Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

. E. F. soldiers. This letter did not rive until after the Christmas season as over. By Christmas, 1919, the ar had ended, and so Mr. Roosevelt's tter never received the wide publicaon among the men for whom it was tended. We publish this message on is page, feeling that it will not have

I

lost its meaning or its timeliness for any of the men for whose encouragement it was written. It contains a message which America should be slow to forget.

The spirit of this letter provides a background for a story significant of the devotion in which Mr. Roosevelt was held by the countless friends who

never met him in the flesh. When a certain old lady heard of Mr. Roosevelt's death, she said: "I do not see why Mr. Roosevelt should have been taken away from us here unless it was that the Lord needed a big, kind-hearted colonel to look after the boys who have given their lives in the war!"

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM COLONEL ROOSEVELT TO
THE OFFICERS AND ENLISTED MEN OF THE

UNITED STATES ARMY AND NAVY

GREET with all good wishes the officers and all men wearing the uniform of the Army or the Navy of the United States, and above all I greet those who are overseas. All good Americans are henceforth forever the debtors of the fighting men of America who have come to the colors in this war. They have rendered the one supreme service, and all the rest of us have merely stood behind them and helped in so far as our abilities and opportunities permitted. I wish them a glorious victory and a safe return. THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

KNOLL PAPERS

CHRISTMAS AND THE UNIVERSAL MADONNA

OME philosophers, searching among primitive peoples for the origin of religion, find its source in the primive instincts of fear and dependence. The savage fears the unknown and seeks pappease the wrath of the gods or feels is dependence upon unknown powers nd seeks to secure their aid in his ndertakings. True. But not all the ruth. Love is as primitive an instinct s fear, and the desire to protect is as niversal as the desire for protection. The chickens fly to the mother hen when the hawk appears, but not more agerly than the mother hen calls them o her protecting wings. The babe loves o cuddle to the mother's breast; not ess does the mother love to have her abe lying there.

The world is a battlefield. Life is a erpetual struggle. But in this age-long ampaign, struggle for others is as uniersal as struggle for self. Courage is s primitive as cowardice, self-sacrifice s self-seeking. Henry Drummond has hown in his revealing book "The Asent of Man " that the life of selfacrifice is discernible throughout the reation daily enacted before our eyes, rom the division of the cell in the beginnings of life to the highest ministraions of love in the mother's world. That self-sacrifice is a law of nature is recognized by such purely scientific and avowedly unreligious writers as Darwin and Haeckel, but by no one, I think, is it more beautifully portrayed and scientifically illustrated than by Drummond. He sums up his scientific demonstration in what might well be entitled "The Scientist's Psalm of Love:"

To interpret the course of Evolution without this [law of sacrifice] would be to leave the richest side even of

BY LYMAN ABBOTT

material Nature without an explanation. Retrace the ground even thus hastily traveled over, and see how full Creation is of meaning, of anticipation, of good for man, how far back begins the undertone of Love. Remember that nearly all the beauty of the world is Love-Beauty-the corolla of the flower and the plume of the grass, the lamp of the firefly, the plumage of the bird, the horn of the stag, the face of a woman; that nearly all the music of the natural world is Love-music-the song of the nightingale, the call of the mammal, the chorus of the insect, the serenade of the lover; that nearly all the foods of the world are Love-foods -the date and the raisin, the banana and the bread-fruit, the locust and the honey, the eggs, the grains, the seeds, the cereals, and the legumes; that all the drinks of the world are Lovedrinks-the juices of the sprouting grain and the withered hop, the milk from the udder of the cow, the wine from the Love-cup of the vine. Remember that the Family, the crown of all higher life, is the creation of Love ; that Co-operation, which means power, which means wealth, which means leisure, which therefore means art and culture, recreation and education, is the gift of Love. Remember not only these things, but the diffusions of feeling which accompany them, the elevations, the ideals, the happiness, the goodness, and the faith in more goodness, and ask if it is not a world of Love in which we live.

