Page:Fred Arthur McKenzie - Americans at the Front (1917).djvu/53

 'tis of Thee,' 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' and the less classical and more modern ragtime, I wondered what the small American boys, who have so often teased me on Independence Day celebrations in your country, would have thought of a factor in the war that is not sufficiently known in the United States."

"I put one question to a score of those whose mothers were not ashamed to raise them to be soldiers. I asked them why they had come. The reply of the American in France is the same every time, whether you meet him with the Canadian Army, the British Army, or the French Army. They all say words to this effect: 'The sort of thing that has been going on in Europe as the result of the horrible organised savagery of the Prussians has got to be stopped. We want to stop it before it reaches our own country. We have come over here to do it, and, thank God, we know that we are helping to do it, and that it is to be thoroughly done.'

"To which one of them added as I said goodnight: 'If anyone asks you what sort of a time the Americans are having, just hand them out one good home-word: 'Bully.'"'

Harold Chapin, the young American dramatist and actor, who turned, at the first call of war, from home and fame to serve England, was typical of many others of his countrymen.