Millions of girls were in some kind of fancy dress with buttons and
shoulder--straps, breeches and puttees, and they seemed to be making a
game of the war and enjoying it thoroughly. Oxford dons were
harvesting, and proud of their prowess with the pitchfork--behold
their patriotism!--while the boys were being blown to bits on the Yser
Canal. Miners were striking for more wages, factory hands were downing
tools for fewer hours at higher pay, the government was paying any
price for any labor--while Tommy Atkins drew his one-and-twopence and
made a little go a long way in a wayside estaminet before jogging up
the Menin road to have his head blown off. The government had created
a world of parasites and placemen housed in enormous hotels, where
they were engaged at large salaries upon mysterious unproductive
labors which seemed to have no result in front-line trenches.
Government contractors were growing fat on the life of war, amassing
vast fortunes, juggling with excess profits, battening upon the flesh
and blood of boyhood in the fighting-lines.
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