Norwich bulletin., 1918-01-02
Views of the Vigilantes
THE GRAvEsT OF
 OUR coUNTRYs NEEDS
By Edith M. Thomas of The Vigilan
 tes.


 I take it. that the "gravest of our country's needs" is not so much ore paredness'' in the military sense (though here the need is sufficiently great) as the preparedness of soul--of outlook, of apprehension Of worid-is- sues. ali which it is 50 difficult to set before the average American. Woe unto them that are at peace in Zion is an old charge which we might well .ake to heart. Our Zion has too long been at peace. at comfortable, remote indifference to the immense issues, and the causes that are behind those is- sues racking q world--an Old World to be sure. but so closely connected with oer own New World as to render every letter Of any mere Monroe Doc trine" forever null and void.
 What is the matter with America that this psychic preparedness" should be so lacking at time when the souls of men (yes, and of women, too!) elsewhere are being so tried -- and tried as by fire? "What!" said a woman friend, not long ago. to the present writer, Are you still agoniz- ing over the War in Europe?" I could only answer, "Yes. I hope so--if were not, you might as well dig my grave; for I should be as good as dead if did not 'agonize.'"
 What is the matter with American l If I may be permitted to answer as | well as to raise the question, I would say the lack of moral 'tpreparedness' ] ito recognize, and to "agenize' in l the present struggle, is due to lack of imagination, otherwise, of the power to project a situation other than the one where one finds oneself Gy,s4 nP tha nF paper correspondents writing in most dramatic terms-{yet the plain truth t--of scenes the most sanguinary, the most piteous. the most soul-racking o1 which they have been most fearfully l close observers, on the various battle 1 fields of Europe, the impression made 1 by their stories" seems to have beer of most transient effect upon tht minds Of most reading Americans The thought seems to be, Tt coult
 never come to us--we are safe
 Whereafter we turn us with tranquil unconcern eff not with selfapproba ton at our dispassionate attitude l towards whatever is for us "the bus | mess of the day."
 I I was once able to allow to the mui titude the right to be unimaginatite
 to pursue the even tenor the midi
 
 of sensation. of emotion culture u
 the artist, whose acre" deemed
 was, out of which to bring the poem the story, or the picture. I could evei be a little scornful of our irritabilt
 yates sort as less substantial, les servieeable to a world needing servic than the good, even going plodde without the "gleani." am convince that did OUT brotherhood wrong: be fore this great and awful drama c World War. it is the poets, the artist. ,, the idealists, and not the ''p1ain peo pie" who have most realized both tn action and the argument of tha drama, and have lent hand--and wi
 lend the hand first, in whatever join ., ing of battle America may be calle ,, upon to effect. am almost ready t . say, that the most imaginative are tn , most practical They do not require bomb to tear up a section of Ne'
 York streets-~they can hear the whir
 ring of the demons of the air ''shad owing with wings over the old home , city of the whole English -speakin .. race. and it suffices. Trnae ], ination has long been "mobiifzed wit ~ them