The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1918-08-22
AMERICAS ANSWER TO
HUNS.
My Margaret Walter

London, July S0.-It may be all right
for women at home, way off in the
u s. A. to cry whenever they feel like
it, maybe it does them god and nobody
else harm, but here in England you dare
not show any feeling if you are to
do any sort Of q job for this war.
But I'm in disgrace. I went to
see the first American official war film
at a private view. The theater was
filed with American, English and
French soldiers and officers; there
were numbers of English women and a
little handful of us Americans.
When the band began to play cover
There / saw was going to let go and
l could no more keep the tears, back
than anything. Then the pictures
came, our boys marching through
streets that are sacred in our memories
now, our boys embarking at an At
lantic seaport, our boys arriving over
here and in France, streaming out Of
myriads of ships singing and laughing
Then up closer to the war, getting in
to biEets in France, being kind and
sympathetic to the peasants, being
waved to by the fatherless children of
France, poor little plueky discards of
the fight, many of them dressed in out
landish cast-off American clothes, too.
Every time I saw close up my
heart jumped for I expected to know
the face and once I did. Then came
entraining for the front; laughing boys
crowded into what looked like cattle
trains, singing and waving as if it was
a hay ride; and finally American sol.
diers under sire at Chateau hierry.
There they were, in long wavy lines
across the famous landscape, moving
forward in some places, frayed and
bending back in others. And then the
wounded, the field dressing stations,
the mad rush back to the Red Gross
amublances.
| And the more I saw the more was
moved even when I saw the pic
ture Of the great parade through Paris
on the Fourth. It was all so wonder
full, those close packed &lunns Of alb
solute precision, every knee bending
at the same instant as they swept by
the crowds waving flags and cheering.
All at once the whole theater was one
great shout and as the film moved on
and more and still more troops come
on people clapped and shouted more
and more. That was what excited
them, all those men, those trained men
ready for their job to the last military
detail
When it was over I waited in my
seat a little while to get myself to-
gether a bit and an English woman
who had been sitting next to me silent
and very quiet all the time until 1t
came to the great columns of men
marching through Paris, when she also
clapped and shouted, turned to me
and said: ''Please forgive me, but I
want to tell you how much we think
Of this, we English. We are looking
to your men for everything now.
We passed out together and watched
little squad Of men drawn up. across
the pavement to salute Ambassador
Page as he went out. I apologized for
my sentimentality. The Englishwoman
looked quietly at me for an instant
and said very slowly: "There cdgAes
a time when you dare not indulge in
the luxury Of grief. have found
that it gets in the way of good work
God grant that you may never reach
that point" And she moved away in
the crowd.
And before three hours were passed
I found the proof Of her remark which
struck me as particularly chilling at
the moment.
/ went straight from the film show
to my hospital and the minute I got
in one of the boys said "Why sister,
you We been cryingl What ais you9
Yau haven It had bad news?o This
last under his breath. And SO it went
/ couldn t read their letters properly;
I couldn't think Of funny story; +
had forgotten to get postcards for
two boys who wanted to send home
birthday greetings; and finally I went
home SO ashamed of myself that T
vowed I will also forgo myself the
luxury Of crying. At least for the
duration or as long as its my job
to be cheerful and do little things
which make you think of other people
instead of yourself.
I have asked two or three women
about it and they all say the same,
that in tie first year they cried, too,
when the men went out, when they
came home, and, when they saw them
all torn up in hospitals, but they
quickly found crying was getting in
the way of service. One ward sister
told me that in her training school