We do not envy the men who might have gone but who stayed at home in
those early days, when their earlier presence on the field of battle
might have been the means not only of saving many thousands of valuable
lives, but of shortening the terrible carnage. It would have been a
thousand times better had the mind which conceived the phrase "business
as usual" been acute enough to foresee the possible and disastrous
misapplications of the phrase. Rather would it have been better had the
idea crystallized in "Do it now."
CLIVE HOLLAND.
[Illustration: MUDDLE THROUGH]
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MY ENEMY IS MY BEST FRIEND
These words of Emerson's express exactly the thought of this cartoon.
The Netherlands is a country that has been slowly won from the ocean;
the cruel sea has always been its enemy, at first completely triumphant,
then gradually resisted and driven forth by the enterprise and toil of
men; but it is always an enemy to be dreaded. Its inroads have to be
guarded against by great dykes and by the never-ceasing care and
industry of the nation. Now and again the floods come, and people barely
escape in boats from the waters. Yet time and again the enemy has been
the best friend of the Netherlands. This enemy has saved them from the
domination of Spain, and now, as the refugees on the floods of last
winter are escaping from the jaws of death they feel that the water
which is now an enemy (_vijand_), may to-morrow be a friend (_vriend_);
for an invasion by the Germans, that ever-dreaded danger to all
patriotic Dutchmen, can be guarded against only by the friendly help of
the ocean which can be invoked in case of need to save its own people.
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