“You boys, here,” he said, “haven’t suffered enough. You haven’t seen nations in agony as we have. The theater of war is still too remote. The loss of a transport wakens you to renewed effort for a moment and then you get back to thinking of other things, more agreeable things, and speculate as to when the war will be over. I’ve spoken to rich men who seem to think they’ve done all that is required of them by purchasing a few Liberty Bonds. They must be bought if we are to win the war, but there’s little of the personal element of sacrifice in merely buying interest-bearing bonds.”
He launched into a description of war as he had seen it, dwelling on the character it developed rather than the horrors he had suffered, horrors such as are depicted in the widely circulated book of Henri Barbusse. This mention of negative patriotism rather disturbed Anthony Trent. All he had done was to buy Liberty Bonds. And here was Alan Kent, who had lived through three years of hell to come back full of courage and cheer, and anxious, when his health was reestablished, to leave the British Service and enroll in the armies of America. It was not agreeable for him to think how he had passed those three years.
He was awakened from these unpleasant thoughts by the applause which followed Kent’s speech. The next speaker was an ambulance driver, who made a plea for more and yet more ambulances.
“Lots of you people here,” he said, “seem to think that when once a battery of ambulances are donated they are there till the war is over. They suffer as much as guns or horses. The Huns get special marks over there for potting an ambulance, and they’re getting to be experts at the game. I’ve had three of Hen. Ford’s little masterpieces shot under me, so to speak. I’m trying to interest individuals in giving ambulances. They’re not very expensive. You can equip one for $5,000. Men have said to me, ‘What’s the use of one ambulance?’ I tell them as I tell you that the one they may send will do its work before it’s knocked out. It may pick up a brother or pal of a man in this room. It may pick up some of you boys even, for some of you are going. God, it makes me tired this cry of what’s the use of ‘one little ambulance.’”