By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, May 12, 1945.
“War,” remarked Jimmie Frise, is always followed by a sissy period.”
“Ridiculous,” I asserted.
“The last war,” recalled Jim, “if you remember, was immediately followed by the jazz age. Every war in history has been followed by a sort of reaction, a sort of let-down. You would think the return of the soldiers would result in the whole country being revitalized and masculinized by the reception of so many tough old soldiers back into the community. But it isn’t the fact.”
“I don’t believe it,” I protested.
“Just cast your memory back to the last war,” said Jim. “Don’t you recollect how we slid almost without a ripple back into civilian life? It stands to reason. After five years of army life the boys can’t get too much of the soft things of civilian life. Besides, their womenfolk pamper them. The government, the city fathers, the big business organizations, everybody is making a big fuss about reestablishment. The first thing you know our big, rough, tough soldiers are cuddled right down into civilian life. And you’d never know they had ever left off a firecracker in their lives.
“It won’t be that way this time,” I asserted firmly. “This has been a different war from all others…”1
“Wait and see,” smiled Jim. “Everything is being planned. The skids are being greased. The downy beds are being prepared. The fullest preparations are being made to smother the returning soldier in comfort.”
“After the last war,” I cried, “it was a scandal the way the veteran was treated. Why, don’t you remember the Great War Veterans’ associations2 and the mass meetings to protest the way the poor devils were being mistreated…”
“That was only a handful,” stated Jim. “The vast majority of returned men were skillfully snuggled away, so that the veterans’ associations never could get enough strength to make any real disturbance.”
“The boys will be wiser this time,” I insisted.
“Wait and see,” repeated Jim darkly. “If there is one thing governments fear – and I mean all governments, including city and county councils and provincial governments – it is the return of a solid body of soldiers from a war. Caesar said it was easy to raise an army, but an awful job to disband one. It has been true throughout the centuries. Not only do governments fear the return of a solid block of troops, but business and industry and finance also fear it. Trade unions fear it. Bankers fear it. The whole civilian organization of a nation gets into a panic at the thought of the majority of its first-class manhood returning from war in a solid mass. After a big war, Caesar always used to contrive a series of little wars so that he could disband his army little by little and scatter it to various parts of the empire rather than let it, come home to Rome en masse.”
“Why should they fear the return of the nation’s best manhood?” I demanded indignantly.
“Look,” said Jim. “If you had spent your whole life and a vast amount of money fixing the world up the way you like it, how would you like to see a tidal wave of strong, healthy, hungry, ambitious young men coming sweeping your way? Especially if you felt a sense of immense obligation to those same healthy, hungry, ambitious young men?”
“I think,” I submitted, “that the end of a war ought to be celebrated by a nation-wide epidemic of resignations. There should be set aside, three months after Victory Day, a special day of national resignation, on which all presidents, managers, superintendents and foremen should publicly hand in their resignations to their various businesses. All public men should resign. All mayors, ministers of government, members of parliaments. All directors of businesses. And all these jobs would automatically be given to the logical choice among the returning veterans of the victorious war. Among the generals, brigadiers, colonels and senior officers of the army are men qualified in almost every line of business and every profession to take over. Among the junior officers, sergeant-majors and non-commissioned officers of the three services are young men from practically every kind of business and industry who could step right into the jobs of foreman and superintendent.”
A Conspiracy Afoot
“A fat chance of that,” laughed Jim. “That’s just what I am trying to tell you. It is the fear of all these well-placed and comfortably situated people all over the nation, that constitutes this widespread conspiracy now afoot to bring the soldiers home in dribs and drabs and smother them in kindness and comfort. Not only does nobody want to resign. They want to see 500,000 ex-servicemen come back home and sink into the scheme of things-as-they-are without so much as a ripple.”
“What do you mean by conspiracy?” I inquired sharply.
“Well, all this stuff you read in the papers and hear on the radio,” said Jimmie, “advising people how to handle their boys when they get home. You would think, to listen to these lectures, that all our boys are going to be a little wacky when they get home. Unbalanced. Suffering from their terrible experiences, they are likely to be quite irrational.”
“Well?” I said.
