The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1918-06-24
PRACTICALLY AND PATRIOTISM.

In a current issue of the Saturday Evening
Post Irwin S. Cobb has an extremely interesting
and illuminating article about the man and
woman, fired with zeal and eager for excitement,
who have entered the lists of the non-combatants
overseas and who, in profferng their services
in France and in England have in many in
stances overlooked the essentials of preparation
and efficiency.
In his able article, after five months spent at
the front Mr.. Cobb says that he believes that
United States officials should be rigid in
the exclusion of the eager worker who wishes
to enlist his services for humanity, without any
clear notion to just what these services may
be, without any very clear idea, either as to the
place to be filled any special qualifications for
filling it after it is found.
In this strong presentation of facts, which are
not always palatable, but which Mr.. Cobb dishes
out with his pleasant garnsh of ridicue, the con-
viction is brought home to one, that this is war
of experts, and that there is no place for the
trained and inefficient, either at home or abroad.
Not in France, not in England nor in America
is there room for person in the wrong place.
The country is fired with patriotism. Patriotism
SO true, exalted, imbued with all that is
highest and noblest that it is not to be Won
dered at if the white flame scorches at times
and that one is fain to be up and away, to give
all for liberty.
1t is difficult thing, with the heart crying out
against the outrages of the Huns, with ones
very soul at revolt against barbarsm not to feel
that there is some special mission, some great
work, something special to do for the winning
of this war, that must be done-and that only in
its doing ones soul be shriven and made
clean enough to stand on the last Judgment Day
beside the souls of the men who are giving their
lives for humanity.
And yet there are few of us who are called to
great deeds. There are few of us who can take
the roles of leaders. There are few of us who
have been trained to war, or to the conditions
that war produces
Most of us, however, can do something well at
home. There is some one thing that nearly
everyone of us do better than anyone else
But these are the things in which we have been
trained, not the things of which we have no ex-
perlence
The world today is fronting new conditions
We have been thrown into this conflict with lit
tie preparation. The men and the women who
have been trained for this war, who are experts
as far as any man woman can be called an
expert, who is facing life from new angle, have
olfhcultles enough confronting Them without
having unframed workers thrust upon them bv
the hundreds, in avenues of work with which
they are entirely unfamiliar
Mr.. Cobb, i'll his article, "Wanted-A Fool
Proof War;" points out that there is no room
IN France and Great Britain for the unframed
But this lesson might be taken to heart closer
home. There is no place in the United State
either, for the inexpert
This war is developing some splendid men and
women and many who went into it not entirely
without alloy, coming out of the crucible
pure gold. But these men and these women are
they who are giving themselves, heart and SOUL
to the work that they can do best, ard in the
doing they are serving God and country noby
and we'll, whatever their work may be-
Henry Ford WILL carry lot of common sense