The reverence paid to the Virgin Mother is a sacramental recognition of this truth. All pure motherhood is adorable, because all pure motherhood is divine. The first child born in a home creates in that home a kind of love never before known there- -a father love and a mother love. The child

creates it because he needs it, and it is a moral as well as an economic truth that demand creates supply. It is true that in some mothers the capacity for mother love has been stifled by self-indulgence, and in other mothers it has been destroyed by despair. Nevertheless it is primitive, elemental, transcending all analysis, all definition. It is not too great for the boorish shepherds to revere it; nor, even in a stable, too common for the Wise Men to bow before it. And since love is the greatest thing in the world, and he that loveth knoweth God, we may reverently say that in every cradle lies an Immanuel, God with us.

The greatest gift ever given to the world was the Christ-child, for he came bringing to the world the gift of God's love, which is God's glory, and the gift of peace and good will among men, which are the very atmosphere and climate of God's kingdom. Every child is a Christ-child and brings to the world similar gifts. It is a curious fact that the new-born babe, who has nothing and is dependent on others for everything, brings with him to the mother who bore him the greatest of all gifts-the gift of mother love.

The mother needs the child no less than the child needs the mother. He needs some one to love him; she needs some one to love. Because he needs everything and she has everything to give he satisfies her heart, as the beauty of art satisfies her eye, the beauty of music satisfies her ear, the beauty of truth satisfies her reason. So our needs make us dear to God. There is one and only one gift we can give to him this Christmas season-we can give him

some one to love.

And that is something.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][graphic][graphic][merged small][merged small]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

EARTH-SONG

BY LOUISE AYRES GARNETT

[graphic]

HE necessities of war created the American Air Service almost in a single night. The economies of peace have to a large extent caused it to wither in a day.

This child of war grew with such rapidity that its parents had little control over him. He was groggy at the knees and topheavy, and his appetite was enormous. So when the armistice came there went up a general sigh of relief that the precocious infant could now be abandoned. And abandoned it was, till it has dwindled and shrunk into an anæmic and starved prodigy. Experts and trained nurses have been called in

99 Air

"The necessities of war created the American Air Service almost in a single night.'
planes were rushed to completion in factories like this, which made naval planes during the war

proved that aircraft had not only conie to stay, but that its importance was enormous-and here is the real trouble. While no one, except two distinguished British admirals, has had the courag to say that aircraft has so revol tionized warfare that the and navy army will take second place to it, yet there appears to be throughout both services something that very nearly ap proaches resentment that this new science should be given such prom nence. As matters stand to-day, it i not of course true that the air predomi nates over the water and land forces in matters of strategy and warfare, but there are shrewd judges who believe that it very soon will. There are also those who fear that it will, and with conservative selfishness desire to tie this prodigy to their apron strings lest it should become unruly.

WHO OBSTRUCT THE CREATION OF A DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR?

L

F

[ocr errors]

a

It will be remembered that the American Aviation Mission, which vis ited England, France, and Italy, recom mended "the concentration of the air activities, military, naval, and civilian, within the direction of a single Govern ment agency created for the purpos co-equal in importance with the De partments of War, Navy, and Com F merce." The vexed question of whether the Air Service should remain organ ized in two wings, one attached to the Navy and one to the Army, arose again, as it has in all the Allied countries Also whether it should not be a sepa rate arm of the fighting service.

In my opinion, neither the profession al soldier nor the professional sailor is fully qualified to judge of the possibili ties and powers of the air service. He is

d

N

by reason of his training, forced to regard its work in conjunction with his own and from his own point of view. That the air force may have a strategy and striking power all its own and may not be a bit of the army and another bit of the navy frequently escapes him. He wants, in other words, to relegate air power to the secondary position of an auxiliary to help him perform his own job. This is a confession of weakness-a confession that, while pressing for this scheme, he is aware of and is afraid of the growing importance of air power. Now the air service is not going to take the place of the navy or of the army for many years to come, but if there are longheaded men in charge it is going to displace some sections of both forces. Unless a policy is based upon that recognition, European nations, and, I think, America, will be disregarding a grave peril of the future. To split the control, to divide the air service in two, is finally to destroy it.

