The spectator., 1919-05-13
LOAN EXCUSES DO
 N0T GQ WITH OUR RETURNED TROOPS
" YOU THINK YOU HAVE SOME PRETTY oooD ONES YOU
 WILL NEED YN9M.
DoUcHBoYs CAN'T sEE,EM
" l Could Afford ts Face Death Yeu Can AMord to @Subeeribe,"
 Gays Soldier.

ass9 tsE
 If you ass framing up any escusss io1 yourself e to why you gre not "Uotns to take any Victory Nstss" you he'd better make them mighty good ones. They will need toshs vital fy important to really sxouss you. e there arc thousands of mighty sharp critics listening for those s2esses.
 Maybe you think you havs some pretty good ones-if so. you will need them. Don't worry trying to dscils just which is the best excuse you have.
 In one day recently 34.oo0 American seldisrs landed in New York. The country is filling up with others who are back from the front. You may have seen some of them. Some of them have empty sleeves. Others are walking with . crutch instead of the sturdy lsg they had . year ago. Some of them have that gray and drawn look of the man who has tasted Hun gas. Some Of them have lost an eye H
 These boys know what that war game was. They have looked on the doings of the Boche in France and Belgium. They know what the Ger. man did to those countries. Looking ct the ruins of nations there in Europe they got pretty clear idea of what the Hun had planned for America when our time came.
 Furthermore, these men are goine to want to know just why any man who ualls himself an American is hunting up excuses for not subscribing to Liberty Loan. They know that it was Americans who signed the dsath warrant of the Hun overseas and they are going to ask some mighty pointed questions of the stay -at-homes, who stayed 5000 miles away from the danger and wont calmly about their businesses in war time
 .-The fighting man is going to argue this way: If could afford to leave everything that made life sweet to me and go overseas for America; could afford to take my chances with sudden death to get there and sudden death after arrived; could afford to face nth. disease. gas. shrapnel and ma. chine gun bullets: l could afford to lace cold steel and showers of hand Srenadss and fight hand to hand with the Hun in dirty ditch. And these Americans who stayed at home tell me that they can't afford to subscribe to . Victory Loan!''
 You can begin to see that you need some handmade. copper-rivstsd ex. cusss, cant you? You can begin to see that these excuses are going to have 10 be little above the average run. can't you!
 These armless, legless. sysless me, who have come back from ovsrssas will be glad to listen to your excuses. Try some of them on the first one yov run across. Try them all on him. fl hs has the patience to listsn to them.
 If you can convince one of these men who has looked upon Hell with the lid o6, on that smoking Western Front. and can make him believe that you have done everything you ought to do and all that you can possibly af. ford to do-why then you ought not to have 90 very much trouble standing on the Victory Loan salesman when he comes around with the subscriptisn blanks for the Fifth. last and Victory Loan.
 But people who have already tried 1t on the returned soidiers ars not very enthusiastic. They haven't had much luck at convincing these mon who did the fighting for the rest of us that there is anything American about quitting on Uncle Sam when he is mak. Ing his last call and needs all thaa vs can do for him.
 Frankly, thsrs isn't much use in polishing up the excuses. You may try to believe in them yourself. but eown in your heart you know them for what they are-tvst excuses to help you dodge . plain duty that is yours and yours alone. May a we'll make m your mind to subscribe every dollar that you honestly and conscisutiously can. and let it 70 ct that.