“Don’t you see,” cried Jimmie, “what a lovely scheme that is to discredit the boys when they get home? If they have any disturbing ideas, their families will think they are just a little shell-wacky and soothe them and pay no attention. The madder the boys get, the more their families will try to smother them with kindness and comfort, thinking they are unbalanced.”
“Oho,” I said.
“Suppose the boys,” went on Jim, “have worked out some pretty sound and advanced ideas about what is wrong with the world. They’ve seen Europe. They’ve learned at first hand what a lot of the things that are wrong with the world really consist of. But the minute they try to express these ideas, their families and friends will have been advised to pay no attention – the dear boys are just a little bomb-biffy.”
“What a dirty scheme!” I snorted.
“Just wait,” gloated Jim, “and see the jazz age the real owners of this world will stage for the boys on their return this time. Last war there were no subversive beliefs rampant in the world. You couldn’t call the leaders of the Great War Veterans of the last war bolsheviks. That word hadn’t been popularly introduced in those days. This time there are a lot of subversive ideas loose in the world. So the champions of Things-As-They-Were are pretty worried. They are looking around for names to call the agitators of tomorrow. Bolshevik is all worn out.”
“Jim,” I cried, “we old veterans ought to reorganize and get a big strong association ready to help the boys on their return!”
“Alas,” said Jim, “90 per cent. of us old veterans are long since dug in on the side of Things-As-They-Were. We’re just as worried over the return of all those 500,000 healthy, ambitious young men as anybody else. Rather, than us rebuilding big, powerful, last-war veteran associations, I expect the new returning veterans will simply take over the old associations lock, stock and barrel.”
“Then,” I pointed out, “the boys will have a solid body…”
“Yeah,” sighed Jim, “90 per cent. of them will be snuggled back into civilian life and couldn’t be persuaded to attend a veterans meeting for love or money.”
“What time is it?” I inquired.
“It’s time we were back at the office,” said Jim, glancing at his watch.
So we hustled down the street and boarded the street car.
As has been noticeable lately, there is an ever-increasing number of real soldiers scattered among us. In the downtown streets and in the street cars and buses you can pick out the returned veterans from among the uninitiated soldiers we have been familiar with all these past years.
The veteran soldier has a look all his own. He doesn’t need that colored square patch on his shoulder to identify him. There is all the difference between him and the home-front soldier that there is between a new book and an old book. Or between a brand new squeaky pair of shoes and a lovely old pair of shoes with a sort of deep shine on them. Or between a new hat and an old hat. They are tender to look upon.
Jimmie and I got seats, though the car was crowded. A couple of wounded soldiers got on at Bloor St. coming from the hospital, but we had no chance to give up our seats to them. Ten people were ahead of us. Eight of them were soldiers.
Generous and Gallant
Now, you don’t go offering your seat to a strapping big soldier in apparent perfect health.
But the sight of those other soldiers so promptly jumping up to give their seats to two of the boys with stiff legs sort of warmed us up. We felt generous and gallant.
Down the car aisle came two ladies. They were neither young ladies nor elderly ladies. They were Mrs. In-betweens.
They were all dressed up very smartly, and had those dizzy little handbags that women carry when they are going to a movie rather than shopping. They were obviously out for a time.
And they looked very self-conscious, as only Mrs. In-between can, as they sidled past the several soldiers. For the newly returned soldier can’t seem ever to get enough of an eyeful of his own fair sex here back home.
As the ladies came level with Jimmie and me, they paused in their airy flight. And nobody can float through space quite so noticeably airy as these Mrs. In-betweens, neither young, nor elderly.
I was on the outside. I worked out and stood up. Lifting my hat gallantly, I said:
“Have a seat, lady.”
Jimmie was also squirming out.
The two ladies drew back and stared indignantly at us.
Jimmie and I stood back, to allow the ladies our seat.
They haughtily lifted their shoulders, turned their backs and moved slightly away.
They exchanged a withering glance and their lips curled.
So rather crestfallen, Jimmie and I resumed our seats.
A titter ran through the back end of the car from our fellow-passengers who had seen the incident. And among those in front who turned around to see what was cooking were a big sailor and a large soldier, both of them salty.
