficiency and abundant equipment. They can piece us out where we are short in war ma- terial, and we can piece them out with indispensable food and men. AYOR HYLAN seems busier than usual just now in trying to upset the machinery of good government in- comicbooks { 5