I was absorbing these subleties when a French lady, dressed in velvet and furs, noticing my faded blue uniform, stepped up, excused herself, and asked if I were not a French soldier, and would I have a cup of tea with her?
One year later, again on furlough, passing through London, I called on my good friend and was invited to accompany her to church. After a long prayer, so long as to excite my curiosity, she whispered: “I used to come here every Sunday and pray for you. In this seat, at this part of the ceremony, I prayed you would come back again. I wanted you here with me today so I could show you to God. Now I am content. He will take care of you.”
Opening her prayer-book, she took out a piece of paper and pressed it into my hand. It was an extract from a London newspaper, which told of my being decorated by the French Government. I had not told her, and was not aware the news had been in the London papers. At the house, later, Captain Underwood, one of Rawlinson’s invalided veterans, who was in the retreat from Antwerp, inquired: “Did our friend show you the paper?”
“Well, she bought that newspaper one night and came here crying out, ‘See what my poilu has done, and he never said a word to me about it!’ When you blew in, she made us promise we would not mention it till after you came back from church.”
Democratic Government is the direct opposite of the German system. In America the individual is superior to the state, on the principle that man was born before the state was organized. He was then first, endowed by Nature with certain inalienable rights, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
He organized a government to make those rights secure with the state as servant—not master of his destiny. The public official is just the people’s hired man. He is not paid to give, or to permit, one set of individuals to gain advantage. He must enforce equality, and see that every citizen has equal rights with equal opportunities. Where rights are equal, privileges must be. Where then is inequality of rights then is inequality of privilege. The burden, shirked by the privileged class, is thrown upon those whose rights have been usurped, making their load doubly heavy.