At, which moment, one of the two ladies said audibly above the noise of the car:
“I’ve never been so insulted. Two old drips like them…”
The sailor looked back along the car and saw Jimmie and me both blushing. And all our neighbors eyeing us with amusement.
The sailor heaved ho.
“Which done it?” he inquired jovially of the two ladies.
Both ladies flashed a hot and indignant glance down at us.
The sailor winked at the soldier. The two rose up very tall.
The sailor reached over and pushed the stop button on the window frame.
“So,” he said, genially, taking hold of the whole front of my coat, my necktie, collar, Adam’s apple and lapels. “So, this is what goes on while us boys are away to the wars, huh?”
He lifted me up.
There were scattered exclamations from the other passengers around. “What do you mean… how dare…” I said, as I felt myself airborne.
The sailor set me down in front of him and began propelling me towards the door.
“Look here,” I shouted, “what is the meaning…”
But the sailor just put his knee under me and lifted me loose from the hold I had on the upright bars.
I glanced back in dismay, to see if none of the passengers would speak up in my behalf. And I saw the soldier hoisting Jimmie by the necktie.
Ready For the Heave
“A fine state of affairs,” boomed the sailor genially, addressing the car at large, “when two old grandpappies like this can ride around in public insulting ladies.”
“And good-looking bims, too,” said the soldier, cheerily, holding Jimmie at arm’s length.
The car came to a stop. But the sailor was so strange to landlubber’s ways that he did not know you have to stand down on the step to open the door.
He just held me ready, and waited for the door to open.
The soldier right behind had Jim ready, too.
“Listen, sailor,” I said huskily through my neckband up around my ears. “Would you be sport enough to ask those ladies how we insulted them?”
“Get ready, grandpappy,” replied the sailor, waiting for the doors to open.
“Hey,” came a stranger shoving from the rear of the car, “wait a second, boys. These gentlemen didn’t insult anybody….”
At which moment, the motorman, seeing nobody wanted off, started the car.
“Just a minute,” shouted the sailor.
But the car proceeded.
“What’s this?” asked the soldier of the agitated citizen who had come to our aid.
“Listen, all these gentlemen did was offer those ladies their seat,” insisted our champion.
“Go and ask them,” I strangled. “Go on and ask them how we insulted them…”
The sailor let go of me and went back towards the ladies who were the thrilled object of the whole car’s attention.
“You said these birds insulted you, lady,” said the sailor.
“They certainly did,” said they together emphatically.
“What did they say?” asked the sailor grimly.
“They didn’t say anything,” said they. “They offered us their seats. Two old drips like them! Offering us their seats. Us! What do they think we are, taking seats from two old drips old enough to be our grandfathers.”
They perked up their chins and waggled their eyelashes around at the other customers.
“They…. er…. ah….” said the sailor.
The soldier let go of Jimmie.
“Maybe some of you soldiers,” called the sailor generally, “would like to give up your seats to these two ladies?”
Nobody moved. A lot of people laughed.
“Dad,” said the sailor, taking my arm and patting my tie straight and dusting me off, “allow me to return you to your pew.”
He was redder in the face than I. The soldier practically picked Jimmie up in his arms and carried him back to our seat.
Everybody was happy except the two ladies who, after a moment, moved up to the middle door and at the next stop got off, after favoring the whole carload, especially all the soldiers, with haughty and withering glances.
“Dad,” said the big sailor, lingering, “I’m sorry about this. You see, us guys come home full of high ideals. We’re ready to jump right in and do the Lord Galahad act at the first opportunity. When I heard that dame say she was being insulted….”
“It’s okay, son,” I said, “those ladies were at the easy insulted age…”
So for the rest of the run to the office, the sailor and the soldier hung on to the rail of our seat and we talked about this war and the last one, and everybody around leaned and listened with interest.
Editor’s Notes:
- Post-War Veteran Re-Establishment was organized in World War 2, as the Department of Veteran’s Affairs was created in 1944, among other activities to avoid the issues after World War 1. ↩︎
- More information on the Great War Veterans’ Association can be found here. ↩︎
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