An American Reporter in London
I have been in London for a week, and to-day I located the enthusiasm over the war that some people have said was entirely missing, hereabouts. I found it while riding on the top of a motor bus. A party of volunteers were marching past the Horse Guards, Whitehall, and the bystanders, who were a numerous crowd, cheered them. This was such an unusual demonstration that I made a snapshot from the top of the bus, and then climbed down and followed the recruits. They told me that they were on their way to the Tube station at Charing Cross, and from there expected to go to Paddington station. They were right. They did go to Paddington and I went, too. They were such a fine lot of lads that I thought they were worth another picture, but I hardly had got my camera opened when a detective nabbed me and asked for my permit to make photographs, I had neglected to get one, and so I had a busy couple of hours explaining at the police station that I wasn't a German spy.
After putting me through the Third Degree, examining my passports, my credentials and some personal letters, they said that I looked like an honest man, and they wanted to believe that all I had told them about myself was true—but in times like these one could never tell. It was necessary to be very careful—so many suspicious persons about, you know.
A Speedy Plain-clothes Man
I explained that my American friends had been joshing me about the reluctance of the British to volunteer, and that my innocent photograph would be the .best evidence that there was a lot of patriotic feeling in. London. Only I hadn't had a chance to make the phonograph because the plain-clothes man had been so quick on the trigger in arresting me. In consideration of my not having made the picture they let me go, after solemnly informing me that a special permit from the War Department was necessary for each individual job of photographing within the confines of Great Britain. And this in a country that shows only the most superficial evidences of being at war!
Here in London the shops are all open, the people are going about their business as usual, and there is absolutely no excitement. They do not fly flags from their windows, nor sing "God Save the King" in the streets, nor parade around after bands. Some troops are to be seen, but so far as possible they move them after nightfall. The papers do not print much war news, and what little they do give is exceedingly conservative. The general attitude toward the whole business seems to be "It's a beastly shame, don't you know, but it cawn't be helped."
Unemotional Patriots
All the same there is no lack of patriotism, and the volunteers are coming forward. There isn't the enthusiasm that I remember so well in the United States when we went to war with Spain, but the difference is temperamental.
The British are not given to heroics. Lord Kitchener will get his 500,000 volunteers, though, in a short time, and more if he needs them.
These volunteers are a fine lot of young chaps. When they have had their training in camp they will make first-class fighting men. It will take several months to whip them into shape, just as it did the United States volunteers at Chickamauga and other camps, in our late unpleasantness, but I hope I won't be accused of being unpatriotic when I say that it will be done with more neatness and dispatch.
In London even roofs are used as drill grounds for small detachments, and it is not at all an unusual sight to see business and professional men, clerks and laborers lined up in the streets and being put through the paces of the awkward squad. The wonder of it all, to an American, is that nobody takes any particular notice. The Londoners go quietly about their business, just as if they had been all their lives in the habit of seeing their neighbors being made over from peaceful citizens into real soldiers.
The Women Help Recruiting
The women are taking a hand in recruiting. Already there is talk of organizing clubs of girls pledged not to be seen on the streets with men eligible for military service who are not in uniform. And they are hanging out banners, too, that bear inscriptions calculated to make the stay-at-homes feel pretty small. One of these that I saw the other day was a petticoat fastened to a pole and labeled: "For Any Young Man Who is Afraid to Enlist."
Do not believe any travelers' tales of London being panic-stricken about German invasion by land, sea or air. While there is a realization of the possibilities of Zeppelins dropping explosives on us at night, nobody is missing any meals on that account. The English attitude is that all such matters will be attended to at the proper time. Just now the papers are more concerned about the ways and means of getting Germany's trade away from her, while she is busy on the French border, than about a possible invasion. The way Admiral Sir David Beatty smashed -the German cruisers and destroyers on August 28th has strengthened the British confidence in the invincibility of the navy, though I must say that there was no tendency to exaggerate the advantage of what was really only a raid of minor importance.
Keeping Boy Scouts in Hand
I can't help but admire the way the British do things, even though they haven't showed me the consideration that I am entitled to. They are so deucedly well balanced and systematic. Just after the war started General Baden-Powell stirred up the Boy Scouts to great activity. For a few days they mixed into pretty much everything, but before their young enthusiasm got to be a nuisance they were gently but firmly put in their proper places, and now
are doing a fine work in carrying messages, guarding property, and helping in the harvest fields. There is no spy-baiting by them, and no interference with peaceful strangers. Scotland Yard attends to that.
Unless you carry a camera you have little trouble in going about the United Kingdom. But the police surely have their suspicions about photography. Recently some genius had an idea of fitting up a microscopic camera, with a long roll of film operated by a clock work mechanism to make exposures at regular intervals. The whole thing was said to be small enough to be fastened to a carrier pigeon without making it impossible for the bird to fly. The idea is to hitch one of these wonderful machines on to the pigeon and have him make a series of pictures of the country over which he flies. Here was a way that German spies could wreck Great Britain, but the police foiled them. They promptly forbade Germans and Austrians owning carrier pigeons at all, and they also set a lot of men to shoot pigeons that wore a suspicious look. So far I haven't heard of any being killed with the goods on, but a hint is enough. I am not going to fly about with a camera. In spite of occasional absurdities, however, the British are remarkably considerate of foreigners, and there has been no great hostility shown to Germans. Some spies have been arrested, and I have no doubt executed, though this is a subject that is not much discussed. Certainly England must have swarmed with secret representatives of the enemy during the early days of the war.
A Splendid Lot of Troops
What I want is to see these calm, self-confident Britishers in action. They look to me like the best soldiers I have ever seen, always excepting my Yankee friends in khaki, and I shall be vastly disappointed if they do not set some new high records for efficient work in the field. Everybody gives Kitchener the credit for the fine showing made, but undoubtedly there are others who have been doing some good work in organizing in the past few years. The blunders that marked the opening of the Boer war have not been repeated and will not be.
As to getting to the front, the difficulties are immense. The War Department has not allowed any Americans to go except Frederick Palmer, of the Associated Press, who ? was selected after much dickering. I have just seen a number of American correspondents who got over to Belgium, but were sent back, among them Will Irwin and -Richard Harding Davis. Both advised me most earnestly • to keep away from Belgium unless I had a permit. I understand that Davis had a very narrow escape from being shot by the Germans, and Irwin's experiences were far from pleasant. Americans have a good friend in Colonel Squires, the military attache at the American Embassy here, and he is doing all that he can for me— which up to the present writing has borne no results. However, I hope to have better news to write next time.
the author in 1917
