The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-23
WAR ECHOES

Homer Croy in Leslie's: Everywhere l l went I found the knitters. On my floor
 at the hotel the maid who fixes the fires
 and prepares the bath was sitting beside
 the hall bell with a ball in her lap. At the | postoffice the girl clerk laid aside a spool | to weigh my letter. At the restaurant the waitress had two pockets in her apron, one for her book and pencil, the other for | her yarn and needles. At department store I found the elevator girl making her fingers fly while waiting for the indicator | to ring. At the theatre the aisle girl held | the sock between her fingers she sold | me a programme. for programmes aren't ! free in English theatres English theatres have no satisfactory way of checking coats, and growing tired of bouncing mine on my knee I stepped out to leave it with | the barmaid-and found her struggling with toe. Even in a luxurious limousine l I saw a ady--no doubt one with a title knitting away with the ball In the cut glass bowl that in softer season had held flowers. So it was all over London. It is the little things in London that impress one that war is stalking the land not the heavy artillery. On the street, curb pedlers are selling war souvenirs as fast as they can hand them out. An in- genious one of the Kaiser, when a string is pulled. lifts his military cap revealing a pair of horns. This is selling as fast as the wel-known hot cakes.
 Every theatre has something to do with war. Half the plays in London are sewn with military thread. One of them. musical comedy, shows a big map of Flu rope out of which characters step. each one representing a country, and act out the beginning of the war; Germany being portrayed as student with long, flaxen hair, huge horn glasses and a bad temper. He snatches some candy away from Ser via, jabs Russia in the ribs, slams Bel gium on the floor and starts after France, when England steps out and holds up warning hand.
 The song hit of the season is by an American. The title is Sister Sue Is Sewing Shirts for Sick Soldiers" the whole production running to s's. The audi ence comes In on the chorus, pronouncing it Sinister Shusie But as a whole the songs are pretty poor, pretty poor. This is by far and away the best in London. American ragtime has England in its grip. and it was left to an American to put on the catchiest song of the season.
 On every store is an appeal to join the army; the same appeal as on the taxicab, only in larger letters. Patriotic men are paying for want ads in the personal col uinn urging young men to join.
 
 Walter Lippmann in the February Met evils of what we call militarism must at tach themselves to every form of adequate defense. Surely the way to have a navy and an army which shall be democratic and peaceful, but prepared, is not to ig- nore military affairs, insist that arma- ment be inefficient, and turn what there is of 1t over to the professional miitarist. So long as genuine democrats try to treat the whole subject the handiwork of the devil, military problems will be ham, dled by men who have none of the valu- able scruples of democracy. For the very real evils of arrogance, caste and idle ness can be met in far more effective ways thdl py d utHullcldllOn or SOlu1erS 1n Ren- eral Soldering will go on for the pres- ent, whether we play to ostrich or don't. But it is open to us to civilize military life, in part, perhaps, by making it less of profession, but in the main by keeping the army busy in time of peace, learning not only the arts of war, but the arts of peace. The army can be used more and more for doing useful work, like that of which the Panama canal is the supreme example. In Alaska, in the Mississippi valley, there are immense constructive tasks to be undertaken, and much glory to be won. It is difficult to believe that an officer who had known what 1t meant to construct at Panama would go about afterward with his head full of childish dreams about wars. We may I think rest assured that the more technical work the army does. the more it is absorbed into the labors of peace, the less 'mili- tarist' it will become. The well worn truth will work here, that those who have never built are the ones who find it easi- est to destroy
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