Doing Their Bit

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916. Excerpt: ... VIII THE GREAT "IF" In my previous chapters I have told the Front what I could of the rising tide of munitions, of what they may expect from the gigantic effort that is at last being made in war work. I have said, judging from what I have seen, nothing can stand against our armies and the torrent of shells and munitions they will assuredly have from and after the spring--if the war-workers play out their part. That is the one and only "if," but in the war works I have seen and heard some indication that the "if" still remains, and now I want to say a word as one who went through that first winter and a year at the Front, to the workers at Home, to ask the men in the trenches to write home to any and every man or woman they may know in the war works and urge them to every possible effort as I here urge them. There is every evidence, and evidence that is under the hands and before the eyes of the war-workers, of the enormous amount of munitions now forthcoming. What I am anxious to impress upon them is the enormous amount the Front wants and needs if it is to get a fair show. I have no wish to belittle--even if it were possible--the war-workers' efforts, but I do want them to understand that they cannot afford to slacken that effort for a single day if an adequate, a really adequate supply is to be maintained at the Front. A new National Factory and its workers may be justly proud of their output of 5,000 shells a week, and think they are doing enormously well if by the spring they are trebling that output. But let them remember this--one single insignificant battery of Field Artillery can fire away that present week's output in one day, a Brigade of Field Artillery can use that week's trebled output of 15,000 shells in the day again. The workers may fairly...