<SPAN name="XL"></SPAN>
<h1 align="center" style="margin-top: 2em;font-variant: small-caps">Chapter XL</h1>
<h2 align="center" style="margin-top: 2em;font-variant: small-caps">A Departure in Battleships</h2>
<p>Dru invited the Strawns to accompany him to Newport
News to witness the launching of a new type of battleship.
It was said to be, and probably was, impenetrable.
Experts who had tested a model built on a large scale
had declared that this invention would render obsolete
every battleship in existence. The principle was this:
Running back from the bow for a distance of 60 feet
only about 4 feet of the hull showed above the water
line, and this part of the deck was concaved and of
the smoothest, hardest steel. Then came several turreted
sections upon which guns were mounted. Around these
turrets ran rims of polished steel, two feet in width
and six inches thick. These rims began four feet from
the water line and ran four feet above the level of
the turret decks. The rims were so nicely adjusted
with ball bearings that the smallest blow would send
them spinning around, therefore a shell could not penetrate
because it would glance off.</p>
<p>Although the trip to the Newport News Dock yards was
made in a Navy hydroaeroplane it took several hours,
and Gloria used the occasion to urge upon Dru the
rectification of some abuses of which she had special
knowledge.</p>
<p>“Philip,” she said, “when I was
proselytizing among the rich, it came to me to include
the employer of women labor. I found but few who dissented
from my statement of facts, but the answer was that
trade conditions, the demand of customers for cheaper
garments and articles, made relief impracticable.
Perhaps their profits are on a narrow basis, Philip;
but the volume of their business is the touchstone
of their success, for how otherwise could so many
become millionaires? Just what the remedy is I do
not know, but I want to give you the facts so that
in recasting the laws you may plan something to alleviate
a grievous wrong.”</p>
<p>“It is strange, Gloria, how often your mind
and mine are caught by the same current, and how they
drift in the same direction. It was only a few days
ago that I picked up one of O. Henry’s books.
In his ‘Unfinished Story’ he tells of
a man who dreamed that he died and was standing with
a crowd of prosperous looking angels before Saint Peter,
when a policeman came up and taking him by the wing
asked: ’Are you with that bunch?’</p>
<p>“‘Who are they?’ asked the man.</p>
<p>“‘Why,’ said the policeman, ’they
are the men who hired working girls and paid ’em
five or six dollars a week to live on. Are you one
of the bunch?’</p>
<p>“‘Not on your immortality,’ answered
the man. ’I’m only the fellow who set
fire to an orphan asylum, and murdered a blind man
for his pennies.’</p>
<p>“Some years ago when I first read that story,
I thought it was humor, now I know it to be pathos.
Nothing, Gloria, will give me greater pleasure than
to try to think out a solution to this problem, and
undertake its application.”</p>
<p>Gloria then gave more fully the conditions governing
female labor. The unsanitary surroundings, the long
hours and the inadequate wage, the statistics of refuge
societies showed, drove an appalling number of women
and girls to the streets.--No matter how hard they
worked they could not earn sufficient to clothe and
feed themselves properly. After a deadly day’s
work, many of them found stimulants of various kinds
the cheapest means of bringing comfort to their weary
bodies and hope-lost souls, and then the next step
was the beginning of the end.</p>
<p>By now they had come to Newport News and the launching
of the battleship was made as Gloria christened her
<i>Columbia.</i> After the ceremonies were over
it became necessary at once to return to Washington,
for at noon of the next day there was to be dedicated
the Colossal Arch of Peace. Ten years before, the
Government had undertaken this work and had slowly
executed it, carrying out the joint conception of the
foremost architect in America and the greatest sculptor
in the world. Strangely enough, the architect was
a son of New England, and the Sculptor was from and
of the South.</p>
<p>Upon one face of the arch were three heroic figures.
Lee on the one side, Grant on the other, with Fame
in the center, holding out a laurel wreath with either
hand to both Grant and Lee. Among the figures clustered
around and below that of Grant, were those of Sherman,
Sheridan, Thomas and Hancock, and among those around
and below that of Lee, were Stonewall Jackson, the
two Johnstons, Forrest, Pickett and Beauregard. Upon
the other face of the arch there was in the center
a heroic figure of Lincoln and gathered around him
on either side were those Statesmen of the North and
South who took part in that titanic civil conflict
that came so near to dividing our Republic.</p>
<p>Below Lincoln’s figure was written: “With
malice towards none, with charity for all.”
Below Grant, was his dying injunction to his fellow
countrymen: “Let us have peace.” But the
silent and courtly Lee left no message that would
fit his gigantic mold.</p>
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