RICHARD.
PARIS, September 15th, 1914.
[DEAR CHAS.:]
I got this morning your letter of August 25th. In it you
say kind things about my account of the Germans entering
Brussels. Nothing so much pleases me as to get praise from
you or to know my work pleases you. Since the Germans were
pushed in every one here is breathing again. But for me it
was bad as now the armies are too far to reach by taxicab, and
if you are caught anywhere outside the city you are arrested
and as a punishment sent to Tours. Eight correspondents,
among them two Times men and John Reed and Bobby Dunn,
were sent to Tours Sunday. I had another piece of luck that day
with Gerald Morgan. I taxicabed out to Soissons and saw a
wonderful battle. So, now I can go home in peace. Had I been
forced to return without seeing any fighting I never would
have lived it down. I am in my old rooms of years ago. I got
the whole imperial suite for eight francs a day. It used to
be 49 francs a day. Of course, Paris that closes tight at
nine is hardly Paris, but the beauty of the city never so much
impressed me. There is no fool running about to take your
mind off the gardens and buildings. What most makes me
know I am in Paris, though, are the packages of segars lying on the
dressing table. Give my love to Dai, and tell her I hope soon
to see you. The war correspondent is dead. My only chance
was to get with the English who will take one American and
asked Bryan to choose, he passed it to the Press Association
and they chose Palmer. But I don't believe the official
correspondents will be allowed to see much. I saw the Germans
enter Brussels, the burning of Louvain and the Battle of
Soissons and had a very serious run in with the Germans and
nearly got shot. But now if you go out, every man is after
you, and even the gendarmes try to arrest you. It is
sickening. For never, of course, was there such a chance to
describe things that everyone wants to read about. Again my
love to Dai and you. I will see you soon.
RICHARD.
In October Richard returned to the United States and
settled down to complete his first book on the war. During
this period and indeed until the hour of his death my brother
devoted the greater part of his time to the cause of the
Allies. He had always believed that the United States should
have entered the war when the Germans first outraged Belgium,
and to this effect he wrote many letters to the newspapers.
In addition to this he was most active in various of the
charities devoted to the causes of the Allies, wrote a number
of appeals, and contributed money out of all proportion to his
means. The following appeal he wrote for the Secours
National:
"You are invited to help women, children and old people
in Paris and in France, wherever the war has brought
desolation and distress. To France you owe a debt. It is not
alone the debt you incurred when your great grandfathers
fought for liberty, and to help them, France sent soldiers,
ships and two great generals, Rochambeau and La Fayette. You
owe France
for that, but since then you have incurred other debts.
"Though you may never have visited France, her art,
literature, her discoveries in Science, her sense of what is
beautiful, whether in a bonnet, a boulevard or a triumphal
arch, have visited you. For them you are the happier; and for
them also, to France you are in debt.
"If you have visited Paris, then your debt is increased a
hundred fold. For to whatever part of France you journeyed,
there you found courtesy, kindness, your visit became a
holiday, you departed with a sense of renunciation; you were
determined to return. And when after the war, you do revisit
France, if your debt is unpaid, can you without embarrassment
sink into debt still deeper? What you sought Paris gave you
freely. Was it to study art or to learn history, for the
history of France is the history of the world; was it to dine
under the trees or to rob the Rue de la Paix of a new model;
was it for weeks to motor on the white roads or at a cafe
table watch the world pass? Whatever you sought, you found.
Now, as in 1776 we fought, to-day France fights for freedom,
and in behalf of all the world, against militarism that is
`made in Germany.'
"Her men are in the trenches; her women are working in
the fields, sweeping the Paris boulevards, lighting the street
lamps. They are undaunted, independent, magnificently
capable. They ask no charity. But from those districts the
war has wrecked, there are hundreds of thousands of women and
little children without work, shelter or food. To them
throughout the war zone the Secours National gives instant
relief. In one day in Paris alone it provides 80,000
free meals. Six cents pays for one of these meals. One
dollar from you will for a week keep a woman or child alive.
"The story is that one man said, `In this war the women
and children suffer most. I'm awfully sorry for them!' and
the other man said, `Yes I'm five dollars sorry. How sorry
are you?'
"If ever you intend paying that debt you owe to France do
not wait until the war is ended. Now, while you still owe it,
do not again impose yourself upon her hospitality, her
courtesy, her friendship.
"But, pay the debt now.
"And then, when next in Paris you sit at your favorite
table and your favorite waiter hands you the menu, will you
not the more enjoy your dinner if you know that while he was
fighting on the Aisne, it was your privilege to help a little
in keeping his wife and child alive."
The winter of 1914-15 Richard and his wife spent in New
York, and on January 4, 1915, their baby, Hope, was born. No
event in my brother's life had ever brought him such infinite
happiness, and during the short fifteen months that remained
to him she was seldom, if ever, from his thoughts, and no
father ever planned more carefully for a child's future than
Richard did for his little daughter.
On April 11 my brother and his wife took Hope to
Crossroads for the first time. In his diary of this time he
writes, "Only home in the world is the one I own. Everything
belongs. It is so comfortable and the lake and the streams in
the woods where you can get your feet wet. The thrill of
thinking a stump is a trespasser! You can't do that on ten
acres."
A cause in which Richard was enormously interested
at this time was that of the preparedness of his own country,
and for it he worked unremittingly. In August, 1915, he went
to Plattsburg, where he took a month of military training.
