KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM
 
 Well, I have quite a stock of shrapnel and liquid fire for the 
 rear line of the Germans.
 
 2-433 07 
 
 KEEPING UP WITH 
 WILLIAM 
 
 In Which the Honorable Socrates Potter Talks 
 
 of the Relative Merits of Sense 
 
 Common and Preferred 
 
 By 
 
 IRVING BACHELLER 
 
 I 
 
 Author of Keeping Up With Lizzie. The Light 
 in the Gearing. Etc. 
 
 With Cartoons by 
 GAAR WILLIAMS 
 
 NDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPTRIOHT 1918 
 
 IRVING BACHELLER
 
 TO THE CHILDREN OF FRANCE AND 
 BELGIUM MADE FATHERLESS BY 
 WILLIAMISM-WHOSE WRONGS HAVE 
 ENLISTED THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
 AGAINST THE MISLED HOSTS OF GER- 
 MANY, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK AND 
 THE PROCEEDS OF ITS SALE.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I WHICH OPENS FIBE ON THE EXACTING 
 
 INDUSTRY OF SUPERING .... 1 
 
 II WHICH TEACHES THAT ONE SHOULD 
 NEVER HITCH His CONSCIENCE TO A 
 POST AS IF IT WERE A NANNY-GOAT 
 AND Go OFF AND LEAVE IT ... 28 
 
 III WHICH PRESENTS THE STORY OF THE 
 
 SMOTHERED SON 55 
 
 IV WHICH HANDS Our SENSE COMMON TO 
 
 THE SUPERERS IN AMERICA ... 62 
 
 V WHICH DROPS A FEW ROUNDS OF SHRAP- 
 NEL ON THE HUNS IN AMERICA . . 78 
 
 VI WHICH Is MOSTLY FOR THE BOYS OF OUB 
 
 ARMY . 86
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM
 
 Keeping Up With 
 William 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The new year of 1918 was not a 
 month old the day I went up to Con- 
 necticut to see the Honorable Socrates 
 Potter. I found the famous country 
 lawyer sitting in the very same chair 
 from which, seven years ago, he had 
 told me the story of keeping up with 
 Lizzie. His feet rested peacefully on a 
 table in front of him as he sat reading 
 a law book. Logs were burning in the 
 fireplace. A spaniel dog lay dozing on 
 a rug in front of it. What a delightful 
 flavor of old times and good tobacco was 
 in that inner office of his with its por- 
 traits of Lincoln and his war cabinet, 
 1
 
 KEEPING UP .WITH WILLIAM 
 
 of Silas Wright and Daniel Webster and 
 Rufus Choate and Charles Sumner, 
 with its old rifle and powder horn hang- 
 ing above the modest mantel and its 
 cases of worn law books! Beyond the 
 closed door were busy clerks and click- 
 ing typewriters, for Mr. Potter's busi- 
 ness had grown to large proportions, 
 but here was peace and the atmosphere 
 of deliberation. There was never any 
 haste in this small factory of opinions. 
 
 "Hello! Have you come for another 
 book?" he asked. 
 
 "Always looking for another book," 
 I answered. "It's about time that you 
 got into this big fight between Democ- 
 racy and " 
 
 "Deviltry," he interrupted with a 
 stern look. "By thunder I've offered to 
 take up the sword but they say I'm too 
 old to fight. I don't believe it. My 
 great grandfather fought at Lexington 
 when he was sixty-four." 
 
 "You can do more good with some 
 2
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 conversation than you could with a 
 sword or a gun," I urged. "I've come 
 up here to touch the button and now 
 you're expected to say something for 
 the boys at the front and the folks at 
 home. Just turn your search-light on 
 the general situation." 
 
 "Well, I have quite a stock of shrap- 
 nel and liquid fire for the rear line of 
 the Germans," he began. "My search- 
 light is a modest kind of a lantern but 
 we'll see what we can do with it. 
 
 "This time we'll talk on the subject 
 of keeping up with William. 
 
 "The other day, in the rooms of the 
 Connecticut Historical Society, I was 
 reading the diary of one Abigail Foote 
 written in 1775. This, as I remember 
 it, was an average day in her life : 
 
 Mended mother's hood, set a red 
 
 dye, hetchelled flax with Hannah, 
 
 spun four pounds of whole wool, spun 
 
 thread for harness twine, worked on 
 
 3
 
 KEEPING UP .WITH WILLIAM 
 
 a cheese basket, read a sermon of 
 Doddridge's, scoured the pewter, 
 milked the cows, carded wool, got sup- 
 per ready, went to bed at nine. 
 
 "I wish you to note that she went to 
 bed at nine. Do you think that a mod- 
 ern girl would knock off at nine? Not 
 at all. She sticks to her task until mid- 
 night and even longer. Abigail had 
 only to be an ordinary human being 
 with nothing to do but work. The mod- 
 ern girl must have the beauty of a god- 
 dess, the grace of a gazelle, the diges- 
 tion of an ostrich, the endurance of a 
 horse and the remorse of a human being. 
 It is a large contract. 
 
 "We are all familiar with the diary 
 of a modern girl. Its average day 
 would be about as follows: 
 
 Got up. Neck felt like a string on 
 a toy balloon. Had some toast and 
 coffee. Had my hair dressed and nails 
 4
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 manicured. Put a new ribbon on my 
 dog and walked him around the block. 
 Went to meeting of the charity 
 committee. Learned that there were 
 many people out of work. Went to 
 see the doctor who warned me about 
 overeating and late hours. Same old 
 chestnut ! Lunched with Mabel. Ate 
 half a pound of chocolates and so 
 much cake that the butler had a 
 frightened look. Home again. 
 Dressed. Went with mama to a lec- 
 ture on the insane. Mama woke me 
 at five. It was all over. Went to 
 Gladys's tea. Danced half an hour. 
 Home again. Dressed. Spent fifteen 
 minutes with papa and my dog. 
 Went with Harry and mama to 
 Gwendolyn's party. Danced until 
 midnight. Home at one. Nearly 
 frozen. 
 
 "Talk about long hours and poor pay 
 and insufficient clothing, this reminds 
 5
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 one of the story of Washington's army; 
 in the worst winter of the revolution. 
 
 "Now, both of these girls toiled. 
 
 "The one in productive work with the 
 wool and the flax. It was done mostly 
 for the comfort of others. 
 
 "The modern girl wears herself out 
 supering. Do you know what it means 
 to super? It is to follow the exacting 
 industry of being superior." 
 
 "Superior to what?" I asked. 
 
 "To productive work," he went on. 
 "Their toil is all in the service of them- 
 selves and in pursuit of their own 
 pleasure. 
 
 "That's what's the matter with this 
 old earth. For many years more than 
 half its people have been supering 
 wasting their time in busy idleness 
 on the high road to deviltry. You don't 
 have to think twice to decide that it is 
 about the most dangerous of all crimes, 
 my friend, because it is the straight 
 way to all crime. It leads direct to de- 
 6
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 ceit, theft, adultery and murder. It 
 kills the sense of brotherhood in the 
 heart of man. It kills the spirit of De- 
 mocracy. The world is being strafed 
 for it, in my opinion. 
 
 "Now the center and headquarters of 
 all supering is Prussia the home of the 
 superman and Bill Hohenzollern, the 
 Godful, is the head and front of the 
 whole push. 
 
 "There are two kinds of superiority 
 - real and assumed. Real superiority 
 is largely unconscious of itself. It can 
 never be inherited there's the impor- 
 tant fact about it. You will recall that 
 there are only three cases on record of 
 a great father begetting a great son. 
 The son is apt to have a sense of inher- 
 ited superiority. It destroys everything 
 worth while in him. 
 
 "Of afl the defects that flesh is heir 
 
 to, a sense of inherited superiority is 
 
 the most deplorable. It is worse than 
 
 insanity or idiocy or curvature of the 
 
 7
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 spine. There are millions of acres of 
 land in Europe occupied by nothing but 
 a sense of inherited superiority; there 
 are millions of hands and intellects in 
 Europe occupied by nothing but a sense 
 of inherited superiority, while billions 
 of wealth have been devoted to its serv- 
 ice and embellishment. A man who has 
 even a small amount of it needs a force 
 of porters and footmen to help him tote 
 it around, and a guard to keep watch 
 for fear that some one will grab his 
 superiority and run off with it when 
 his back is turned. 
 
 "A full equipment of inherited super- 
 iority, decorated with a title, a special 
 dialect, a lot of old armor and univer- 
 sity junk, stuck out so that there wasn't 
 room for more than one outfit in a 
 township. Most of the bloodshed has 
 been caused by the blunders or the hog- 
 gishness of inherited superiority. It is 
 the nursing bottle of insanity and the 
 Mellin's Food of crime. 
 8
 
 Now hot air has been the favorite dissipation of kings. James 
 the First was one of the world's greatest consumers of hot 
 air; enough to put him into business with the Almighty. To 
 be sure, it was not a full partnership. It was no absolute 
 Hohenzollern monopoly of mortal participation.
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "There are two kinds of sense in men 
 ; common and preferred, plain and 
 fancy. The common has become the 
 great asset of mankind; the preferred 
 its great liability. Our forefathers had 
 large holdings of the common, certain 
 kings and their favorites of the pre- 
 ferred. The preferred represented an 
 immense bulk of inherited superiority 
 and an alleged pipe line leading from 
 the king's throne to Paradise, and con- 
 nected with the fount of every blessing 
 by the best religious plumbers. It al- 
 ways drew dividends, whether the com- 
 mon got anything or not. The preferred 
 holders ran the plant and insisted that 
 they held a first mortgage on it. When 
 they tried to foreclose with military 
 power to back them, some of our fore- 
 fathers got out. 
 
 "We, their sons, are now crossing the 
 seas to take up that ancient issue be- 
 tween sense common and preferred and 
 to determine the rights of each. We 
 9
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 are fighting for the foundations of De- 
 mocracy the dictates of common sense. 
 
 "For the sake of saving time, I hope 
 you will grant me license to resort to 
 the economy of slang. A man might 
 do worse these days. There is one 
 great destroyer of common sense. It is 
 hot air. I remember how scared of it 
 the Yankees used to be. They were 
 most economical with their praise. I 
 never heard a word of it in my youth. 
 It came to me after some travel now 
 and then never to my face. They 
 knew the deadly power of it those 
 Yankees. 
 
 "Now hot air has been the favorite 
 dissipation of kings. James the First 
 was one of the world's great consumers 
 of hot air. He and his family and 
 friends took all that Great Britain could 
 produce never, I am glad to say, a 
 large amount, but enough to put James 
 into business with the Almighty. To be 
 sure, it was not a full partnership. It 
 10
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 was no absolute Hohenzollern monopoly 
 of mortal participation. It was com- 
 paratively modest, but it was enough 
 to outrage the common sense of the 
 English. After all, divine partnerships 
 were not for the land of Fielding and 
 Smollett and Swift and Dickens and 
 Thackeray. Too much humor there. 
 Too much liberty of the tongue and pen. 
 Too great a gift for ridicule. Where 
 there is ridicule there can be no self- 
 appointed counselors of God, and hand- 
 made halos of divinity find their way to 
 the garbage heap. 
 
 "Now, if we are to have sound com- 
 mon sense, we must have humor, and if 
 we are to have humor we must have 
 liberty. There can be no crowned or 
 mitered knave, no sacred, fawning idiot, 
 who is immune from ridicule; no little 
 tin deities who can safely slash you 
 with a sword unless you give them the 
 whole of the sidewalk. Humor would 
 take care of them; not the exuberance 
 11
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 that is born in the wine-press or the 
 beer-vat humor is no by-product of 
 the brewery- but the merriment that 
 comes when common sense has been 
 vindicated by ridicule. 
 
 "Solemnity is often wedded to Con- 
 ceit, and their children have committed 
 all the crimes on record. You may al- 
 ways look for the devil in the neigh- 
 borhood of some solemn and conceited 
 ass who has inherited power and who, 
 like the one that Balaam rode,, speaks for 
 the Almighty. So, when the devil came 
 back, he steered for the most solemn 
 and perfect ass on the face of the earth 
 Bill Hohenzollern. 
 
 "In his, soul the devil began to de- 
 stroy the common sense of a race with 
 the atmosphere of hell hot air. We 
 have seen its effect. It inflates the in- 
 tellect. It produces the pneumatic, rub- 
 ber brain the brain that keeps its 
 friends busy with the pump of adula- 
 tion ; the brain stretched to hold its con- 
 12
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 ceit, out of which we can hear the hot 
 air leaking in streams of boastfulness. 
 The divine afflatus of an emperor is apt 
 to make as much disturbance as a leaky 
 steam-pipe. When the pumpers cease 
 because they are weary, it becomes irri- 
 tated. Then all hands to the pumps 
 again. Soon there is no illusion of 
 grandeur too absurd to be real, no in- 
 dictment of idiotic presumption which 
 it is unwilling to admit. 
 
