Evening star., 1942-12-07


the heroism with which our soldiers
are fighting on land and sea, it
doesn't seem necessary to worry any
more about building up their mo-
rale. So perhaps we can take little
time off to try to strengthen the mo-
rale of the home front. For that is
what needs popping up and having
a little intestinal fortitude infused
into it. 1t isn't the boys in the SOL
ONION Islands, or the Arctic Circle,
or down in Egypt, who are bowling
and complaining of the terrible sac
rifices they are being called upon to
make and sailing down everybody
who will listen to them with their
tears.
1t is the weeping mothers who tell
you how they have gone into a de-
cline grieving over their darling
baby boys being so far away and ex-
posed to so much danger. 1t is the
chair sitters who wouldn't know a
tommy gun from battleaX, who
discourse by the hour about the mis-
takes the Army and Navy are max
ing and the general mismanagement
OF the war by the higher-ups in
Washington. 1t is all the balance of
us who crouch over tire rationing
and not being able to have all the
sugar and coffee We want. and
having to put up with poor service in
the shops, and so on and on.
Go where you will, the atmosphere
is as blue as indigo. Every one is
holding lodge of sorrow, and the
conversation makes the lamenta-
tions of Jeremiah seem almost like a
comic strip. And the queer part of it
all is that we do not realize the
harm we are doing. For depression
is Just as catching as the measles.
and when it becomes epidemic, as it
is now, 1t is just as fatal as any
other plague. It slays it's thousands.
You can't pick up your morning
paper without reading of some one
you know who has dropped dead in
his office or on the street. Every
day you hear of some delicate wom-
an friend or old person who nor
mally might have lived for years
who has passed on, and you know
that, no matter what the death GER
tiflcate says, they have been killed
by war talk. Their frail bodies
couldn't stand thesextra burden that
their mental sufferings put upon
them. The casualties of war are in
the sickroom as we'll as on the battle
field.
There is hardly a business that
has not been hit in one way or an
other by the war. 1t has robbed
thousands of men of the labor of a
lifetime. They have seen their fac
tories closed by Government order,
their occupations taken away from
them. Their losses drive many Of
these men to suicide. 1t breaks the
spirit of others so that they never
have the courage to make new be-
ginning. Others wrest victory out of
defeat. But whatever happens to
men like these depends upon
whether they are going to meet
cheer or despair in their own homes.
II their wives are defeatists, who
see no ray of light on the horizon
and who pour over them all the
fears their morbid imaginations
have conjured up of what may be
happening to their sons. it breaks
down the last particle of resistance
the men have. They, too, succumb
to gloom and hopelessness.
But If they 60 to homes where the
lights are shining and to wives who
have put on gay dresses and nailed
on their faces the smiles that won't
come off. and who talk of pleasant,
lnnocuous neighborhood happenings
and who, perhaps, have picked up
funny story, it bucks them up and
gives them the courage to carry on.
After all, women are the worlds
great propagandists. They sell their
husbands their point of view far
more often than their husbands
know themselves, and that is what
makes it so important that women
should try to build up the home
morale. 1t is In their keeping.
OF course, women will say that
they don't feel gay, or like being
lively companions when their hearts
are torn to shreds with anxiety over
the dangers to which those whom
they love better than life itself are
being exposed. But this is a time
when they should assume q virtue,
even If they have it not. It is a
time when cheerfulness becomes a
| duty. 1t Is time when they should
show their courage by fighting their