SAM WELLER AND MR. SNODGRASS
October 2, 1917
Readers of “Pickwick,” if such there still be, will recall the time whenMr.Pickwick was arrested and some of his followers resisted arrest. Sam Wellermade no boasts; but he spoiled the looks of various opponents.Mr.Snodgrass began ostentatiously to take off his coat, announcing in a loud voice that he was going to begin. But he gave no further trouble.
Over eight months have elapsed since Germany went to war with us, and we severed relations with Germany as the first move in our sixty days’ stern foremost drift into, not going to, war, but admitting that we were already at war. During those eight months we have paid the penalty for our criminally complete failure to prepare during the previous three years by not having yet to our credit one single piece of completed achievement. The Administration has unwisely striven to cover this past failure to prepare, and present failure to achieve, by occasional grandiloquent pronunciamentos as to the wonderful things we are going to do in the future; and usually the language used is designed to convince ignorant people that these things have already been done.
One day it is announced that we have discovered an infallible remedy against submarine attacks; and the next day it is announced that the toll by submarines is heavier than during any previous month. We read that the British drive is successful, but stubbornly resisted; that some thousands of prisoners have been taken; and that the losses have been terribly heavy. We read at the same time that we are going to have an immense army of aircraft—some time next spring. And actually there is less boasting over the former statement than over thelatter! We read of the valor and suffering of the French in some heroic assault; and the Administration proudly announces that, after eight months, the drafted men are beginning to assemble in their camps—and omits to mention that they have neither guns nor uniforms, are short of blankets and sweaters.
So far the Sam Wellers who have done things are our allies. Uncle Sam is still complacently engaged in taking off his coat, likeMr.Snodgrass. Under such circumstances it is unwise for him to announce overloudly what he is going to do when at last he begins. Let him wait until he has done it; and meanwhile bend all his energies to doing it, and doing it soon. Brag is a good dog. But Holdfast is a better.