 "By and by it breaks into the realm 
 of the infinite and hastens to the succor 
 of God, for, to the pneumatic brain, 
 God is slow and old-fashioned. There- 
 after it infests the heavenly throne and 
 seeks to turn it into a plant for the 
 manufacture of improved morals, and, 
 so as to insure their popularity, every 
 agent for these morals is to carry a 
 sword and a gun and a license to use 
 them. The alleged improvement con- 
 sists in taking all the nots out of the 
 ten commandments. Nots are irritating 
 13
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 to certain people who have plans for 
 murder, rape, arson, and piracy. 
 
 "Hohenzollern and Krupp had taken 
 the Lord into partnership and begun to 
 give Him lessons in efficiency. More- 
 over, they were not to be free lessons. 
 The lessons were to be paid for, but 
 they were willing to give Him easy 
 terms, for which they were to show Him 
 how to hasten the slow process of evolu- 
 tion. Evolution was hindered and de- 
 layed by sentiment and emotion. 
 
 "Sentiment and emotion were a need- 
 less inheritance. Hohenzollern and 
 Krupp proposed to cut them out of life 
 and abolish tears. Tears consumed the 
 time and strength of the people. They 
 were factors of inefficiency. What was 
 the use of crying over spilled milk and 
 dead people? Tears were in the nature 
 of a luxury. The poor could not afford 
 them. Life was not going to be lived 
 any longer it was to be conducted. It 
 was to be a kind of a hurried Cook's 
 14
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 tour. Nobody would have to think or 
 feel. All that would be attended to by 
 the proper official. Life was to be re- 
 duced to a merciless iron plan like that 
 of the beehive the most perfect exam- 
 ple of efficiency in nature, with its two 
 purposes of storage and race perpetua- 
 tion. No one ever saw a bee shedding 
 tears or worrying about the murder of a 
 drone. 
 
 "The ideal of Germany was to be 
 that of the insect. To the bee there is 
 nothing in the world but bees, enemies, 
 and the nectar in flowers; to the Ger- 
 man there was to be nothing in the 
 world but Germans, enemies, and loot. 
 With no wall of pity and sentiment be- 
 tween them and other races they could 
 rain showers of bursting lyddite on the 
 unsuspecting, and after that the will of 
 the Kaiser and God would be respected. 
 The firm would prosper. It is not the 
 first time that conceit and Kultur have 
 hitched their wagon to infinity. It is 
 15
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 the old scheme of Nero and Caligula 
 the ancient dream of the pneumatic 
 prince. He can rule a great nation, but 
 first he must fool it. First he must 
 induce his people to part with their 
 common sense and take some preferred 
 a dangerous quality of preferred. 
 This he can do in a generation by the 
 systematic use of hot air. 
 
 "You may think that this endangered 
 the national morals, but do not be 
 hasty. The morals were being looked 
 after. 
 
 "Every school, every pulpit, every 
 newspaper, every book, became a pump- 
 ing-station for hot air impregnated 
 with the new morals. Poets, philoso- 
 phers, orators, teachers, statesmen, ro- 
 mancers, were summoned to the pumps. 
 Rivers of beer and wine flowed into the 
 national abdomen and were converted 
 into mental and moral flatulency. 
 
 "For thirty years Germany had been 
 on a steady dream diet. It took its 
 16
 
 Every school, every pulpit, every newspaper, every book, 
 became a pumping-station for hot air impregnated with the 
 new morals. Poets, philosophers, orators, teachers, states- 
 men, romancers, were summoned to the pumps.
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 morning hate with its coffee and pray- 
 ers, its hourly self -contentment with its 
 toil, its evening superiority with its 
 beer and frankfurters. History was 
 falsified, philosophy bribed, religion 
 coerced and corrupted, conscience si- 
 lenced at first by sophistry, then by 
 the iron hand. Hot air was blowing 
 from all sides. It was no gentle breeze. 
 It was a simoom, a tornado. No one 
 could stand before it not even a sturdy 
 Liebknecht or an unsullied Harden. 
 
 "Germany was inebriated with a 
 sense of its mental grandeur and moral 
 pulchritude. Now moral pulchritude is 
 like a forest flower. It can not stand 
 the fierce glare of publicity; you can 
 not handle it as you would handle sau- 
 sages and dye and fertilizer. Observe 
 how the German military party is ad- 
 vertising its moral pulchritude one 
 hundred per cent, pure, blue ribbon, 
 spurlos versenkt, honest-to-God moral- 
 ity! the kind that made hell famous. 
 17
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 I don't blame them at all. How would 
 any one know that they had it if they 
 did not advertise it? 
 
 "It is easy to accept the hot-air treat- 
 ment for common sense easy even for 
 sober-minded men. The cocaine habit 
 is not more swiftly acquired and brings 
 a like sense of comfort and exhilaration. 
 Slowly the Germans yielded to its sweet 
 Inducement. They began to believe that 
 they were supermen the chosen peo- 
 ple; they thanked God that they were 
 not like other men. Their first crime 
 was that of grabbing everything in the 
 heaven of holy promise. It would ap- 
 pear that those clever Prussians had 
 arranged with St. Peter for all the re- 
 served seats nothing but standing 
 room left. Heaven was to be a place 
 exclusively for the lovers of frankfur- 
 ters and sauerkraut and Limburger 
 cheese. 
 
 "God was altogether their God. Of 
 course ! Was He not a member of the 
 18
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 firm of Hohenzollern & Krupp? And, 
 being so, other races were a bore and 
 an embarrassment. Would He not 
 gladly be rid of them? Certainly. 
 Other races were God's enemies, and 
 therefore German enemies. So it be- 
 came the right and duty of the Germans 
 to reach out and possess the earth and 
 its fulness. The day had arrived. 
 There was nothing in the world but Ger- 
 mans and enemies and loot. 
 
 "Their great leader, in their name, 
 had claimed a swinish monopoly of 
 God's favor. His was not the conten- 
 tion of James the First, that all true 
 kings enjoy divine-right oh, not at 
 all! Bill had grown rather husky and 
 had got his feet in the trough, and was 
 going to crowd the others out of it. 
 He was the one and only. And as he 
 crowded, he began to pray, and his 
 prayers came out of lips which had con- 
 fessed robbery and violated good faith 
 and inspired deeds of inhuman fright- 
 19
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 fulness. His prayers were therefore 
 nothing more nor less than hot air 
 aimed at the ear of the Almighty and 
 carrying with them the flavor of the 
 swine-yard. In all this Church and 
 people stood by him. It would seem 
 that the devil had taken both unto a 
 high mountain and showed them the 
 kingdoms of the earth and their glory, 
 and that they had yielded to his bland- 
 ishments. 
 
 "Now the thing that has happened to 
 the criminal is this. In one way or an- 
 other, he loses his common sense. He 
 ceases to see things in their just rela- 
 tions and proportions. The difference 
 between right and wrong dwindles and 
 disappears from his vision. He con- 
 vinces himself that he has a right to 
 at least a part of the property of other 
 people. Often he acquires a comic 
 sense of righteousness. 
 
 "I have lately been in the devastated 
 regions of northern France. I have 
 20
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 seen whole cities of no strategic value 
 which the German armies had destroyed 
 by dynamite before leaving them to a 
 silence like that of the grave the slow- 
 wrought walls of old cathedrals and 
 public buildings tumbled into hopeless 
 ruin; the chateaux, the villas, the little 
 houses of the poor, shaken into heaps of 
 moldering rubbish. And I see in it a 
 sign of that greater devastation which 
 covers the land of William II the dev- 
 astation of the spirit of the German 
 people; for where is that moral gran- 
 deur of which Heine and Goethe and 
 Schiller and Luther were the far-heard 
 compelling voices? I tell you it has all 
 been leveled into heaps of moldering 
 rubbish a thousand times more melan-* 
 choly than any in France. 
 
 "Behold the common sense of Ger- 
 many become the sense that is common 
 only among criminals! The sooner we 
 recognize that, the better. They are 
 really burglars in this great house of 
 21
 
 .God we inhabit, seeking to rob it of its 
 best possessions Hindenburglars ! In 
 this war we must give them the consid- 
 eration due a burglar, and only that. 
 We must hit them how and where we 
 may. We are bound by no nice regard 
 for fair play. We must kill the burglar 
 or the burglar will kill us. 
 
 "When I went away to the battle- 
 front, a friend said to me: 
 
 " Try to learn how this incredible 
 thing came about and why it continues. 
 That is what every one wishes to know.' 
 
 "Well, hot air was the cause of it. 
 Now why does it continue? My answer 
 is, bone-head mostly plumed bone- 
 head. 
 
 "Think of those diplomats who were 
 twenty years in Germany and yet knew 
 nothing of what was going on around 
 them and of its implications! You say 
 that they did know, and that they 
 warned their peoples? Well, then, you 
 may shift the bone-heads on to other 
 22
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 shoulders. Think of the diplomatic fail- 
 ures that have followed! 
 
 "I bow my head to the people of Eng- 
 land and to the incomparable valor of 
 her armies and fleets. My friendly 
 criticism is aimed at the one and only 
 point in which she could be said to re- 
 semble Germany, viz., in a certain lim- 
 ited encouragement of supermen. 
 
 "Now, if the last three years have 
 taught us anything, it is this: the su- 
 perman is going to be unsupered. Con- 
 sidering the high cost of up-keep and 
 continuous adulation, he does not pay. 
 He is in the nature of a needless tax 
 upon human life and security. His mis- 
 takes, even, to use no harsher word, 
 have slaughtered more human beings 
 than there are in the world. The born 
 gentleman and professional aristocrat, 
 with a hot-air receiver on his name, who 
 lives in a tower of inherited superior- 
 ity and looks down at life through hazy 
 distance with a telescope, has and can 
 23
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 have no common sense. He is a good 
 soldier, he knows the habits of the 
 grouse and the stag, he can give an ad- 
 mirable dinner, he understands the prin- 
 ciples of international law, but when in- 
 ternational law turns into international 
 anarchy he is not big enough to find the 
 way of common sense through the emer- 
 gency. He has not that intimate know- 
 ledge of human nature which comes only 
 of a long and close contact with human, 
 beings. Without that knowledge he 
 will know no more of what is in the 
 other fellow's mind and the bluff that 
 covers it in a critical clash of wits than 
 a baby sucking its bottle in a peram- 
 bulator. He fails, and the cost of his 
 failure no man can estimate. He stands 
 discredited. As a public servant he is 
 going into disuse and his going vindi- 
 cates the judgment of our forefathers 
 as to like holders of sense preferred. 
 
 "Now is the time when all men must 
 choose between two ideals: That of 
 24
 
 'Behold the common sense of Germany become the sense that 
 is common only among criminals! The sooner we recognize 
 that, the better. They are really burglars in this great house 
 of God we inhabit, seeking to rob it of its best possessions 
 Hindenburglars!
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 the proud and merciless heart on the 
 one hand, that of the humble and con- 
 trite heart on the other; between the 
 Hun and the Anglo-Saxon, between 
 evil and good. Faced by such an issue, 
 I declare myself ready to lay all that I 
 have or may have on the old altar of our 
 common faith. 
 
 "My friend, be of good cheer. The 
 God of our Fathers has not been Kai- 
 sered or Krupped or hurried in the 
 least. There is no danger that Heaven 
 will be Teutonized. 
 
 The shouting and the tumult dies 
 The captains and the kings depart 
 
 Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, 
 An humble and a contrite heart. 
 
 Lord God of hosts, be with us yet, 
 
 Lest we forget lest we forget. 
 
 "Lest we forget the innumerable dead 
 who have nobly died, and the host of 
 the living who with a just and common 
 25
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 sense and love of honor have sent them 
 forth to die. Lest we forget that we 
 and our allies have not been above re- 
 proach; that there were signs of deca- 
 dence among us in the growing love 
 of ease and idleness, in the tango dance 
 of literature and lust, in the exaltation 
 of pleasure, in a very definite degenera- 
 tion of our moral fiber. 
 
 "Lest we forget that our spirit is be- 
 ing purified in the furnace of war and 
 the shadow of death. Do you remember 
 the protest of those poilus when some 
 unclean plays were sent to the battle 
 front for their entertainment? 
 
 " 'We are not pigs' that was the 
 message they sent back. 
 
 "Lest we forget that the spirit of man 
 has been lifted up out of the mud and 
 dust of the battle lines, out of the body 
 tortured with pain and weariness and 
 vermin, out of the close companionship 
 of the dead into high association on the 
 bloody altar of liberty and sacrifice. 
 26
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "Lest we forget that the spirit of our 
 own boys shall be thus lifted up, and 
 our duty to put our house in order and 
 make it a fit place for them to live in 
 when they shall have returned to it from 
 battle-fields swept, as a soldier has writ- 
 ten, by the cleansing winds of God."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WHICH TEACHES THAT ONE SHOULD NEVER 
 
 HITCH HIS CONSCIENCE TO A POST AS 
 
 IF IT WERE A NANNY-GOAT AND 
 
 GO OFF AND LEAVE IT 
 
 "Truth is a great teacher but she 
 ofjten quarrels with the cook," said Mr. 
 Potter, while looking at his watch. 
 
