24 
House & Garden 
WHY YOU WANT to GO HOME 
O NE day late in June a number of New York editors made a pil¬ 
grimage, as guests of the Y. M. C. A., to Camp Dix, the big 
training cantonment down in the Jersey barrens. All sorts of editors 
came along—the great, the near-great and the nonentities, men and 
women alike, from all manner of publications and all lines of activities. 
Half the day was to be devoted to seeing the soldier at work, the other 
half to seeing him at play. The military authorities had charge for the 
first half and the Y men were to take us over after supper. But so 
many and diverse were the training activities through which a citizen 
soldier has to pass that the nicely arranged schedule was soon knocked 
awry. Dusk found us still following the soldier at work, and when 
darkness came down and departing time approached, we could catch 
only a fleeting glimpse of the way the soldier plays and is amused. 
Yet that fleeting glimpse was the best part of the day. It was like a 
sweet after a heavy meal. It helped us digest all that had gone before. 
It gave us a viewpoint from which to see the entire day in its true 
proportions. 
I pronounce this viewpoint because early in the day I had none. Fel¬ 
low editors wanted to know what House & Garden had to do with a 
training camp, and, on the way down, I had been cudgeling my brain for 
an answer. At first this trip simply looked like an excuse for taking a 
pleasant little holiday. An editor deserves a holiday now and then, I 
said to myself. That—I don’t mind being frank about it—was the 
first appeal. But a leaven was at work that day. My lazy intention 
was transformed, before the day was half over, to a big purpose, and 
gradually, as we motored to the train through the shrouded countryside, 
there dawned on me the vision of what all this meant—what the Y. M. 
C. A. was trying to do for the men down there and in other camps here 
and in France. 
It was making them want to go home. 
T HERE are two factions worrying about the soldier in this country. 
The first thinks that his training will make a brute of him and will 
prove to be only the beginning of a vast militaristic scheme that will 
transform our country into a huge armed camp for generations to come. 
The other faction takes the opposite 
view. They say that all these activities 
and amusements and petty luxuries pro¬ 
vided by the Y. M. C. A., the K. of C. 
and other associations will make softies 
of our soldiers. 
Both are wrong, because both mis¬ 
judge the kind of American who is be¬ 
ing made into a soldier in these training 
camps and because they do not realize 
the kind of war we are in. Above all 
else, they misjudge what these associa¬ 
tions are doing. 
Taking him by and large the average 
American soldier is a high grade type. 
He understands what the fight is for, 
who it is for, and what it should bring 
him when peace comes. Don’t make 
any mistake about that. The men in 
France to-day are there to do a dirty but 
necessary job. They aren’t crazy about 
it. It is a thing that has to be done and 
done well irrespective of what it may 
cost. But when it is over—then they 
are coming back to their homes and 
enjoy the fruits of peace. 
What the Y. M. C. A. and its kin¬ 
dred societies are trying to do is to keep 
this home idea alive. They are trying 
to give the men those creature comforts 
and facilities for which men appreciate 
their homes. They are reminding the 
soldier that someone is thinking for his 
interests, willing to help him and to co¬ 
operate. Because a man finds those same 
activities at work in his home, he wants 
to go to it after the day’s work. Home 
is a place where someone thinks enough 
of you to make you comfortable, keep 
you encouraged and to give you freedom. 
I he Y. M. C. A. is taking the edge 
off this sword of militarism which hangs 
over the world. Its theories are being proven in the trenches of France 
to-day. The happy soldier is the best fighter. The man who has a 
home behind him and the home ideal in his heart has the strength of 
ten. The American soldier has energized the entire field of allied 
activity because of these principles. He has left his home to defend 
it. The Y. M. C. A. brings to his trench and training camp as much 
of his home as it is humanly possible to transport. 
W E have long since learned that it is impossible to gauge this war 
by any previous wars. The cost, destruction and extent of it are 
inconceivable. So are the problems it has brought up, and so will be the 
problems that will come with peace. One of these is the question of 
getting the soldier assimilated back into civilian life. 