A SECRETARY OF AIR AND AN AIR
CONTROL BOARD

The only workable and efficient organization is a separate air service under a minister of air. Under him should be grouped five directors-respectively, the directors of naval air operations, of army operations, of an independent air force, of civil aviation, and of supply and research. I suggest that these, with a finance member, the President of the Aircraft Manufacturers' Association, and a secretary, would form an air control board that would make for smooth working and a thoroughly comprehensive grasp of the service and civil problems of flight.

Now as to its method of administration. Let us take first the independent air force. There are distinguished soldiers who have gone so far as to declare that an air force acting independently cannot be effective. I think I can prove that it can and will in fashions of which neither the army nor the navy is able to dream. The American General Staff, rather unfairly, has quoted in its report the words of the British Field Marshal, Lord Haig, that mechanical devices are incapable of obtaining a decision. No one has suggested that tanks and airplanes can take the place of infantry and artillery-yet, although it is proposed to maintain order in Mesopotamia almost entirely with tanks and aircraft. It is absurd to ignore the fact that the work of the British Independent Air Force during the latter stages of the war did more to destroy the morale of the enemy rank and file as well as of the civilian population than anything else. And this was a body that was given an entirely free hand and a free mission to have its base where it liked and to attach where it liked, irrespective of the units working in connection with the infantry, artillery, and tanks. It was not concerned with reconnaissance, with artil

[graphic][merged small]

General William Mitchell, Assistant Chief of the U. S. Air Sérvice (standing next to Glenn Curtiss, who is at the extreme left), is, as was evinced by his recently published letter to The Outlook, a strong advocate of a Department of the Air. The plane-a Curtiss Libertymotored Eagle-is designed for passenger transport, and is America's latest contribution to commercial aviation. It has a speed of 105 miles an hour and has a record for lifting power

lery observation or scouting, and longdistance bombing was only a part of a great programme that had been very carefully planned and rehearsed, and which, if the war had lasted another month, would have produced undreamedof results.

This force had an offensive mission of a quality distinct from any other class of offensive. Plans were laid for. swift descents upon enemy airdromes of squadrons, heavily armed with machine guns, which would have landed, occupied the areas long enough to have destroyed everything in the place, and then returned across the lines. Only an independent air force could do this, and it is obviously capable of tremendous development. The strategy of getting behind the enemy and destroying unde fended enemy depots is really more im. portant than bombing raids. Given air superiority, there is nothing to stop such a force from occupying, fortifying, and defending posts as far behind the enemy lines as two hundred miles and holding them for vital periods. Preventive methods to counteract such attacks would render such concentration of forces in back areas as has never been known, involving, in fact, entirely new strategy. An independent air body with full liberty to work out its own problems, not a mere scouting and skirmishing service, such as the air force might easily deteriorate into if handed over to the army, can be a swift and determining factor of future warfare. A notable instance of this was shown in the recent Somaliland campaign, when a dozen British aircraft finished in a fortnight the power of the Mullah who had been waging war for seventeen years.

To the army and navy should be

attached for peace strength a small number of squadrons each for the special auxiliary work required. To the navy, of course, the lighter-than-air craft, seaplanes, and the airplane carriers; and in time of war the coast patrol squadrons. To the army, their eyes -the scouts, the low bombers, etc.a proportion of machines to each division.

CIVIL AVIATION DEPENDENT ON A

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR

I come now to the establishing of a civil aviation section, in many ways the most important section under the minister of air, for its purpose should be not merely regulative or restrictive, but essentially to foster progress. Its main object should be to advise the aircraft industry and to render it every possible assistance. It must be understood that the aircraft industry of no country can exist in peace times entirely upon government orders. It must also be realized that the advancement of the purely service side of flying will depend very largely upon the encouragement given to the industry towards commercial aviation. This section should open international relations; lay down internal and oversea air routes; establish stations for landings and departures; provide information on aerial navigation, meteorology, and communications; license airdromes, civil pilots, and machines; collect technical and commercial information from all possible sources for dissemination to the service side and the aircraft industry. In fact, its activities should be by far the most. widespread of the five proposed directorates.

Lastly, there is the section of supply and research. From here would

« PredošláPokračovať »