 He went to the telephone and called 
 his home and presently began to ad- 
 dress his wife as follows: 
 
 "Hello, Betsy ! Say, don't expect me 
 'til I come. I'm in trouble. A feller 
 came in here and started the war all 
 over again and there's no tellin' when 
 it'll end. I do not want an inconclusive 
 peace." 
 
 As he hung up the telephone his 
 stenographer came in to say good night. 
 Mr. Potter took his old rifle off the 
 wall, dusted it with a desk cloth and 
 said: 
 
 28
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "My great grandfather used that in 
 the battle of Lexington." 
 
 He squinted down its long barrel 
 while he gave these instructions to his 
 helper. 
 
 "Joe, send down to The Sign of the 
 Flapjack, nee Child's, and order corned 
 beef hash and poached eggs and apple 
 pie and coffee for two." 
 
 He turned to me and asked : 
 
 "Any amendments to propose to that 
 ticket?" 
 
 "None," I answered. 
 
 "Then we will consider it elected. 
 Have the table spread here by the fire, 
 if you please." 
 
 He filled and lighted his pipe, settled 
 down in an easy chair and began again, 
 with his gun resting across his knees: 
 
 "The superers try to square them- 
 selves by giving to the poor. It doesn't 
 work. Often we do more harm than 
 good by giving to the poor. Kindness, 
 sympathy, loving counsel and the broth- 
 29
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 erly hand can accomplish much. But 
 the charity of cold cash is a question- 
 able thing. The girl who knits a pair 
 of socks accomplishes a larger net result 
 to the good than the one that gives ten 
 pairs to charity. The girl who did the 
 knitting really produced something. 
 She had made the world better off by 
 one pair of socks. There is no doubt 
 about that. The girl who has bought 
 and given away ten pairs has produced 
 nothing. She has made the world in 
 general no better off. She is a slacker. 
 She is trying to make her money do her 
 work for her. 
 
 "The time has come when the world 
 in general has to be considered by each 
 of us. Civilized humanity has been 
 compacted into a unit. It is threatened 
 by famine and tyranny. All the money; 
 there is can not save us from these 
 perils unless a lot of people get busy 
 who are now doing nothing but eat and 
 play. Money has become a very cheap 
 30
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 and vulgar thing almost every one has 
 money these days. 
 
 "The time of the great assessment 
 has come and the Lord God is taking His 
 inventory. Everything is being meas- 
 ured and valued; even your usefulness, 
 my friend. What are you producing? 
 Is it enough to feed and clothe yourself 
 and family, even? Corn and potatoes 
 and wheat and wool are more than 
 money these days. If you don't help to 
 produce them, you are, more or less, a 
 dead weight. 
 
 "The idle lands in America ought to 
 get busy. How? The rich men should 
 begin to cultivate them. I know one 
 such man who is growing two hundred 
 and fifty acres of potatoes in Florida 
 where nothing has grown before, and it 
 is estimated his yield will be at least 
 fifty thousand bushels. Now, that man 
 is doing a real service to Democracy. 
 
 "When the monster of war is devour- 
 ing the fruitfulness of the earth and 
 31
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 stopping the labor of those who produce 
 it, there is only one remedy. We must 
 increase that f ruitfulness so that there 
 shall be enough to feed the monster and 
 the people at home. If this is to be 
 done, every one must work. In such a 
 situation, the idleness of the able-bodied 
 becomes a disgrace, and his dinner the 
 food of remorse. 
 
 "Get busy. I do not mean that we 
 should never play. I do mean that every 
 day we should do a fair day's work with 
 our hands and brain for the good of the 
 world at large. 
 
 "The war has established two brother- 
 hoods, my friend that's the big thing 
 about it. A brotherhood of democracy 
 and a brotherhood of slaves. 
 
 "This brotherhood of slaves has been: 
 created by the leprous soul of Bill 
 Hohenzollern. He has broken down the 
 will of the average man in Germany and 
 established his own in place of it. He 
 has yoked his people with the slaves of 
 32
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 Turkey and Bulgaria, and with them 
 has overawed the will of the Austro- 
 Hungarians, mostly a decent people. 
 The will of the Kaiser has spread over 
 middle Europe like a plague. The name 
 of the plague is Williamism. We have 
 caught it in America." 
 
 "In America!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "In America," Mr. Potter went on. 
 "The quarantine officer has been bribed. 
 He has left the door open and the 
 plague has come in. The name of that 
 officer is Human Conscience. William- 
 ism can make no progress save through 
 the carelessness or neglect of the human 
 conscience. 
 
 "Long ago the German people turned 
 over their consciences to the Kaiser and 
 the Bundesrath with a license to use 
 them as they thought best. The people 
 said to themselves : The Kaiser enjoys 
 the special protection and favor of the 
 Lord. He is an intimate friend with a 
 pull. He ought to be able to make a 
 33
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 more expert use of our consciences than 
 we could ourselves. Therefore, we will 
 appoint him our representative and 
 proxy at the Court of Heaven. If he 
 and his friends decide, after due con- 
 sultation with God, that we had better 
 violate good faith and break our trea- 
 ties and seize the property of other 
 races and indulge in murder, rape, 
 arson and piracy, we will do it. To be 
 sure such action would seem to be 
 wrong, but that is only because we are 
 common cattle. We are the best herd 
 of common cattle there is, but we are 
 not supermen. The Bundesrath, the 
 Kaiser and God ought to know what is 
 right/ 
 
 "Now that, in effect, is exactly what 
 they said to themselves. A people may 
 prosper and come to no violent trouble 
 under such a plan. But the fact is, they 
 are living around the crater of a moral 
 Vesuvius. 
 
 "For two generations all seemed to 
 34
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 be going well with the Germans. Wil- 
 liam I was a fairly decent-minded man. 
 Bismarck was unscrupulous but careful. 
 He stepped softly after he had bitten a 
 chunk out of France. He held the 
 throne in restraint until William, the 
 Godful, jumped upon it with a wild yell 
 of heavenly inspiration that startled the 
 world. He was going to take no ad- 
 vice from Mr. Bismarck not a bit! 
 Right away he appointed himself secre- 
 tary of war and attorney general of the 
 Almighty. No such astonishing famil- 
 iarity with omnipotence had been seen 
 since the time of Moses. 
 
 "There is an ancient legend which 
 says that, when Csesar invaded Gaul, an 
 old bowman of the north, having been 
 captured and brought to the headquar- 
 ters of the great Consul, said: 
 " 'Hello, Julius ! I am with you/ 
 "It was like Bill Hohenzollern, only 
 Bill didn't say 'Hello, Julius!' The 
 whole world stood aghast. 
 35
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "Bismarck stepped down and out. 
 He must have seen what was coming. 
 
 "Now this young lunatic should have 
 been examined and condemned and sent 
 to an asylum as a paranoiac. Instead 
 of that, he was given full power 
 and allowed to endow and develop a 
 school of bribed historians and lunatic 
 philosophers to justify his plans: Treit- 
 schke, Nietzsche, Bernhardi, backed 
 by the throne and all the supermaniacs 
 that surrounded it. They created the 
 new morality of Williamism in which 
 all human decency was disemboweled 
 and God and the devil exchanged 
 crowns. Gosh almighty! It seems in- 
 credible now that we look back upon it. 
 
 "From the beginning there has been 
 a flavor of the little tin god about these 
 Hohenzollern fellers. Frederick the 
 Great had a menacing rattle of self-as- 
 sertion, like that of a Ford car going 
 to a country picnic. His favorite dis- 
 sipation was kicking soldiers. It was a 
 36
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 way he had of advertising his superior- 
 ity. Macaulay tells us that he needed 
 proximity and not provocation to kick 
 a soldier. What a brave Captain he 
 was! Funny, isn't it, how the great 
 Captains have managed to take care of 
 themselves. Died on hair mattresses, 
 every one of them except two, Gustavus 
 Adolphus and Stonewall Jackson. 
 
 "The only man who ever insulted me 
 by just shaking my hand was a mule- 
 eared Hohenzollern chap known as 
 Prince Heinrich of Prussia. I can 
 never forget that you-to-hell air of his 
 as he took my hand as if it was a clod 
 of dirt, without even a look at me. I 
 have always been sorry that I didn't 
 invite him to the sidewalk. 
 
 "William II began to strut in the mil- 
 itary and hot-air game as soon as he 
 ascended the throne, and lost no oppor- 
 tunity to tighten his hold upon the con- 
 sciences of his people. 
 
 "Let me tell you the story of 
 37
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 THE MISLAID CONSCIENCE. 
 
 "I used to know a feller here of the 
 name of Sam Hopkins. He worked for 
 a client of mine who ran a lock factory. 
 Sam had been a poor lad sold news- 
 papers on the street night and morn- 
 ing. My client liked him and took him 
 over to the big shop and taught him 
 the trade of making locks and paid his 
 board until he was able to earn it. Sam 
 became an expert mechanic and shoved 
 money into his coffers every Saturday 
 night. By and by he had a wife and 
 three children and a comfortable home 
 and a goodly amount of spondoolix 
 earning interest. Now for the chance 
 to accomplish all that he was indebted 
 to my friend and client. 
 
 "By and by Sam joined the Trade 
 Union. Nobody could find any fault 
 with Sam for uniting with his fellow 
 workers to accomplish any fair and 
 reasonable purpose. But Sam had 
 given to the Trade Union exactly what 
 38
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 the Germans had given to the Kaiser 
 and the Bundesrath, He had, in effect, 
 turned his conscience over to the Union, 
 which had full authority to do as it 
 thought best with this sacred piece of 
 property. Sam didn't realize what he 
 had done until the Union ordered him 
 to strike. 
 
 "To be sure it was a limited propri- 
 etorship over his conscience which Sam 
 had given to the Union. He could keep 
 and use it until the Union called for it. 
 He had given a kind of note payable in 
 the use of his conscience on demand. 
 
 "Sam had no quarrel with the works 
 no more quarrel than the Germans 
 had with the Belgians not a bit. He 
 was more than satisfied with his wages 
 and his hours and his general treat- 
 ment His conscience told him that his 
 duty was to keep at work. But he dis- 
 covered suddenly that he had no right 
 to the use of his own conscience. He 
 had deeded it, on demand, to the Union 
 39
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 lock, stock and barrel. Sam had be- 
 come a kind of German soldier. 
 
 "War was declared. Some of the 
 faithful servants of the big shop were 
 slain. Others were injured; a part of 
 the property was wrecked. Sam tried 
 to do the right thing, but couldn't. He 
 went with the German army. 
 
 "Now, a man's conscience is given to 
 him for his own use exclusively for his 
 own use. There's nothing truer than 
 this: A man's conscience is like his 
 tooth-brush it should have but one 
 proprietor. You can not leave it lying 
 around like an old pair of shoes. Your 
 umbrella is not as easily lost. It is like 
 your right hand. You can not lay it 
 away you can not lend it, and the 
 more you use it the better it is and the 
 less you use it the weaker it is. Either 
 disuse or misuse will injure it and pos- 
 sibly deprive you of its service. 
 
 "Now, Sam's conscience got mislaid in 
 the shuffle. He suddenly discovered that 
 40
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 he hadn't any. I guess it was rather 
 small at best. It was through this loss 
 that I came to know about him. He was 
 out of work for seven months and got 
 to drinking. Idleness and regret and 
 the loss of friends turned him toward 
 the downward path of women, wine and 
 song. He is now in a Federal prison 
 for counterfeiting the victim of Wil- 
 liamism. 
 
 "Now just what had happened to Sam 
 had happened to every man in the Ger- 
 man army. In that deal with the 
 Kaiser his conscience had got mislaid. 
 He was ready to cut off the hands of a 
 child or torture a wounded man or 
 shoot an inoffensive civilian. His offi- 
 cers encouraged him to do it and his 
 conscience was not on duty. It had been 
 turned over to the Kaiser and the Bun- 
 desrath. It had got lost in the shuffle. 
 
 "I have told you that William had 
 made the ideal of Germany that of the 
 41
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM: 
 
 insect. Let me be sure that you get my 
 meaning. 
 
 "Have you watched a hive of bees in 
 bright summer weather? Well, you 
 will find that the workers wear out 
 their wings in two weeks and die. The 
 hive has only two purposes storage 
 and race perpetuation. These purposes 
 are carried out with ruthless and per- 
 fect efficiency. The drones are stung 
 to death as soon as they are discovered. 
 The worker will starve and die for the 
 queen. The welfare of the hive is the 
 main thing that of the individual of 
 no account whatever. The ants live and 
 die on the same general plan. 
 