Four years of war, four years of trench life and bloodshed and ruth¬ 
less destruction will inevitably leave their mark on the men. For it must 
be remembered that the principles of warfare are diametrically opposed 
to the principles of peace, and the principles of war are being ingrained 
in these men. How can we bring them back to normal living and a 
normal code? How can we quiet bloodthirsty wrath and heal the spirit 
of destruction? These are big problems, and we must think about them 
now. 
Granted that man is very much the creature of environment; granted 
that you love your garden because you have one, and love the atmosphere 
of home because it surrounds you. What can be done to prevent our 
boys over there entirely losing the appreciation of these things? 
There is only one answer. We must follow them with as much of the 
environment of home as is humanly possible. We must prevent them 
from forgetting their homes and the things their homes stand for. We 
must make them want to go back to civilian life, back home, when the 
peace comes. 
That is exactly what the Y. M. C. A. is doing. It is anticipating the 
big problems that will face every community in America when their boys 
return. It is trying to give the lie to the pacifist plea that a wave of 
crime invariably follows a war. It is going to prove that free men may 
rise up to protect their homes and return to them. 
A NEW ANGLE 
ON THE WAR 
The other day we bought a poem from 
an _ unknown contributor. The letter 
which followed and which answered the 
acceptance gives such an unusual and 
fresh view on these sordid times that 
it may help others. Incidentally, it 
explains why House & Garden is still 
devoting a large measure of its space to 
dowers .— Editor. 
A/TANY editors think there is very little need for 
'■* gardens and the things that go with them, these 
days. I find myself putting you on the side of disagree¬ 
ing with them — which, of course, is my side! For after 
all, in your day you have garden things to sell to passers- 
by, just as I have. 
“We are vendors of lovely things which are perhaps 
just temporarily a little out of fashion. But that doesn’t 
mean they aren’t of an enduring nature. For they will 
come back again and again,—and perhaps war will not. 
“Of course, one gives all the time one can to war work. 
I have been everything from a seller of Liberty Bonds to 
a canteen waitress, when not running a house or scrub¬ 
bing the children. But every once in a while one plants 
something, and pulls a weed or two and thinks long 
thoughts in the garden. And then one knows the editors 
are wrong. 
“They’ve only to read the letters from the men in the 
trenches or the poems they have written. ‘Tell us—are 
the larkspurs blue as ever? Do the tobacco plants look 
like blurry butterflies in the moony old dusk after sun¬ 
down? Can there be fields where there are acres and 
acres of clover musical with busy bees?’ So go the let¬ 
ters. And their poems are of how they will walk the still 
fields under the moon and live upon strawberries and 
cream, and come down to a breakfast table where there is 
a big bowl of peonies! The blood-thirsty creatures !— 
Blessings on them! 
“So you see they need the things we deal in, don’t 
they? A. H. C.” 
T HE reason why you readers of 
House & Garden subscribe year 
after year to this magazine is simply be¬ 
cause you are interested in houses and 
gardens—in the betterment or mainte¬ 
nance of the houses and gardens you 
have or the ones you are going to have 
some day. The spirit which directed 
you to these pages is part and parcel of 
the spirit that makes men all over the 
fighting fronts to-day turn into a Y hut, 
sling aside pack and gun, and refresh 
themselves with letters, movies, books, 
boxing bouts, hot coffee, cigarettes or 
whatever luxury, amusement or conve¬ 
nience is available. Since you are for¬ 
tunate enough to possess these things in 
peace and safety, how much more are 
you responsible for seeing that a mea¬ 
sure of them is given the men who are 
making your peace and safety possible ? 
B Y the time this issue reaches your 
hands, you will have read of the 
coming Y. M. C. A. drive. The Y needs 
money to continue and broaden its 
varied activities. 
Yes, another drive. And beyond that 
looms the fourth Liberty Loan and 
Heaven knows what else. But take this 
war a day at a time. Meet each new 
drive as a brand new opportunity to do 
your bit. Give, subscribe, promise— 
but give big and generously. The 
Y. M. C. A. is doing the work you would 
do, were your boy'at home. 
You cannot afford not to support it. 
Why do you want to go home? 
Make a list of the reasons why. 
Then give a dollar, ten dollars, a hun¬ 
dred dollars for each reason. 
