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67 12 The “Other Half” and the War. I Visit the Scottish Women’s Hospital. FRIDAY NIGHT, APRIL 12 This evening I went to Woolwich and had a simple supper with that fine man C. H. Grinling, who has given his life, his fortune, everything, for thirty years to slow up building of his neighbors in Woolwich. I could not help thinking , as I sat at his table—with the monk’s brown cloth upon it—and ate the simple meal of beans and onion stew, without wines or coffee or tobacco, what a contrast with that feverish extremist, Bertrand Russell, whom I visited earlier today. Here was a man who lived—and loved his neighbors, loved the black streets of his town, loved the rare little garden behind his house! He has lost even his pride of opinion, is not certain how God works, does not demand that governments do this or that, hates war, but does not oppose it—keeps on loving people and helping them. In my life I have known three saints. I add him to that rare company. He did me the great favor of taking me to a meeting of working men, heads of the local Labour Party, who were discussing plans for the coming Labour campaign and the support of their local Labour paper, The Pioneer, which does not pay its way and has to be supported by the hardwrung collections from the working men themselves. Solid, sober, slow men, these were, smoking their pipes; working hard all day; but living. What a sense of reality they gave as they sat there all through the long evening, discussing their infinitely small affairs and practicing the infinitely difficult art of living together—practicing self-government. They said next to nothing about the war. One had lost a son, and then a brother, and so on; but there was not one of them there who did not believe that it must go on to the end because it was right. Not one but believed that the British would win in the end. How distant, indeed, from this reality seemed the feverish and unreal convulsions of the Bertrand Russells. 68 | Reporting on Public Opinion in Great Britain, France, and Italy APRIL 13 I had lunch with Thomas Burke, the odd, slim, slight, dry little author of Limehouse Nights, a penetrating if somewhat gruesome book on the dregs of East London life. He came up in an orphan asylum, worked as an errand boy and clerk, got into a secondhand bookstore and discovered Stephen Crane. “Everything I am,” said he, “I owe to Stephen Crane.” He gave me (what I have wanted) direct testimony regarding the reaction toward the war of the great silent lower masses of London. A conservative people, these—the conservatism of poverty—driven about upon the surface by a diversity of newspaper voices, but tough underneath and possessed with the obstinate belief that the British cannot be beaten—never have been, and cannot be. They don’t like the war, hate it, even suffered by it, but have no notion of stopping until the Germans are beaten. It is not among them that the unrest exists; they are too poor ever to revolt. I have wanted to know, also, something of the attitude of the farmers of England, so I went today to a meeting of a kind of agricultural congress (National Allotment Association) at Essex Hall, with much anti-land monopoly talk and many expressions of lack of confidence in the present ministry. The old system of land tenure in England is plainly doomed and with it will go, presently, the old aristocracy. These people have got it firmly into their slow brains that land is for those who can use it and to grow food upon, not to play with. Even though the meeting did not give me the exact information I wanted, I found it interesting. To dinner in Hampstead—I walked out, four miles—with the agreeable Muirheads. A lively Polish girl and a fine Russian woman were guests; also a typical British government official who wore a monocle. Much good talk about the present crisis, both military and political. Everyone down on the Lloyd George government, but as usual, no one wanting to change it or daring to. No one is in view to take George’s place. It was one o’clock in the morning when I got home. Tired. SUNDAY, APRIL 14 Busy...

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