 "So I say that the ideal of William- 
 ism is that of the insect. The hive is 
 the empire. Its main purposes are 
 storage and race perpetuation. Its chief 
 aim is efficiency. The nation is every- 
 thing; the individual nothing. The in- 
 dividual is to work and store and is not 
 even to take the time to cry if he feels 
 42
 
 The hive has only two purposes storage and race perpetua- 
 tion. These purposes are carried out with ruthless and 
 perfect efficiency. The drones are stung to death as soon 
 as they are discovered.
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 like it. In Berlin fifty-three per cent, 
 of the workers live with their families 
 in two rooms. 
 
 "Now I deny that the main purposes 
 of human life are storage and race per- 
 petuation and efficiency. If that were 
 true, the man that had the most cash 
 and wives and children would be the 
 greatest man in the world. 
 
 "A few years ago a man died in Eng- 
 land. He had only a few books and 
 about five hundred dollars in money. 
 Yet he was called one of the greatest 
 men in the world. Every one took off 
 his hat to that man because he had 
 Character. He was Cardinal Newman. 
 
 "Lincoln died poor and he was about 
 the homeliest, awkwardest man in 
 America, and yet the whole world 
 mourned for him because he had accu- 
 mulated Character. 
 
 "That is the great thing, and the 
 main purpose of life is to develop char- 
 acter in individuals. That development 
 43
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 comes mostly through failure. Success 
 is the worst of teachers. 
 
 "If one were to estimate the great- 
 ness of a people he would disregard its 
 armies and navies and the splendor of 
 its cities and the deposits in its banks, 
 and go out to that people and appraise 
 the character of its average man, his 
 respect for honor and decency and espe- 
 cially his respect for that great, world 
 embracing unit known as human rights. 
 
 "Right here I must tell you the story 
 of 
 
 THE LEATHEUHEAD MONARCH. 
 
 "There was once a man who was born 
 successful. He inherited success and 
 for many years kept it coming his way. 
 Did you ever hear of a man of the name 
 of Shote? Of course not. Neither did 
 I. That's one reason why I am going 
 to call him Shote John Shote, if you 
 please. My story is strictly true, but I 
 44
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 would ask no one to believe the name of 
 its leading character. 
 
 "John was ai great success. Some 
 people called him a great man. Indeed, 
 everybody took off his hat and said: 
 'How do you do, Mr. Shote?' or words to 
 that effect when he came along. 
 
 "I suppose you will think that Mr. 
 Shote only nodded and passed on, but 
 he was not so bad as that. No, he an- 
 swered: 'Very well, thank you/ and 
 went about his business. He failed to 
 return your solicitude but did not won- 
 der at it. 
 
 "He lived in a neighboring town let 
 us call it Shoteville and was soon, in- 
 deed, the principal Shote of Shoteville. 
 The business was there. It had always 
 prospered. When his father died, John 
 took the crown and became a swearing, 
 rantankerous tyrant. 
 
 "He inaugurated a system of effi- 
 ciency. He trusted nobody. There was 
 45
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 an indicator at the entrance of the big 
 building and every worker great and 
 email had to touch a button on this 
 indicator when he left or entered the 
 place. He had a kind of guillotine in 
 his office and every day heads fell into 
 the basket. But when a man left Mr. 
 Shote it was a point to his credit in 
 Shoteville. It showed that he was above 
 being sworn at. It was a kind of rec- 
 ommendation a thing to boast of. 
 Every one in the shop was sooner or 
 later called by Mr. Shote "a damn 
 leather head." It was a kind of initi- 
 ation. If he accepted the classification 
 and remained Mr. Shote decided that 
 he was amenable to discipline and 
 thought him a promising man. Out- 
 siders looked down upon him. The men 
 who stayed year after year and en- 
 dured the insults of Mr. Shote were 
 known in that community as 'the damn 
 leatherheads/ 
 
 "Every worker was a wheel or a shaft 
 46
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 or a lever in the big machine. When 
 worn or broken, he was cast aside. 
 
 "It will be seen that Mr. Shote was 
 one of the followers of William. In his 
 office were busts of Julius and Augustus 
 Csesar and portraits of Napoleon and 
 Frederick the Great. He worshiped 
 power and kicked the common soldier. 
 
 "While he was in America, I am glad 
 to say he was not an American not 
 really. To be sure he was born here 
 and voted here, but he was really a 
 Prussian and his shop was a little king- 
 dom in the midst of a democracy. 
 
 "Mr. Shote really thought himself one 
 of the noblest men that ever lived. He 
 was a great success even as a thinker. 
 A man can think himself into anything 
 he pleases from a lobster to a saint. 
 Just where he got og I leave the reader 
 to judge. 
 
 "Unfortunately, Mr. Shote believed 
 his own thoughts all of them. It is a 
 dangerous habit to acquire that of be- 
 47
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 lieving oneself believe me. If there's 
 any one that requires careful corrobo- 
 ration it's yourself. Mr. Shote could 
 not help believing his own thoughts 
 they were so commanding and imperi- 
 ous. 
 
 "Whatever else we may say of him 
 he was honest, as men go. He paid his 
 debts promptly and kept his credit high 
 and even gave large sums to charity. 
 
 "His great lack was common sense; 
 his great failing an uncontrolled tem- 
 per. When you become the pivot around 
 which the whole world revolves you are 
 apt to get hot and noisy. The world 
 bears down rather hard. So Mr. Shote 
 squeaked and roared with anger every 
 day of his life. 
 
 "His great vice was too much effi- 
 ciency. No man in the plant had any 
 power of initiative, due to the fact that 
 Mr. Shote had no faith in any one but 
 himself. The plant preceded on an 
 iron plan. 
 
 48
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "Now, every big thing that was ever; 
 accomplished has been the work of some 
 individual who at a critical moment has 
 broken away from plans and made his 
 own orders and acted on them the 
 kind of thing that Grant did at Appo- 
 mattox ; the kind of thing that Lincoln 
 did in his great proclamation. Bill Ho- 
 henzollern would have called it ineffi- 
 ciency. 
 
 "Just that kind of thing would have 
 saved Mr. Shote in the critical moment 
 of his career. That moment fell upon 
 him like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky 
 one day. 
 
 "If you sow Williamism you are 
 bound to reap it. Mr. Shote's lavish 
 crop ripened suddenly. 
 
 "The 'Leatherheads' decided one day 
 to meet efficiency with efficiency. They 
 were right. Mr. Shote had been run- 
 ning a little kingdom in America and 
 the 'Leatherheads* founded one of their 
 own. They had started a union and 
 49
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 appointed an emperor and told him to 
 go ahead and outkaiser the king. They 
 struck for higher wages and fewer 
 hours. Mr. Shote was away at one of 
 his palaces in the South. 
 
 "Now all the trouble might have 
 ended in a decent compromise that day 
 if the boss of the *Leatherheads' on duty 
 at the time had had the power and cour- 
 age to act on his own judgment and do 
 a really big thing for* once in his lif e. 
 He didn't have it. The wheels stopped. 
 
 "The king returned. His irritation 
 was heard in distant places. He would 
 never yield. His men were no longer 
 'Leatherheads.* They were inversely 
 promoted. It was a critical time in the 
 business. The plant went into default 
 on its contracts. The king stood firm; 
 so did the workers. 
 
 "The plant was idle for months. It 
 
 was the beginning of the end of Mr. 
 
 Shote's prosperity. His rivals captured 
 
 his best men and his customers and 
 
 50
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 most of the good will he had enjoyed. 
 The business went down like a house 
 of cards, 
 
 "We often say that business is busi- 
 ness here in America. It isn't so. Busi- 
 ness is more, much more than mere 
 business here in America. It is friend- 
 ship, it is personality, it is credit the 
 credit for good sense and square deal- 
 ing and high character a character 
 that is shared in some measure by every 
 servant of the enterprise, be he mana- 
 ger or errand boy. 
 
 "That cohesive power that flows out 
 of a great personality into the whole 
 structure of a business was not in the 
 warp and woof of Mr. Shote's commer- 
 cial ramifications. They came to grief. 
 So did Mr. Shote. 
 
 "Then we discovered suddenly that 
 Mr. Shote had two wives and two fam- 
 ilies. As a husband and a father he 
 had enjoyed a success at once unusual 
 and .unsuspected. A superman is 
 51
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 generally super married. He had ac- 
 quired imperial morals. The second 
 wife appealed to the courts in a wild 
 yell for her stopped allowance and the 
 result was that, in a short time, Mr. 
 Shote stood alone and universally de- 
 spised between two family fires. His 
 efficiency had gone too far. 
 
 "Again I say, success is the worst of 
 teachers save to those who sit in the 
 grand stand while it is working out its 
 failure. Unfortunately, it gave the la- 
 boring men of this country a lesson in 
 Williamism which has spread over 
 America. I wish the workers all success 
 in getting their just share of the fruits 
 of commerce, but let it be done by fair, 
 democratic methods and not through 
 Williamism. 
 
 "Above all no man should hitch his 
 conscience to a post as if it were a mule 
 or a nanny-goat and go off and leave it. 
 
 "It is to be hoped that the patriotic 
 Samuel Gompers will not abandon his 
 52
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 pursuit of Williamism even after the 
 war ends. 
 
 "The big point of the whole thing is 
 this : One day the Leatherhead Monarch 
 came into this office, closed the door be- 
 hind him, sat down beside me and said : 
 
 " 'Mr. Potter, I see that I have the in- 
 tellect of an idiot. What shall I do to 
 be saved?' 
 
 "At last he had learned something ; 
 a really serviceable and important fact 
 and he had learned it not by success 
 but by failure." 
 
 As he approached his climax, Mr. 
 Potter had shown a little annoyance at 
 the arrival of the waiter and the hash 
 and the eggs and the pie. Mr. Potter 
 rose, stood his rifle in a corner and said : 
 
 "I regret that my climax and this 
 wandering Ganymede with his load of 
 hash should have arrived at the same 
 moment." 
 
 The waiter spread the table in front 
 of the fireplace. Mr. Potter put a coin 
 53
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 in his hand and pointing at the door 
 said: 
 
 "Go hence and come not back until 
 to-morrow." 
 
 He placed chairs by the table and we 
 sat down. 
 
 "Is this pie, apple, that I see before 
 me the handle toward my hand?" he 
 playfully remarked, as he lifted a firm 
 built piece of pie in his hand and began 
 to eat it in the old fashion. "Bread 
 may be the staff of life, but pie is the 
 light in its windows. I don't want to 
 be hurried by its invitation, so I guess 
 I'll get it out of the way."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WHICH PRESENTS THE STORY OF THE 
 SMOTHERED SON 
 
 Our dinner over, Mr. Potter put a 
 new log on the fire. Then we set the 
 table aside and lighted our cigars. 
 
 "There is another sector in the line 
 of the Williamites that is pretty thor- 
 oughly dug in," said the Honorable 
 Socrates, as he put his feet upon the 
 fender and leaned back comfortably in 
 his chair. "Let me tell you the story of 
 
 THE SMOTHERED SOX. 
 
 "She was a Williamistic widow the 
 relict of the late Samuel Butters. 
 
 "She was also a Shrimpstone, of Kal- 
 amazoo. My friend, why do you sit 
 there in cold indifference when I men- 
 tion a fact so inspiring?" 
 
 "Who were the Shrimpstones ?" I in- 
 quired. 
 
 55
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "The Shrimpstones ! Jimmy crickets ! 
 Is it possible that you are not familiar 
 with the fame of ; Joshua Shrimpstone?" 
 
 "I have to plead guilty," was my an- 
 swer. 
 
 "To tell you the truth, so do I," he 
 went on, "but my own ignorance never 
 surprises me. There is so much of it 
 that a little more or less does not mat- 
 ter. It is the ignorance of so many of 
 my fellow countrymen regarding this 
 important subject that fills me with pity 
 and astonishment. I have never met a 
 man who could give me the slightest 
 information regarding the Shrimp- 
 stones. It would seem that Mrs. Butters 
 enjoys an arrogant and heartless mon- 
 opoly of all knowledge about them. One 
 does not feel like asking her to dispel his 
 ignorance when she speaks the word 
 'Shrimpstone' as if it opened vistas of 
 incomparable splendor and inspiration. 
 No, there are things which even a law- 
 yer can not do. There is a special look 
 56
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 in her eye and a lyrical note in her voice 
 when she says 'my grandfather, the late 
 Joshua Shrimpstone.' I imagine that 
 Bill Hohenzollern looks like that whea 
 he says: 'My grandfather, Frederick 
 the Great.' But I imagine, too, that 
 Bill's manner is a bit more casual. 
 
