to write with fervent simplicity of the vanguard, ever to be remembered with gratitude—"the men who sealed with their blood the pledge of that overwhelming sentiment in favor of the Allies which was to make our country an active participant in the fight."
But in the preface of his fifth and final volume, which appeared in 1924, Mr. Howe's ardor for fighting along the path to peace has been sicklied o'er with the pale cast of current thought. "In the ten years since the World War began," he observes, "and especially since it ended, the very theme of war has taken on a new aspect, both for those who read and for those who write about it." He suspects, has had occasion to suspect, that the fruits of victory have been devoured by "the damned politicians"—Mr. Howe quotes the phrase.
As a biographer and as a citizen he begins to surmise that he will have to take his satisfaction less in what these young heroes actually achieved than in the fine gallantry and unselfishness which they exhibited. He indulges in little glorification of the abstract fighting spirit. He can't make himself happy any longer by murmuring "It is the cause, my soul." More and more he finds the cause which moves his heart in the individual. He bends over the known soldier, studies him as a son, as a school boy, in college among his clubs and "activities," as a sportsman, as a young man in business, in law, medicine, dentistry, as a comrade and friend in desperate enterprises and in the agony of death. The individual stands the test. He rejoices to think that the three hundred and seventy-three men whose memoirs he and his associates have written are but specimen Americans—are, indeed, but
