The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1918-07-25
The crucible of War.


A thousand factories running night
and day making great guns and small
guns and middle-sized guns.
A thousand factories running night
and day making high explosives mys-
terious stuff that looks soft and pale
and harmless, but that has in it the
kick Of the devil; dark stuff in strings
that looks deceptive, and black stuff
that looks glossy and pretty enough to
weave into bead-strings for women s
necks.
A thousand factories making swift
scouts Of the air, and numbering tanks,
and rumbling automobiles.
All of these going at top speed, fling
ing out their all to the men at the
front
Populations working in all the multi
tude of moods Of populations, all driv-
ing along at the same business.
Hugh trucks chugging along high
ways. Swift motorcycles, fitting here
and there on errands and with mes
sages from important men to other i'm
portant men.
Men naked to the waist in front Of
FORCES and standing alert around pits
where the red hot jackets are put on
big guns.
Women trying to solve the problem
Of hungry stomachs and little food.
Women, too, in the workshops, with
their hands on levers that start and
stop powerful machines; women swing
ing hammers and using delicate in
struments that measure down to the
thousandth part of an inch.
Great fields where the machinery of
war is tested; fields where fleets Of
tanks lumber around in the mud be-
fore being sent to lumber over No
Mans Land; fields where mammoth
hangers shelter airplanes that come out
like bees to go tumbling through the
skies and off to Picardy and Flanders.
Hugh sheds where mountains Of food
are piled in orderly arrangement, food
gathered from all corners of tho world
to be brought here on its way to the
ultimate consumer in khaki.
Railroads, swept clear of most of
their peacetime traffic, burdened now
with the stuff Of armies
People everywhere bent upon trav-
cling in little inches and doing little
things that Jumped together make great
national machines doing a great world
job.
Men in hospital blue, limping along
and being wheeled alOng-inen back
from the front; the front which is the
peak of everything and the hope of
everything - men in faded hospital
blue, slouchy and baggy, but uniform
of service performed.
Men with arms and legs gone, and
with eyes gone, learning to do new
things that come within their strange,
new limitations; men doing these new
things with cheer and satisfaction.
Men everywhere driving their brains
to new thoughts that will make armies
gain more ground with smaller loss.
People at home divided into two
classes-those who can work and those.
who cannot work.
Men at the front divided into two
classes-effectives and casualties.
So they make war over yonder where
our ships unload the youth of our land
to push forward the line Newton Baker
calls the frontier of democracy.
So they have been making war for
months and months. With weary
bodies but steadfast and determined
spirits they go on, nations united, peo-
pies united in the universal work of
making war-of making is as power
full and as terrible as flaming hearts
and straining muscles can make war
when liberty and safety are at stake.
And today, as they work and fight
An those countries over there they
see marvel that gives them new hope
to strive on, confident of victory, con
fdent as they never were before, and
so, cheered on for the cause in which
they have never lost their faith and to
which they have dedicated their lives.
They see the men of America tumbl-
ing out Of huge transports that go
across the ocean in masquerade cos
tunes of camoufage; men in thous-
ands from land that is filed with
thousands and millions likewise dedi-
Gated to the great cause. They see this
wonder of all time and high hope and
surety buoys them up and on in the la
Dor thai has borne upon them for SO
long-food and clothing and guns and
trucks and explosives and all the null
titude of trifes that chink in between
these major articles out of which war
is made.
Men picture war as an armed fight
between two lines of men. That is not
The picture Of war today. The fight is
al the front-the war is everywhere.
War ramifes its imperious way into
the last hooks and corners of nations.
making its demands upon all. giving