 "I had done some business for Mrs. 
 Butters now and then, and one day she 
 came to get my advice on a strictly per- 
 sonal matter. Her son, John Shrimp- 
 stone Butters, was just out of college. 
 She had expected Butters & Bronson, of 
 the great corset factory, in which she 
 had a considerable interest, to take him 
 into the firm and give him a command- 
 ing position in the office. As they had 
 not come forward with an invitation, 
 she had asked them for that favor. 
 They had refused actually and firmly 
 refused and what do you think they 
 had offered John a great grandson of 
 Joshua Shrimpstone? Why, they had 
 offered him a place as errand boy at 
 57
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 five dollars a week. They actually ex- 
 pected him to begin at the bottom of the 
 ladder and work his way up as if he 
 were nothing more than the ambitious 
 son of a ditch digger. Mrs. Butters lost 
 her self-control and sobbed aa she con- 
 fided the distressing fact to me. 
 
 "I told her that I would have a talk 
 with Bill Bronson, the head of the firm, 
 and see what could be done about it, and 
 she left me. 
 
 "In my talk with him, Bill said : 
 " 'We should like to do anything we 
 can for Mrs. Butters'a boy but all we 
 can do is to give him a chance the 
 same chance that my own boy will have. 
 He can begin at the bottom and we will 
 push him along from one department 
 to another as rapidly as he can master 
 its details. He must learn every process 
 from the making to the delivery of the 
 goods. Above all, he must learn to be 
 a good salesman. After a few years he 
 might become the Butters of Butters & 
 58
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 Bronson if he were willing to work 
 hard.' 
 
 "I wired Mrs. Butters to call again at 
 my office. She called. I told her what 
 Bill Bronson had said to me. 
 
 "'What!' she exclaimed. 'He ex- 
 pects my son to become a common drum- 
 mer and travel around selling goods to 
 little shopkeepers! Impossible I' 
 
 "'Why?' I asked. 
 
 " ^Because he does not have to. My 
 grandfather, the late Joshua Shrimp- 
 stone, left us enough so that we do not 
 have to do that kind of thing. Besides, 
 I do not think it is necessary. My son 
 has intelligence enough to learn those 
 menial pursuits without having to do 
 them.' 
 
 "'You are wrong/ I said. The 
 American way is to begin at the bot- 
 tom. It's a very good way the only 
 way by which one may be thoroughly 
 prepared for management. In that way 
 he gets hold of the sense that is com- 
 59
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 mon in the rank and file of his army, 
 and knowing that, he will know what 
 to do in every emergency/ 
 
 " 'If that is true, John might as 
 well have been born poor. Does his po- 
 sition and the fact that I have five thou- 
 sand shares of stock count for noth- 
 ing?' 
 
 " 'Well, you get dividends on the stock. 
 If you expect to get dividends also on 
 the position that you got from your 
 grandfather you are wrong. In this 
 country we have no crown princes who 
 begin at the top. Inherited superiority 
 is an amusing thing to look at but a 
 poor foundation for credit. In this 
 country we bank on demonstrated su- 
 periority/ 
 
 "Mrs. Butters rose and haughtily 
 withdrew from my office with the pride 
 of the Shrimpstones glittering in her 
 eye. 
 
 "Now, John Butters was a good fel- 
 low. He was over-mothered. Indeed, 
 60
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 the word for it is smothered. He was 
 like a man cast into the sea with a 
 Shrimpstone tied around his neck. He 
 would have done well with half a chance. 
 I never saw a man so badly in need of 
 poverty, so damned with affectionate, 
 gilded, comfortable female despotism. 
 She bought one business after another 
 for him and put him in at the top. He 
 has failed in all these undertakings. 
 His way is littered with broken crowns 
 and the wreckage of little kingdoms. 
 
 "Now his youth is gone and he is the 
 same useless, ineffective good fellow 
 that he was in the beginning. For years 
 he and his mother have been sitting on 
 that high horse of hers and galloping 
 around to the amusement of all behold- 
 ers. He has got tired of it and jumped 
 off and settled down as the clerk of a 
 wife who takes him lightly. 
 
 "He is the victim of assumed super- 
 iority which is nothing more or less 
 than Williamism." 
 61
 
 WHICH HANDS OUT SOME SENSE COMMON 
 TQ THE SUPERERS IN AMERICA 
 
 The Honorable Socrates Potter went 
 to the typewriter and got some oil and 
 a cloth and began to clean the gun of 
 his great grandfather as he talked. 
 
 "You see, William says: 'To hell with 
 the common man. Let him do the work 
 and the fighting. We'll take the product 
 of toil and the loot of war and enjoy; 
 ourselves. We will not have a thing to 
 do but super. If we glut the officers of 
 the army and our leading citizens with 
 the product and the loot, they'll stand 
 by us.' 
 
 "Is it not significant that the number 
 of plutocrats in Germany has doubled 
 since the war began? William proposes 
 to make human slaughter a business. 
 He is running a giant butcher shop. 
 
 "Every idler, every superer is an ally, 
 62
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 of William and an enemy of Democ- 
 racy." 
 
 "But they seem to get the best of it 
 these superers," I suggested. "They 
 have a lot of fun." 
 
 "They seem to, but, soon or late, they 
 learn it hasn't paid. They come to grief 
 or insanity these slackers in the game 
 of life. Let me tell you the little story 
 of 
 
 THE WEDDING TOURIST. 
 
 "She had the most curious and pain- 
 ful brainful of sense preferred in the 
 whole show. 
 
 "When I was a small boy my pocket 
 was one day dispossessed of some green 
 apples, a quantity of horse nails and 
 lead sinkers, a squirt gun, a bird's nest, 
 a piece of beeswax and a hawk's wing. 
 This collection would rank high as an 
 exhibit of eccentric assets, but the con- 
 tents of this lady's mind belongs in the 
 same alcove. 
 
 "It is to be credited to Alabama 
 63
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 where she was born about sixty years 
 before I met her in Paris last summer. 
 She had a charming southern accent. 
 It was the best thing she had. I liked 
 it. I like all those little provincialisms 
 which have the flavor of their native 
 air and soil. Why shouldn't the manner 
 of decent men and women grow in the 
 way of nature out of their environ- 
 ment? I love the drawl that is the nat- 
 ural product of New England, the 
 quaint, indolent slur of Dixieland, the 
 breezy dialect of the Far West. If they 
 all talked alike what a dull country we 
 should have! 
 
 "Certain of the schools are trying to 
 force a common method of speech. It 
 is the dialect of Mayf air and Fifth Ave- 
 nue. It would seem that they wish to 
 turn us into human bricks of the same 
 size, grade and color. Under the en- 
 couragement of Mr. Henry James, 
 whose slender Americanism perished at 
 last in formal expatriation, our New 
 64
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 York and New England girls have be- 
 gun to talk like Duchesses. But among 
 women of the South and the Far West, 
 you may still hear the real, genuine 
 American talk. To me it is refreshing. 
 
 "At least this may be said for The 
 Wedding Tourist she was no school- 
 made, rococo Duchess. She was as real 
 and unaffected as a bale of hay. 
 
 "Sometimes I call her The Grasshop- 
 per Widow because she was always on 
 the move. She had hopped twice around 
 the world and back. When she needed 
 a husband she reached out and grabbed 
 one and hastened away on another wed- 
 ding tour as if nothing had happened. 
 
 "To her, life was a series of wedding 
 tours. She had jumped from one 
 honeymoon to another in the most cas- 
 ual and engaging fashion. She was, in- 
 deed, a kind of professional honey- 
 mooner who from the beginning of her 
 matrimonial career had enjoyed the 
 pseudonym of Baby. Inns, table d'hotes, 
 65
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 ruins, art galleries, theaters, scenery 
 and honey-fuglement had filled her life. 
 
 "She had explored the capitals of the 
 world with real feminine curiosity. She 
 had loved their music and doted upon 
 their art and tasted their religion and 
 rustled in their silks and generally beat 
 the bushes to see what would run out. 
 
 "When we first met, a remark of 
 hers suggested my query: 
 
 " Was your husband a Yale man?' 
 
 " 'Which one? I've had two an' a 
 half/ 
 
 " Two and a half ! I never heard of 
 a fractional husband before.' 
 
 "'My first husband was only half a 
 man, euh. I married my guardian 
 when I was sixteen. He nevah would do 
 a thing between trips but sit around an' 
 eat an' drink mint juleps. We went on 
 our wedding tour and I kept him going 
 for two years, but it was hard work. 
 Nearly wore me out. He was like one 
 of those toys that you have to wind up 
 66
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 before it will go. Always had a pain in 
 his feet nevah could dance or do a 
 thing but just sit, or ride on the cars 
 or in a spring wagon. Lordy, girls! 
 don't evah many a man 'til you've tried 
 his feet an* have confidence in 'em. 
 Now, you hear me ! He nevah did do a 
 thing to please me but call me "Baby." 
 " 'The next man I married had a sis- 
 tuh with a weak mind by the name of 
 Peggy. I had to look after her an* she'd 
 take out her mind, like, an* open it an* 
 show it to everybody that came into the 
 house, an* turn it inside out as if she 
 was right proud of it. Honestly, it re- 
 minded me of my boy when he got his 
 first watch how he'd open it an* show 
 you the works an* then hold it up to 
 your ear so you could hear it tick. 
 That's what Peggy was always doing 
 with her mind, recitin' poetry or 
 showin' you pearls of thought taken out 
 of the clam beds of her intellect. It cer- 
 tainly was awful! 
 
 67
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 " Tercy Higginbottom had a wooden 
 leg an' limped some, but the worst thing 
 about him was Peggy. I have erected 
 a monument a mile high to that man in 
 the graveyard of my memory. He was 
 right good to me. He would stump 
 around all day lookin' at sights and take 
 me to the theater in the evening and to 
 supper afterwards and nevah mur- 
 mured. Sometimes his leg got sore but 
 he kept up. 
 
 " 'I married him in Paris. We started 
 off on our weddin' tour an' it lasted 
 about fifteen years. We traveled an* 
 traveled all that time. We played we 
 was just married and on our honey- 
 moon. 
 
 " 'He used to say : "Baby, what a won- 
 derful time we are having on this wed- 
 ding tour." 
 
 " 'We had two children a boy and a 
 girl. Once a year we'd come back to 
 Paris and spend two or three months 
 with them/ 
 
 68
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "'You didn't take them with you?' 
 
 " 'We left them with Mr. Higginbot- 
 tom's mothah an* a nurse an' governess. 
 Peggy, the sistuh with a weak mind, 
 went with us she was all the care we 
 needed. She knew enough to hook an* 
 button my dresses an' help me pack. 
 She was the only black spot in all those 
 happy years. 
 
 "'Percy took care o' my jewels. It 
 was all he had to do/ 
 
 " 'A tender husband and a watch dog 
 of the jewels!' I remarked. 
 
 " 'And there were hours when it kept 
 him mighty busy you hear me. I 
 can't help laughin' whenever I think 
 of it. 
 
 " 'Once we missed one of my rings. 
 We thought it had been stolen. The 
 hotel manager had every maid and bell 
 boy brought into our room and searched. 
 Suddenly Percy found it in a waistcoat 
 pocket. 
 
 " 'One evening we were gettin' off a 
 69
 
 steamer. Suddenly I slapped my hand 
 on my breast and yelled : 
 
 "'"My sunburst! Lord o' mercy! 
 it's gone!" 
 
 " 'I was suah that I had put it on. 
 We ran back up the gangway. We had 
 only five minutes. Peggy fainted away 
 she was that weak-minded. You 
 didn't dare sneeze for fear she would 
 faint away. Percy grabbed her. I ran 
 for the stateroom an' found the sun- 
 burst where I had left it under my pil- 
 low. We were all in, believe me it 
 nearly killed us. When we moved Percy 
 always called the roll like: "The ruby 
 ring," an' I answered, "Here." "The 
 jade necklace." "Here." Like that, 
 until we knew that we had them all. 
 That evening we didn't have time. 
 
 " 'But we certainly did see the world 
 until we lost something better than all 
 the jewels. Lordy! Lordy! what a 
 world it is! 
 
 " "The boy died when he waa eight. 
 We were in Cairo. We hurried back to 
 70
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 Paris. Mr. Higginbottom was nevah 
 the same after that. I nevah could get 
 him out of Paris again. He died there. 
 
 " *My next husband was the dearest 
 and best man that evah did live. I met 
 him here in Paris, His name was Hor- 
 ton. Weighed three hundred and fifty 
 pounds. Some man ! I says to myself : 
 Now here's a man that'll las' me as long 
 as I live. He drank too much, but I 
 soon cured him o* that. He gave it up 
 entirely an* our weddin' tour lasted 'til 
 he died/ 
 
 " Terhaps It wore him out,' I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " *No, he liked it and we were just as 
 happy as two turtle doves. When I 
 asked him to do anything, he would al- 
 ways say: "Well, Baby, you know 
 best." 
 
