Produced by Geoff Palmer, Berkeley, California
By
Author of "A Minstrel in France"
NEW YORK
THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY1919
This book is dedicated to theFathers and Mothersof the Boys who went and thosewho prepared to go.
Say, Mate, don't you figure it's great
To think, when the war is all over,
And we're thro' with the mud—
And the spilling of blood,
And we're shipped back again to old Dover;
When they've paid us our tin
And we've blown the lot in,
And our very last penny is spent,
We'll still have a thought, if that's all we've got:
Well, I'm one of the boys who went.
Perhaps, later on, when the wild days are gone
And you're settling down for life—
You've a girl in your eye, you'll ask bye and bye
To share up with you as your wife—
Then, when a few years have flown
And you've got "chicks" of your own
And you're happy, and snug, and content,
Man, it will make your heart glad
When they boast of their Dad—
My Dad—He was one of the boys who went.
It's a bonny world, I'm tellin' ye! It was worth saving, and savedit's been, if only you and I and the rest of us that's alive and fitto work and play and do our part will do as we should. I went aroundthe world in yon days when there was war. I saw all manner of men. Isaw them live, and fight, and dee. And now I'm back from the otherside of the world again. And I'm tellin' ye again that it's a bonnyworld I've seen, but no so bonny a world as we maun make it—you andI. So let us speer a wee, and I'll be trying to tell you what I think,and what I've seen.
There'll be those going up and doon the land preaching againsteverything that is, and talking of all that should be. There'll beothers who'll say that all is well, and that the man that wants tomake a change is no better than Trotzky or a Hun. There'll be thosewho'll be wantin' me to let a Soviet tell me what songs to sing to ye,and what the pattern of my kilts should be. But what have such folk tosay to you and me, plain folk that we are, with our work to do, andthe wife and the bairns to be thinkin' of when it comes time to tak'our ease and rest? Nothin', I say, and I'll e'en say it again andagain before I'm done.
The day of the plain man has come again. The world belongs to us. Wemade it. It was plain men who fought the war—who deed and bled andsuffered in France, and Gallipoli and everywhere where men went aboutthe business of the war. And it's plain men who have come home toBritain, and America, to Australia and Canada and all the other placesthat sent their sons out to fight for humanity. They maun fight forhumanity still, for that fight is not won,—deed, and it's no morethan made a fair beginning.
Your profiteer is no plain man. Nor is your agitator. They are set upagainst you and me, and all the other plain men and women who maunmake a living and tak' care of those that are near and dear to them.Some of us plain folk have more than others of us, maybe, but there'llbe no envy among us for a' that. We maun stand together, and we shall.I'm as sure of that as I'm sure that God has charged himself with thecare of this world and all who dwell in it.
I maun talk more about myself t