material element of crime, which is moral turpitude. They are very likely braver than some one who went to war, because there are some people who went to war because they were afraid to face the contempt of their fellowmen.
Some people believe in conscription and some do not. I did not, at first. But, whether it is a voluntary system or a system of conscription, it is all conscription, anyway. England, out of five million soldiers, raised the first four million by volunteers. But, how did they volunteer? Some of them it is true, volunteered because they believed in it, because the picture of Belgium and France furnished an emotion which they could not control, and perhaps did not wish to control. Some of them volunteered out of a sense of duty; some out of conviction, but a very large number volunteered because life was intolerable if they did not. They were shunned by their neighbors and associates and their friends; they were refused jobs; they were ostracised by society; they were cut off from the world. That is conscription, although the name is volunteer.
When you meet any of these boys face to face and they tell you the truth, they will tell you what a horrible thing it is to take your life in your hands and fight. I have the greatest respect for those who did the fighting. I believe they did a job that had to be done, and that whether the world will be better for it or not, it would have been worse without it. 1I have feelings of respect and admiration for them and sorrow, too, but I know what the truth is. I know many thousands of them did not want to go. And the government, at least, believed that had they not used conscription, they could not have assembled an army in any such time as was needed to win the victory.
These questions ought to be discussed as facts and not as questions of sentiment. You cannot settle questions that way. Men act emotionally; but when the day of judgment comes, they should look at the facts as they are. It was my good fortune to go to France before this war was finished. On the lower decks were several thousand troops; not officers or shirkers, like the rest of us civilians on the upper deck, but common soldiers. I could hear no laughter there; no songs. They were calm and silent and wondering. Of course, when they got into camp, they did the best they could with life. I have seen them shaking dice while the cannons were booming around them. They got used to it. But the boys going to war, went to war with the most serious thoughts of what they