 " *But he couldn't walk much. Weight 
 was his great weakness. If you were 
 jus' to think of him as a husband he 
 was a little heavy; but no man is per- 
 fect. 
 
 71
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 " 'We had- a big limousine an' he toted 
 me around in that an' hired a maid to 
 climb stairs an' go to the churches an* 
 theaters an' art galleries with me. 
 
 " 'My daughtah had married an' set- 
 tled in Chicago. One Decembah we 
 thought it would be nice to go and spend 
 Christmas with her. I just thought I'd 
 stop beating around and get acquainted 
 with my own family. We left Paris on 
 the tenth and reached Chicago on the 
 twenty-second. I called my daughtah 
 on the telephone from our hotel. 
 
 " ' "My goodness! Is that you?" she 
 said. 
 
 " ' "Yes," I said, "we have come all 
 the way from Paris to spend Christmas 
 with you." 
 
 " t j m aw f u iiy sorry, mothah," she 
 says. "The house will be full Christmas 
 Day, but we'll have you for New 
 Jean's." 
 
 "She stopped and wiped the tears 
 from her eyes. 
 
 72
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 " 'Say, I felt as if I had been hit with 
 an axe. My husband said: 
 
 "'"Well, Baby, I guess they don't 
 want us. Don't you mind. We'll have 
 a good Christmas dinner here at the 
 hotel and then we'll go and spend a 
 month in New York." 
 
 " 'I stopped traveling and went to 
 thinking. Poor Mr. Horton didn't live 
 long. Now he's gone an' I haven't any- 
 body. No, my daughtah does not care 
 for me. Her ol' nurse lives with her 
 an ignorant French woman. I offered to 
 work hard if she would send that nurse 
 away an' take me to live with her. She 
 wouldn't do it no, suh ! She loves that 
 nurse an' doesn't care for me not the 
 snap of her fingah. I have been trying 
 to get a chance to work for the Red 
 Cross. My money is about gone. They 
 say money talks but all it evah says to 
 me is "good-by." My daughtah's hus- 
 band has offered me a small allowance, 
 but I will not take their money no, suh ! 
 73
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 One wants affection from her daughtah 
 not charity ! Lordy t what a world it 
 is an* what fools we are P 
 
 " 'You've been playing ever since you 
 were a little girl, and you're tired.' 
 
 " 'Yes, I'm tired. I remember how my 
 big brother used to come an* plague me 
 an* break my toys. That is what Death 
 has been doing to me. Wouldn't let me 
 alone. I reckon he saw how foolish I 
 was. I've seen about everything but I 
 think the grandest sight in the world 
 would be some one who was glad to see 
 me. You can't make friends an* be al- 
 ways on the move/ 
 
 "I suppose she had come back to Paris 
 to comb the beach for another wreck. 
 But her beauty was gone so was her 
 occupation of Baby. 
 
 "Often, I wonder just how the story 
 is to end the story of that pathetic 
 woman who was reaping what she had 
 sown the harvest of the childless moth- 
 er. 
 
 74
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "Well, anyhow, at last, common sense 
 had landed in her intellect. She had 
 never given it a chance before. Had- 
 n't stood still long enough."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WHICH DROPS A FEW ROUNDS OP SHRAP- 
 NEL ON THE HUNS IN AMERICA 
 
 Mr. Potter had got through with the 
 gun. He rose and went to the wash bas- 
 in as if intending to wash his hands. 
 He turned suddenly as if he thought 
 Germany were more in need of a wash- 
 ing. He strode toward me with a new 
 idea gleaming in his eye and said : 
 
 "Darn it, I ain't got time to wash now. 
 These Germans claim that they are the 
 freest people in the world, and they are 
 right." 
 
 He thumped the table with a shut fist 
 as he resumed his talk. 
 
 "One kind of liberty thrives under 
 the Hohenzollerns. License is the pre- 
 cise word for it not liberty- license 
 to eat and drink and be sorry to sat- 
 isfy the appetites of the flesh. The 
 great crowd will stand a lot of tamper- 
 76
 
 The land of the Kaiser has lost its chivalry, and the loss of 
 chivalry stands for the loss of conscience for moral degrada- 
 tion. A man's value as a man may be accurately measured 
 by his respect for women.
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 ing with its rights if you give it a good 
 time a broad privilege of self-indul- 
 gence. The Germans were a great 
 people when Bill Hohenzollern took the 
 reins of power good-natured, industri- 
 ous, God-fearing. The young men were 
 encouraged to found their happiness on 
 the sands of women, wine and song. 
 
 "The wine press and the beer vat are 
 the indispensable adjuncts of Hohenzol- 
 lerism. Alcohol is the balm of the mis- 
 laid conscience, the nourishment of the 
 big-head and the pneumatic brain. 
 These things lead to worse things. 
 Swinish indulgence leads to the morals 
 of the swine-yard. 
 
 "The church began to lose its power. 
 The clergy were treated as Frederick 
 treated the common soldier. They were 
 kicked into servility. At first this kick- 
 ing was politely done. Often the sore 
 part was salved by the gift of a hundred 
 marks. They were treated like hired 
 men. They were to understand that 
 77
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 they were just humble servants and 
 that the Kaiser needed none of their ad- 
 vice. He knew all about the plans of 
 God. Of course, in a little while, no 
 man of brains- and* character would go 
 near a pulpit. The priests of God be- 
 came servile sycophants. The people 
 ceased to respect them. The church had 
 lost its power. To Germany it was an 
 immeasurable loss. 
 
 "In France I found good evidence of 
 the utter depravity of the German sol- 
 dier. God knows I would not have 
 thought it possible the raping, the 
 maiming of children, the daughters of 
 whole communities carried into bond- 
 age. I would have thought that the de- 
 cency common among dogs, even, in a 
 Christian country, these days, would 
 have shielded the helpless from such 
 cruelty. It is evident that the officers 
 gave countenance and encouragement to 
 these crimes, or they could not have been 
 accomplished. At the knowledge of 
 78
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 these things, a cry of shame for their 
 brothers in Germany has risen from the 
 lips of all civilized men the world over. 
 
 "The infamy goes back to the men 
 higher up to Bill Hohenzollern and 
 his gang of pirates and highway- 
 men. They have slain the soul of Ger- 
 many. 
 
 "I am told by men who have lived 
 there that in certain provinces a chaste 
 woman is a thing unknown. Let us hope 
 this exaggerates the truth. As to that 
 I have no knowledge. But that the 
 land of the Kaiser has lost its chivalry 
 I have no doubt whatever. The loss of 
 chivalry stands for the loss of con- 
 science for moral degradation. A 
 man's value as a man may be accurate- 
 ly measured by his respect for women. 
 A man who has no respect for women 
 will have respect for your rights only 
 because he has to. He would steal your 
 purse if he dared. He is rotten to the 
 core. Moreover, unless women are pure 
 79
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 there can be ho purity because they 
 have the tender soul of childhood in 
 their keeping. 
 
 "We ought to establish a moral quar- 
 antine here and save ourselves from the 
 peril of German leprosy. It has arrived. 
 It is spreading. You will find its symp- 
 toms in our theaters, now largely in the 
 hands of the Germans. 
 
 "I have traveled much these late 
 years and have failed to find an Amer- 
 ican city in which there was not one or 
 more plays or moving pictures which 
 reflected the morals of the swine-yard. 
 There I have found girls and boys and 
 children who are to make- the life of 
 America, drinking at the fountain of 
 pollution, cleverly designed by the sex 
 maniacs who live in the white lights of 
 Broadway. On every sort of specious 
 pretext mostly that of warning the 
 young spaniel youths and porcelain- 
 faced daughters of iniquity are paraded 
 in libidinous enterprises. The cabarets 
 80
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 and brothels of New York, with, their 
 fist fights between young women, their 
 desperate, bull-dog encounters between 
 sex maniacs, their ogling, besotted de- 
 generates, sometimes with a lame pre- 
 tense of a moral and sometimes with- 
 out it, are shown for the entertainment 
 of young America, 
 
 "The Huns have already invaded 
 America, my friend. They are armed 
 with things more deadly than guns and 
 bullets. Their gun is the camera, their 
 ammunition, the moving picture. That 
 picture penetrates to the heart and 
 soul of the young and no surgery can 
 remove it. To them, seeing is believing. 
 
 "A man is mostly the sum of his men> 
 ories. Think back; and tell me what 
 you remember of your childhood. It's 
 the pictures you saw. I think the first 
 thing I remember is the picture of a 
 cat which my mother drew on a slate 
 for me a highly benevolent cat it was. 
 The one I have remembered best is that 
 81
 
 KEEPING UP WITH 'WILLIAM 
 
 of my mother standing in the morning 
 sunlight among the hollyhocks by the 
 open door and waving her handker- 
 chief to me the day I went away to 
 school. How often it has flashed out of 
 my memory in these last forty years. 
 There is no power like that of a picture 
 for good or evil in the life of a child. 
 Pictures are, indeed, the universal lan- 
 guage of childhood. 
 
 "Now what is there in this special 
 claim of the sex mongers that the truth 
 about life however hideous and revolt- 
 ing it may be would best be known of 
 all? Just this it should be made 
 known but not publicly in books and 
 theaters. It should not be made a 
 familiar thing sitting at meat and ly- 
 ing down in bed with the sensitive im- 
 agination of the young. That will be 
 sure to make it the one great truth of 
 life. I prefer the privacy of home and 
 the loving caution of a mother, taking 
 care to impart the whole truth with its 
 82
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 setting of perils and with no glamour 
 of romance about it. I would as soon 
 have my daughter's feet enter a brothel 
 as her brain. She might shake the dust 
 from her feet. 
 
 "What were the fruits of this home 
 method in old New England? I would 
 remind these European Americans who 
 provide our amusements for us that the 
 world has never seen a civilization like 
 that of old New England. I am not say r 
 ing that it had no faults, but its human 
 product has justly excited the wonder 
 and admiration of the world. There 
 was not much of it. You could pick up 
 those six little states and set them down 
 within the boundaries of Minnesota and 
 have 19,200 square miles to spare. Yet 
 they gave to the world in the space of 
 forty years, men of the stamp of Daniel 
 Webster, Silas Wright, Charles Sumner, 
 William Lloyd Garrison, William M. Ev- 
 arts, George F. -Edmunds, James G. 
 Elaine, E. J. Phelps, Rufus Choate, 
 83
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Charming, 
 Lyman Abbott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry W. 
 Longfellow, John G. Whittier, James 
 Russell Lowell, Edmund C. Stedman, 
 the Dwights, the Washburns, 
 
 "Wouldn't that seem to be doing fair- 
 ly well? 
 
 "Now the fact is, men and women 
 long for inspiration to a nobler life. 
 There are those who will tell you that 
 the crowds who go to hear Billy Sun- 
 day, do it simply to be amused. It is 
 not true. It is a deeper thing. They 
 go, driven by soul hunger. They long 
 for wholesome food for the spirit. They 
 wish to be stirred to nobler action and 
 feel the inspiration of better ideals. 
 They come by tens of thousands. 
 
 "There never was a clean, uplifting, 
 noble work of fiction that did not num- 
 ber its readers by the million. There 
 never was a strong inspiring play like 
 Peter Pan or Shore Acres that failed 
 84
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAMT 
 
 to play to the full capacity of the house 
 in which it was presented for years. 
 
 "Why then, ask us to wallow in all 
 uncleanness in the swine-yard of hu- 
 manity? 
 
 "It is because uncleanness is cheaper 
 and easier to get and is sure of an audi- 
 ence equally large and less discrimi- 
 nating; it is because these Huns care 
 only for their own pockets and not a fig 
 for the public good. 
 
 "Now, here is a work for the women 
 of America. Here is a battle front on 
 which they can fight the Huns. Men 
 can help and will help, but they are 
 busy with the more obvious and com- 
 monplace problems. This is a job of 
 housecleaning. It is primarily a wom- 
 an's job that of setting in order the 
 great house of America and looking 
 after the welfare of its children. There 
 is no greater work to be done than that 
 of regenerating the theater. They can 
 do it if they will." 
 
 85
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHICH IS MOSTLY FOR THE BOYS OF OUR 
 ARMY 
 
 The Honorable Socrates Potter hung 
 up the old rifle and washed his hands. 
 There was a very gentle look in his eyes 
 as he began pacing the floor. I saw 
 that another mood was coming. 
 
 "We must learn that wealth is no ex- 
 cuse for idleness or pride/' he went on. 
 "Every one must find his work and do it, 
 or come to grief that is the conclusion 
 of the whole matter. We have our 
 European Americans our Mislaid 
 Consciences, our Leatherhead Monarchs, 
 our Smothered Sons, our Shrimpstones, 
 our Wedding Tourists. We must use 
 the slipper with a firm but kindly hand, 
 and remind them that they are of the 
 Hohenzollern breed and request them to 
 fall in line and get the pace and spirit 
 of Democracy. 
 
