The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1915-01-17

the American Commission for Relief
! In Belgium, dated from October Al
to December 5. 1t was Impossible to
! put them down. From the appea, OF
Albert, King of the Belgians, signed.
we are told, under fire In the bat
/ tie before Dunkirk,'' to the last bald
summary of the work of the Com
mission, those typewritten pages held
me enthralled. Their story is one
/ of the mos poignant, most terrible,
most superb in history.
IL simply tells how a small hand
ful of American business men in Lon
don We're visited with an idea. The
idea was so preposterously vast SO in
credible. SO impracticabie tnar the au-
thorities to whom it was first impart-
ed may be forgiven If they smiled
in tender pity. Tt looked so very
like the kind of idea that originates
with a handful. not of business men,
but of lovable humanitarian lunatics
1t was the idea of feeding the entire
Belgian nation at a time when trans
port was impossible, and money not
TO be had for love or money There
are seven millions Of starving people
In Belgium, and IL takes one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars TO feed
then1-for one day. The rest OF the
calculation is beyond me. The mind
reels at the figures 1t involves
Now this superbly impossible thing
Is the thing that these bushes men
backed by the whole American nation,
have been doing-r1ot tor one day, but
, for two months Sitting in their Of
fees in London, they took Americas
backing TO- granted and made ar
engagements accordingly America
might have stood aside with a clear
conscience. She was not responsible
Snr h ~fa g.Ys. t1E
not her war. She has nothing to gain
by the war. and a great deal to suffer
by the sheer nuisance of it. She had
nothing to gain by helping Belgium.
noth.ng-noI even International pres
! tige-to lose by not helping her. She
might have said, not perhaps with
the best possible grace. but with a
staggering show OF reason: TITS up
to Germany and France and Great
Britain TO feed Belgium. II they go
| bankrupt in the attempt"
But she said Germany won't
feed Belgium anyway even if she has
the food. France and Great Britain
can't. So It's up to us" Simply. as
matter OF course. as a plain duty
of which there can be no question,
she took up this almost superhuman
this entirely superhumanitarian task
The Sad sight of the rnenlisted Poet.
Now there is something about a
war. especially n big war. that reduces
every noncompatant to insignificance
| Everybody feels It, 1t is as IL the
streaming glory OF life had passed
them by. The business man, xneaking
/ ANONYMOUSLY to his office, feels II.
The artists~the noweIists the musi-
clans, the poets and the painters
| feel 1t. They and their work have he
come for the time being utterly un-
4 tFS.Tr -
/ In England at the moment than the
! poe who has not enlisted The only
writer who can hold up his head is
our special correspondent al the front
The pacifist feels ii in his secret
/ heart. The woman fesis II terribly
Apart from pity and humanity this
sense of utter worthle~sness Of the
noncombatant is at the bottom Of
| the rush OF so many people to the
4 front. 10 the firing line. IL possible
( II Is the protest and the effort of
the struggling and perishing per-
sonality against the thing. that ami
hilates it. And il this is true OF the
noncomhatan; among the nations who
are at war il Is true TO some extent
| of neutral countries, They may thank
their Stars and Stripes that they are
out of it, but ont of it they are
Say what you like about the infer
Hal I4OTGOF anu terror ana Cruelty !.
war, about The sheer. sordid CRIME
and squaior and the appalling waste of
1t, az long as nations have pride and
valor and endurance the glory and
| the splendor 6f war will remain. Rel
gium owes her immortality 10 her
part in the war, just as America owes
her immortality to her War of Inde-
pendence and her Abolition War. And
yet, thrill for thrill. for one confess
h ftt . In Trtr wa 90
heroic defiance OF Germany. has
moved me more than Americas Re-
| lief of Belgium. There is no sense
! in which the splendor OF this war.
which lis not her war, has passed her
/ by, she Is saving Belgium today more
| surely than the armies of the Allies
I The Glory That Is BeIgiums.
II some political exigency had COM
PEELED her 10 stand by us with hss
army and her navy she would not have
given us greater thrill, Her armed
intervention, which could only have
come by cold political exigency, would
not have touched us I'm the same way
Nor could II have given us the same
! assurance 70, the future. If, as Mr.
| Bernard Shaw hps told us, America
Is to have decisive yoince in the un-
Innate settling Of the terms of peace
We shall know that it is the voice of
a nation that did not stand aside in
the hour % our necessity, but took
! her splendid part
1t is too soon for either side to
talk of victory We and our Allies
are convinced that we are going TO
| win in the long run-though II will
be a very long run. indeed, from the
! Western and Eastern battle lines to
| Berlin. We are certainly going TO
i, win or die. But when the war and
the splendor and the horror OF 1t
/ have passed into history when Amer
i ica's part ir it comes to be written
/ we shall have to own that, though
there was no other way for us but
war, and though the splendor of it
is as incontestable as the horror.
America vet showed us "a more ex-
4 cellent way 1
1 The Beauty OF Prosaic Food Ship.
/ long tins ago, in the autumn or
winter OF 1895, ! saw the American
and British hattieships lined up IN the
| Hudson. Every ship that sails to
sea compels to alteration, from a
Observation-Disclosures to the humblest
coaier steaming across the Atlantic,
and these batt1eships were indescrib-
ably beautiful and terrible. They pro-
yided an unsurpassable thrill.
And yet would have foregone that
sighe gladly to have seen the trans
HPert ship Massapeqaa steaming out
1 pf Nnw ynri. Iarbor IaAap r.ritL t,op