THE FRENCH WORKER

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 143, 17 June 1916, Page 14

THE FRENCH WORKER

ONE OF THE SURPRISES OF THE

WAR

Among the surprises of this war, one of the greatest, and one we can never forget, is the bearing by which the French mechanic and peasant disclose their character. Of this character Europe had no knowledge, and even France,: in her educated classes, understood it but ill. To be sure, in spite of some slanders, our people were known to be true to their reputation for courage; but their deeper emotions were veiled. How were they likely to be perceived? The foreign foe, and our domestic despisers of the Republic abundantly proclaimed the degeneracy and degradation of our people,; cut off from high thinking by their plain living. Novelists described only their native instincts; to them the man of the people was an appetite on two legs. Those who professed to speak for him merely retorted, and some of them, exposing their scheme of the future, made it look as if, in the new order of things, all the populace needed for leisure and happiness was to lay hands on the money of the rich. If so, the national common sense had departed. Even personal intercourse with the multitude, as things were arranged, in spite of goodwill for better relations, the popular and the governing classes had too much the feeling of employers and employed toward each, other—both standing too much on the defensive.

Then war burst forth. Like a storm in tbe mountains, where the swollen torrent sweeps away all obstacles, and even the surface of the slope, exposing the granite beneath, the war brought to view the soul of the people, in its bare simplicity, rich in imperishable virtues. "Military virtues," some may: say. Yes -—.it the onset of the foe each French-' man felt aroused in him the traditional soldier. Naturally and without . effort, working men and citizens, peasant and professional men, were between two days transformed into heroic warriors. Their discipline, their endurance, their manner of fighting and meeting death, went beyond what was expected of them.