 86
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "With all our faults we are, in the 
 main, sound and healthy. Our aver- 
 age man can be relied upon. He is our 
 heart and sinew. We need not boast 
 of him. He is willing to give all rather 
 than see the spirit of man yield an inch 
 of the progress it has made. That is 
 enough to say of him. If any Euro- 
 pean country can match him, we are 
 glad and he is glad not envious. 
 
 "Our average man would enjoy a 
 drink now and then, but in many of our 
 states he has said : 'If the good of hu- 
 manity demands it, let there be prohi- 
 bition anyhow we will give it a trial.' 
 
 "The trouble with Russia lies in the 
 fact that among its people there are no 
 individuals no men trained in the use 
 of the intellect and the conscience. Its 
 people are like bricks, all of the same 
 shape, size and color all two inches 
 wide and six inches long. They have a 
 common denominator of material and a 
 common numerator of ignorance. Be- 
 87
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 tween them and their rulers there has 
 been no average man to speak for them, 
 so the people are helpless. They know 
 not what to say or do. They have been 
 Kerenskyed and Trotskyfied and driven 
 about like cattle. 
 
 "The Germans have an average man, 
 but he has suffered himself to be Wil- 
 liamized. His conscience has been mis- 
 laid. 
 
 "Since 1860 this average man of ours 
 has given of his blood and substance for 
 the ideals of Democracy and with not 
 the remotest hope of gain. His God is 
 the father of the whole human family 
 a God of progress whose aim is not 
 the selfish enjoyment of a favored few, 
 but the welfare of all men the world 
 over. His aim is, in short, common 
 sense a common sense of honor and 
 decency and brotherhood in the great 
 family. 
 
 "Again we fight for this ideal driv- 
 en to it by the hateful conduct of our 
 brothers in Germany. 
 88
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "I wish you would say for me to the 
 folks at home that there is a great op- 
 portunity in this big common purpose 
 of ours an opportunity to drop all out- 
 worn and unessential differences of 
 creed and get together. Let us inaugu- 
 rate the Ismless Sunday and cut out the 
 waste the waste of rent and interest 
 and coal and light and energy. Let us 
 cut out the empty seats and the empty 
 preachers and the quarrelsome brothers 
 and sisters and get together in the big- 
 gest meeting-house in town on a basis 
 of common sense the common sense of 
 the fatherhood of God and the brother- 
 hood of man with Christ as the great 
 example. Let us not worry and quarrel 
 as to whether Christ was God or man. 
 He was the first and greatest Democrat 
 and would have us work together in 
 peace for Democracy. That is the im- 
 portant thing. 
 
 "Tell those ladies who sit around the 
 fireplace knitting sweaters and indulg- 
 ing in delicious chills of pessimism, to 
 89
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 quit. There should be an asylum for 
 the misery lovers who sit in snug secur- 
 ity and dream of misfortunes Zeppe- 
 lin raids, submarine bombardments and 
 the end of the world. They grab at 
 every straw of pessimism. Nothing 
 pleases them so much as to find fault 
 with the Government, which is doing its 
 best with a difficult problem, and 
 mighty well at that. 
 
 "Tell them to stop shooting at the 
 pianist. He is the only one we have. 
 All faces to the front! The spirit of 
 Democracy is confidence in the justice 
 and the success of its cause. Let there 
 be no discordant voices in our chorus. 
 
 "That reminds me of the story of 
 
 THE CUFFING OF AlVN MARIA. 
 
 "In the town of my birth there lived 
 a hen-pecked farmer of the name of 
 Amos Swope. He was a peaceful and 
 contented soul without any good excuse 
 for it. His wife, Ann Maria, was a 
 90
 
 
 Since 1860 this average man of ours has given of hie blood 
 
 and substance for the ideals of Democracy and with not the 
 
 remotest hope of gain.
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 scold and a fault finder. She had 
 pecked upon Amos for years. When 
 she got tired her sister came and helped 
 her. My father used to say that they 
 reminded him of Philo Scott's pet 
 crane. Philo used to lead him around 
 with a big cork stuck on the end of his 
 bill. 
 
 " *What is that cork on his bill for?' 
 my father asked. 
 
 " 'So's 't he can't peck/ said Philo. 
 
 " 'Can he peck?' 
 
 '"Tolerable severe, an' when he hits 
 anything he calcallates to put a hole in 
 it, an' he ain't often disapp'inted. One 
 day my dog, Christmas, tackled him 
 and the old crane fetched Christmas a 
 peck on the forward an' I ain't seen 
 that dog since. He's just naturally 
 mean an' he ain't never learnt how to 
 control himself.' 
 
 "So it was with Ann Maria and her 
 sister. But Amos used to sit as quiet 
 and unconcerned as an old tree with a 
 91
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 pair of wood-peckers knockin' away at 
 it. He never pecked back but once. 
 
 "They had gone up to the St. Law- 
 rence to camp out an* fish for a week 
 or so Amos and his boy, Bill, and Ann 
 Maria and her sister. One day when 
 they were landing a big fish they got 
 into the stiff current above the Long 
 Sault. Something had to be done right 
 away. Amos dropped his tackle and 
 began pulling on the oars. Bill went 
 to work with his paddle. The women 
 began to complain an* move around and 
 rock the boat. They knew they were 
 going to be drowned. They insisted 
 upon it with loud cries. Amos, in the 
 midst of heroic efforts, tried to quiet 
 them. They continued to cry out and 
 when the boat shipped water they 
 dodged. It was a bad situation. 
 
 "Amos fetched Ann Maria a cuff and 
 told her to dry up an* sit still. The 
 women obeyed him. When they were 
 out of danger he said: 
 
 "'It ain't fair to expect a man to 
 92
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 rassle with a strong current an' run an 
 insane asylum all in the same minute. 
 If ye can't help, don't hinder. You two 
 have been rockin* the boat for years 
 an* I guess it's about time ye quit/ 
 
 "People used to say that Ann Maria 
 turned over a new leaf and behaved her- 
 self proper after that. 
 
 "There's some folks that are pecking 
 at the country these days. We're in the 
 current of the Long Sault and Uncle 
 Sam has the oars. We should remem- 
 ber that if we can't help we mustn't 
 hinder. We can help William a lot by 
 just yelling and rocking the boat. 
 
 "I wish you would say to the boys in 
 camp on both sides of the ocean that I 
 should like to go and share their work 
 and perils. Last autumn I crossed the 
 French and British lines where hostile 
 shells were bursting sometimes uncom- 
 fortably near me and went within 
 ninety feet of the German trenches. I 
 have tried the perils which our boys 
 93
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 will have to suffer, but, unfortunately, 
 I am too old to fight with them. 
 
 "It is a great privilege they enjoy 
 that of going out to battle for honor and 
 decency and the good of the world. 
 They have entered the great university 
 of common sense. There is no other 
 like it. What a school is that comrade- 
 ship of the camp and the trenches ! For 
 the first time in history the whole civ- 
 ilized world stands shoulder to shoul- 
 der." 
 
 "Do you think our boys are likely to 
 profit by their experience?" I asked. 
 
 "It all depends on the boy. 
 
 "Let me tell you a story just as I 
 heard it from the lips of an American 
 soldier lad. I would call it : 
 
 TEE ALL, HE LIFE. 
 
 "He was a big, broad shouldered, 
 
 brawny man with a rugged manner of 
 
 speech. He described himself very well 
 
 when he said to me: 'I can think as 
 
 94
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 pure white as anybody but I want to 
 talk like a he man.' 
 
 "He had been wounded by a burst of 
 shrapnel and was not badly hurt, al- 
 though one side of his face looked as 
 if it had been raked by the claws of a 
 leopard. He had told me that for a day 
 after the accident he had heard a sound 
 in his head 'like two skeletons rassling 
 on a tin roof.' 
 
 "Who but an American soldier in 
 France would talk like that? Indeed 
 I found that he was from Kansas City 
 and had the mixed dialect of the mid- 
 country. 
 
 " 'Do you think it makes ye better or 
 worse this game of war?' I asked. 
 
 " 'Well, sir, I'd say better/ he an- 
 swered. 'Ye get things measured up 
 right, over here. Ye learn how to use 
 yer thinker. Nobody knows what peace 
 and home and friends are worth 'til 
 they're gone and ye don't know whether 
 you're ever going to see 'em again or; 
 95
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 not. It ain't a bad thing to live the all 
 he life a while and see the family in 
 dreams. They look so gol durnably 
 different. I reckon it's helped me. 
 Maybe I better tell ye a little story 
 and you'll see what I mean. It'll be 
 a Christmas story. 
 
 " 'We were in the ruined city of 
 Peronne that Christmas Day. My 
 friend and I were homesick and had 
 tramped across country from the camp 
 of our engineering corps to send a mes- 
 sage to our wives in Kansas City, and 
 to blow ourselves to a good dinner with 
 a bottle of wine and cigars if money 
 could buy 'em. We were a little over 
 beaned and tea ! gosh ! we were soaked 
 in it, and that French tobacco reminded 
 me of my father's cure for the epizootic. 
 We had been gander-dancing on a new 
 railroad for weeks. We were shovel 
 tired and kind o' man weary. By thun- 
 der! we hadn't seen a woman in three 
 months. 
 
 96
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "'You who see women every day; 
 don't realize that they're a pretty neces- 
 sary part of the scenery. Oh, you don't 
 miss 'em for a week or so, but by and 
 by you begin to find out there's some- 
 thing wrong. Things don't look right. 
 The hole in the doughnut is too big. 
 You'd be kind o* glad to hear what 
 somebody said at the Woman's Club, 
 and all about Betsey Baker's new pink 
 silk, and how shabby that one old dress 
 of your wife's was getting to be. You'd 
 like to see a set o' skirts come along 
 I guess. It would kind o' comfort you. 
 If you didn't have pretty good self- 
 control you'd get up and wave your hat 
 and holler. 
 
 " 'Then children that's another 
 thing you miss. We don't see 'em on 
 the battle front ne'er a one! What 
 a hole they make in the world when you 
 take 'em out of it ! especially if you've 
 got some of your own. They come to 
 me in my dreams the wife and babies! 
 97
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 I'll bet ye there's more'n a thousand of 
 'em crowding into that big camp every 
 night, about dream-time, and looking 
 for theirs. 
 
 " 'Oh, I wouldn't have ye get the idea 
 that we set and sob and talk mush and 
 look sorrowful there. If you just 
 grabbed a look at us and went on you'd 
 say we were no Hamlets. Gosh, no! 
 We play cards and joke and laugh and 
 tell stories a plenty. You wouldn't get 
 what's down under it all unless some 
 feller kind o' confessed and turned 
 state's evidence. No, sir I don't be- 
 lieve you would. 
 
 " 'I'm just telling ye enough to make 
 ye understand why we went out to 
 Peronne that Christmas Day and what 
 happened to us there. I speak French 
 pretty glib that's another reason why 
 we went. My mother was a Louisiana 
 French woman. I got it from her when 
 I was a little chap never forgot it 
 and I bossed a gang of Frenchmen for 
 two years. 
 
 98
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 " 'We found a man who ran a little 
 grocery shop and restaurant down in 
 one of the old cellars. He had had a 
 fine big cafe up-stairs before the Ger- 
 man army swatted the town with dyna- 
 mite. He was a sad little man who 
 lived down there in the lamplight with 
 his wife. The Huns had carried their 
 two daughters away with them. He 
 had cleaned the litter out of his cellars 
 and repaired their walls and so they 
 had a home and something to do. 
 
 " 'I asked him if he could get up a 
 good dinner for us. 
 
 " ' "Oui, Monsieur," he answered 
 promptly. "I can get you a fine duck 
 and celery and preserved strawberries, 
 and I could make a little pastry." 
 
 " ' "How much for the dinner?" 
 
 " ' "Thirty francs I can not make it 
 less." 
 
 " * "Make it forty and we'll call it a 
 bargain," I urged. 
 
 " 'You should have seen the smile on 
 his face then. 
 
 99
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 " ' "Les Americans ! They always talk 
 like that God be with them !" he said. 
 "Trust me, Monsieur. I will make you 
 happy." 
 
 " 'Dinner would be ready in two hours 
 and we went out for a walk and a look 
 at the waste of ruins. It seemed as if 
 there were miles of them honestly! 
 You see they loaded every basement 
 with dynamite and wired the whole 
 place and then touched the button. 
 Down it came. There isn't a roof stand- 
 ing. We tramped about looking for 
 relics. It was a pretty day and warm 
 in the sunlight. 
 
 " 'Suddenly a woman, dressed in 
 black, with a little girl about six years 
 old spick and span and pretty as a pic- 
 ture came along. They looked like 
 angels to us. Didn't seem so they was 
 exactly human. We stood watching 'em. 
 
