These pamphlets, issued not for publication but for the information of
those concerned, are the first frank record of _our national experience_
in connection with the war; and for all your wonderful American resource
and inventiveness, your American energy and wealth, you will certainly,
as prudent men, make full use of our experience in the coming months.
Last year, for _England's Effort_, I tried vainly to collect some of
these very facts and figures, which the War Office was still
jealously--'and no doubt quite rightly--withholding. Now at last they
are available, told by "authority," and one can hardly doubt that each
of these passing days will give them--for America a double significance.
Surpass the story, if you can; we shall bear you no grudge! But up till
now, it remains a chapter unique in the history of war. Many Americans,
as your original letter to me pointed out, had still, last year,
practically no conception of what we were doing and had done. The
majority of our own people, indeed, were in much the same case. While
the great story was still in the making, while the foundations were
still being laid, it was impossible to correct all the annoying
underestimates, all the ignorant or careless judgments, of people who
took a point for the whole.
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