Page:This side the trenches, with the American Red cross (IA thissidetrenches00desc).pdf/60

 It is this thought which underlies all of the Home Service of the Red Cross. Home Service is looking to the future. Of what sort of people is the next generation to be. Only if the men and women of tomorrow are strong in body, in mind, and in spirit will the United States have come successfully through the great struggle in which it is now engaged.

Of the men examined in the first draft 23.7 per cent. were found to be physically unfit for service in the national army. If such a test were to be taken thirty years from now, would this percentage be greater or less? Only 28 per cent. of the grammar school graduates in the United States enter high school. Will the number be larger or smaller thirty years from now? President Wilson's spiritual leadership has been possible only because the American people are ready to understand and to accept the ideals which he has set forth. Will the American people be as ready to rise to new ideals a generation hence? Will the families of what President Wilson calls "plain people everywhere," the family of the neighbor across the way, the family living in the next block, the Brown family, the Smith family, just the everyday family that is neither millionaire nor pauper, the family which has furnished the men who are fighting this war, will this family be as sturdy, as self-reliant, as devout, will it have in it as much of the right stuff thirty years from now as it has today?

The answer to these questions will decide whether or not the United States has been truly victorious in the great war. But if we desire to make that answer "Yes" we must not risk allowing any sign of weakness or