 " 'I reckon I'd have give about a year 
 o' my life for a day's use o' that kid 
 honestly. I'd just like to have got down 
 100
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 on the ground and rolled and hollered 
 and tickled and tossed her just as I 
 used to play with my own kids. My 
 hands itched to get hold of her. We 
 followed along behind 'em kind o' 
 hankerin' and a wishin'. She was a 
 pretty little thing as ye ever looked at, 
 with curly hair hanging down, on her 
 shoulders and shiny, silver buckled slip- 
 pers and white stockin's. I just wanted 
 to frame up some kind of excuse to 
 speak to 'em, but I suppose they 
 wouldn't have understood me. 
 
 " They stopped and looked around a 
 minute and then the woman opened an 
 iron gate and they went into one of 
 the old dooryards. When we came 
 along we saw that the woman was sit- 
 ting amongst the rubbish and crying. 
 
 "'"It's her home dummed if it 
 ain't," I whispered. 
 
 " 'I reckon 'twas natural for 'em to 
 come back to it on Christmas Day 
 plumb natural to come back to where 
 101
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 they had been happy once with all the 
 family around. What a place! You'd 
 think that an earthquake and a cyclone 
 had gone into partnership for about a 
 minute and done a smashing business. 
 About half the back wall was standing 
 and there hung a little corner of the 
 attic floor and the wind had blown the 
 dirt up there and some flowers and 
 grass all withered by the cold had 
 sprung up in it, and beyond that was 
 an old baby carriage with a ragged top 
 and a spinning-wheel. 
 
 " 'The little girl didn't seem to notice 
 her mother. She was running around 
 on the ruins and picking up broken 
 dishes. I reckon that kid had got used 
 to the crying of men and women. The 
 sight of grief didn't worry her any 
 more not a bit She was flying around 
 like a bird on the ruins. 
 
 " *We sat down behind some bushes 
 by the iron fence just to see what hap- 
 pened. 
 
 " 'By and by I heard the little girl call 
 102
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 in a voice that kind o* made me swaller 
 honest it was as sweet as the first 
 bird song in the spring. 
 
 " ' "Mother ! Mother !" she called. 
 
 "'"What is it little one!" the 
 mother answered. 
 
 " "Dinner's ready/' 
 
 " Talk about silver bells ! Say, mister, 
 never again! Honest I never heard S, 
 sound like the voice of that kid. It 
 kind o' floored me sure thing! Up 
 there at the front we just hear the 
 growling of cannon and the whinnying 
 of horses and the swearing of men day 
 and night. Maybe that's why the kid's 
 voice took hold of us that way. I don't 
 know. After I had heard it I felt as 
 if I could walk to Kansas City. Honest 
 Injun ! 
 
 " *We peeked through the bushes and 
 saw that the little girl had dragged a 
 board between her and her mother and 
 covered it with broken dishes. Then 
 she began to chitter-chatter. 
 
 " ' "Here's some lovely soup and 
 103
 
 there's a fine goose and a great bowl full 
 of the best jelly that ever was and pota- 
 toes and celery and spinach and every- 
 thing that you like, mother. It's a 
 Christmas dinner you know. Papa will 
 sit here and Henri will sit there and we 
 are going to have the grandest time." 
 
 " 'So the little chatter-box went on 
 good deal like a fine lady and her 
 mother said: 
 
 "'"Papa! Henri! They are not here ! 
 They will eat no more with us." 
 "'"Why?" 
 
 " ' "Mort pour la patrie both of 
 them ! my child !" 
 
 " ' "No, mother, they are here. I can 
 see them just as plain! Come, mother, 
 they are waiting !" 
 
 "'Oh, by thunder! If I only had a 
 mind like that I said to myself a mind 
 that hadn't got so kind of stiff and sore 
 and muscle bound a mind that was so 
 clean and supple and that hadn't for- 
 gotten how to believe in the things I 
 104
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 do not see. Or do ye suppose that the 
 clear eyes of a kid can really see things 
 that we can't? 
 
 " ' "God bless you my little saviour! 
 You know how to make me happy 
 don't ye?" said the mother with her 
 handkerchief at her eyes. 
 
 " 'Then they both sat down there and 
 began to eat that ghostly dinner with 
 the ghosts of the dead. 
 
 " 'Gosh all hemlock! I just shut my 
 eyes and heard a sound like a wind 
 blowing in my head. I turned and whis- 
 pered to my pal. 
 
 " ' "You stay here. I'll be back right 
 away." 
 
 " 'Then I sloped on my tiptoes. Went 
 to the cellar and found that man and 
 brought him with me. I told him to 
 invite them to dinner and that I would 
 pay for it I didn't care if it took the 
 last sous marquee in my breeches. 
 
 "When we got back they were botK 
 singing The Marseillaise, that my; 
 105
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 mother taught me when I was a kid, 
 as they sat at their Christmas dinner: 
 
 Amour sacre de la patrie 
 Conduis soutiens nos bras vengeurs 
 Liberte Liberte cherie, 
 Combats avec tes defenseurs! 
 
 " They heard us coming and stopped. 
 Can ye beat it? Say, mister, the boches 
 might as well try to conquer the birds 
 of the air. 
 
 " 'The man knew them. They had 
 been well off and respectable folks in 
 Peronne before the war. Now they 
 were refugees living on charity in a dis- 
 tant village. 
 
 " 'We gave them a part of our dinner 
 but I do not think they were as happy 
 in the cellar as they had been with the 
 ghosts. They were very glum but we 
 well, ye know, sir, I reckon they 
 helped our Christmas a lot. You bet I 
 do. 
 
 106
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 " *Ye know I had him put three extra 
 plates at our table one for Mary and 
 one for little Kate and one for my rogu- 
 ish boy Bill. Say, I had learned some- 
 thing from that kid you bet. It isn't 
 necessary for me to fall asleep to have 
 'em with me now. 
 
 "'The eats! Say, Fred Harvey 
 wouldn't be deuce high with that little 
 Frenchman. 
 
 " 'We had some dinner, don't you 
 doubt it, my friend, and forgot that 
 there was a war. 
 
 " 'And ye know the funny part of it 
 is this: Mary wrote me of her dream 
 that she and the kids had dinner with 
 me on Christmas Day.' 
 
 "I have told you this story because it 
 gives you a day in the life of an Ameri- 
 can soldier, with its psychological back- 
 ground and a glimpse of the fatherless 
 children. If you were one of the boys 
 in khaki I would remind you that, after 
 107
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 all, there is only one great thing in the 
 world man. What an extension of hu- 
 man sympathy and understanding is 
 coming to you, my bright young soldier 
 lad ! As it comes it will go out in some 
 measure to the duller fellows who share 
 your thought and meat and perils. 
 
 "You will have a wiser brain, a no- 
 bler spirit and a stronger body. This 
 digging and marching and sweating in 
 the open is the best thing that can hap- 
 pen to you. I often thought that no 
 wiser thing could be done for our col- 
 lege boys than mobilize them every 
 summer and send them to camp in the 
 wheat-fields for two or three months of 
 hard work. 
 
 "What's the matter with an army of 
 peace, with its companies, regiments 
 and divisions, doing, under military dis- 
 cipline, constructive instead of destruc- 
 tive work doing the things that need 
 most to be done, getting in the harvests 
 or building roads? It might give a part 
 108
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 of its time each day to military train- 
 ing, especially to rifle practise. It 
 would be a school of Democracy. Its 
 best product would be spirit, its next 
 best brawn, and last of all the work 
 done. 
 
 "You will encounter perils in France, 
 my brave lad, and the least of them 
 will be those of the battle-field. It is 
 when you go to Paris on leave that I 
 would have you look out for yourself. 
 
 "I'm not much of a preacher. I am 
 not so foolish as to think that all wis- 
 dom is in the Bible. To speak honest- 
 ly, I am inclined to think that there 
 are many things in the Bible which 
 oughtn't to be there. The Kaiser seems 
 to me to be imitating the sanctified 
 slayers of the Old Testament. You will 
 find chapters there which read like a 
 report of the German General Staff after 
 a successful drive. It is there that 
 crazy Bill finds his warrant for disem- 
 boweling so many people and mistreat- 
 109
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 ing his prisoners. That kind of history 
 should be summarily deprived of the 
 odor of sanctity, in my humble opinion. 
 
 "But there is one sentence of Scrip- 
 ture that I would have you remember 
 my brave, fine fellows who are to 
 fight under this flag of ours. Having 
 lived some fifty years and been a some- 
 what careful observer, I would call it 
 the most impressive sentence ever writ- 
 ten. It is full of vital truth. Every 
 young man ought to read it once a day 
 and think of it as often as he is tempted. 
 It is from the book of Job and it says: 
 
 " 'His bones are full of the sin of his 
 youth, which shall lie down with him in 
 the dust.' 
 
 "Think it over, boys. Think of that 
 word 'bones' which indicates how deep- 
 ly it lays hold of you, and of the clause 
 'which shall lie down with him in the 
 dust/ which indicates that only death 
 can break its hold. 
 
 "Don't let the optimistic young doc- 
 110
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 tors fool you. It is a serious matter. 
 You can get along with the mud and 
 vermin of the trenches. They will only 
 afflict the outside of you. The main 
 thing is to keep clean inside. Don't 
 allow your life currents to be polluted. 
 See that you bring back to your home a 
 clean body. 
 
 "You will do this, unless, when you 
 go to Paris or to some other city, on 
 leave, you fall for that French wine 
 and lose your head in the process. Let 
 it alone, I beg of you, and remember 
 that your greatest peril is not on the 
 battle-field. 
 
 "Do not for a moment lose faith in 
 the issue. "The cause of Liberty be- 
 queathed from sire to son, though baf- 
 fled oft is ever won/ 
 
 "I have seen how eagerly, how cheer- 
 fully the young men at the front give 
 their lives for something greater than 
 they. It has filled me with wonder. 
 
 "I have a little farm out here on the 
 111
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 hills. It has helped me to understand 
 the world I live in and especially these 
 boys. How often I have seen the winds 
 of autumn strip the grove and garden 
 of their loveliness until nothing was 
 left but dead stalks and bare branches. 
 The captains and the kings had depart- 
 ed. I have seen them returning the 
 delicate green of the new leaves in 
 spring, the grass, the violets, and here 
 are the familiar sprouts of the poison 
 ivy. I thought that I had torn the last 
 of it out of the ground last summer, 
 but here it is. 
 
 "Everything passes away but it re- 
 turns, and the noxious ivy is the most 
 persistent returner of all. I am busy 
 lighting it every spring and summer. 
 
 "So it is with this world of men. 
 Caesar dies, despotism is uprooted, as 
 we thought, and we discover that they 
 have returned and are busy growing 
 and spreading their roots. Everything 
 112
 
 Do you tell me that Jesus Christ will return? Nay, I tell you 
 that He has already returned. He is in the camps and 
 the battle-fields of France and Belgium. He is in the hearts 
 of the young men who are dying as He died to make men free.
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 returns if you give it a chance. Herod 
 has returned and is slaying the male 
 children. Pilate has returned and is 
 sitting in judgment. 
 
 "Do you tell me that Jesus Christ will 
 return? Nay, I tell you He has already 
 returned. He is in the camps and on 
 the battle-fields of France and Belgium. 
 He is in the hearts of the young men 
 who are dying as He died to make men 
 free. 
 
 "So, my young soldier lads of Great 
 Britain, France, Italy and the United 
 States, I take off my hat and bare my 
 gray head when you march by me, for 
 I know why you are so brave." 
 
 It was near midnight when the 
 country lawyer and I left his office and 
 headed up the main street of the village 
 toward his home. After a moment of 
 silence we reached the public square 
 and then he directed my eyes toward the 
 glowing lamp of Jupiter in the sky. 
 113
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 "When you get to wondering at God's 
 neglect of His duty, it's a good idea to 
 go out and take a look at the stars rid- 
 ing up there in the sunlight," he said. 
 "I guess this little world of ours has 
 got to take care of itself. Kind o' looks 
 to me as if God had enough of His own 
 work to do, especially when so many 
 of us are loafing. I don't see how we 
 can complain if we do have to 'tend to 
 our own business. We've been depend- 
 ing a long time on prayer an' indolence 
 an* good luck while we let the weeds 
 grow in the garden. I rather guess 
 we'll have to do our own hoein*. Every 
 man to his hoe ! And let's take care that 
 the weeds don't get too far ahead of 
 us again. 
 
 "If this planet is to be a safe and 
 decent place to live upon, there should 
 be an International School Commission 
 agreed as to one main purpose that of 
 cultivating good will between the races 
 which inhabit it. Of course, no power 
 114
 
 KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM 
 
 could remove all the lies from history, 
 but I hope that the lies and also the 
 truth of it could be so put as to rob 
 them of the seed of bitterness, even 
 against the Germans." 
 
 THE END
 
 A 000 657 049 3