 
HE WAS paunchy and broad-beamed and looked like one of Artist Young’s skippers of industry. The top of his dome was mercerized but there was a sturdy little hedge of auburn stubble running west of a line drawn parallel with the top of his right listener. This served as a dam to catch the honest perspiration from running down on his Henry Clay collar. It also gave him something semi-tangible to comb in the mornings. His full-orbed jowls were decorated with auburn fenders, parted in the middle and severely orthodox in their general behavior. Naturally, with this trimming, he was long on civic righteousness, religious rallies and other pillar activities. He was one of those opulent American industrial successes that point with their thumbs, believe that woman’s place is the home, and go Perhaps the most dominant of his virtues was his high-pressure patriotism. When it came to patriotic oratory he had Patrick Henry looking like a gaping neutral. It was only logical, therefore, that he should have become a most fearless and forensic advocate of Preparedness as soon as the word was coined. And he did become that same, as hereinbefore itemized. In 1916, when California decided to elect President Wilson, this popular pusher for Preparedness was wild with indignation, and tore out his luxurious side whiskers by the fistful, and jumped up and down on his little malleable derby. Everyone with whom he came in contact was assured by him that the country was heading for helldom on high. It also gave him a bit of relief to vent his vituperation on Comrade President for not rushing into War on the day that Kaiser Bill began to shoot up the high seas like a bar braggart on a busy Saturday night. Almost any hour you passed his office you could hear him over the transom telling somebody about the folly of Watchful Waiting, conciliatory notes and other presidential piffle. He said that nothing could be nobler than for young Americans to offer up their lives in defense of flag and country. And just to show how doggone deep his Nationalism went, he trotted out and bought a great big American flag for cash and nailed it up back of his desk. When Uncle Sam finally decided to throw the little felt kelly into the international ring, he turned back the lapel of his coat and threw out his patriotic chest as if he had scored some big personal victory against the determined resistance of a hundred million Americans. One day, shortly after the events of which we speak, our War Hero was found sitting at his Mahogany, with knitted brows and knotted physiog, steeped in painful, ponderous thought. Nobody knew just what had struck him until he called his stenographer and dictated a very private but trenchant letter to the Congressman of his District and another to his favorite Having landed a munitions contract in the early days of the war that netted him a cold, clammy four million in profits, and having drawn a beautiful mental picture of just how he was going to invest that million so as to bring a modest return of 100 percent, he was naturally given over to the ravages of righteous indig when he learned that the Government proposed to put its large horny fist into his profit bag and extract a fairly girthful percentage of those profits for use in helping clothe and feed the young Americans whom he so highly honored for their Patriotism. Also he went up in the air ’way beyond anti-aircraft range when he found that the draft bill contemplated calling into active service young men between the ages of 20 and 30. He loudly proclaimed it a ridiculous and preposterous piece of flumdubble to call upon such young men when every sane man knew that the Flower of American virility was between the ages of 31 and 41. His son was 24 and he was 54. When the first Liberty Bond issue was floated he got sort of backed into an uncomfortable corner and spent several tortuous nights and difficult days wondering how he was going to hurdle this issue without barking his patriotic shins. At last, after looking up Uncle Sam in Bradstreets, and convincing himself that Uncle S. would not go bust right away, he made up his mind to plunge, irrespective of his own future comfort. So he went down to his bank and bought a nice One Hundred Dollar Bond which he offered to sell to any of his employes who might not have a chance to get to the polls before they closed. The next day he took steps to have his son exempted from the draft on the grounds that he was the sole support of his motor car—but of course assured the Board of the young patriot’s eagerness to trek for the trenches. He also stopped long enough in his work of figuring out a 100% increase in the selling price of his wares to get an assortment of little allied flags and stick them on the hood of his Packard. In addition, he bought a Red Cross button and put it in the aperature of his coat lapel. Further, he allowed one of his clerks to spend several hours on the Firm’s time to collect a fund for the Red Cross from the other employes, and he himself led off the list with a Dollar which nobody had the nerve to collect from him after he wrote down his influential name. In fact, patriotism and practical helpfulness to the Nation ran rampant through his whole family. His wife started to knit an army sweater at the outbreak of the War, and as we go to press she is still knitting it. She has got as far as casting off the neck. His daughter also started in energetically to make Red Cross bandages, and every week or so she went down to Headquarters for an hour to get in out of the cold while waiting for some friend for tea. When final victory perched upon the banner of the Allied Cause and The Boys came dragging home to a jobless civic life, this patriotic pillar of Preparedness whose unselfish He also wrote a book entitled “How We Won The War” and dedicated it to his son and daughter. Lesson for Today: Sherman was right.
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