HAPPY NEW YEAR

Once more the cry of "Happy New Year" is heard throughout the land, but its meaning is different than in other years. This is our first war New Year and the happiness we wish our friends is not a personal happiness. We cannot expect the coming year to be one filled with pleasure and merriment, for war means death and no matter how successfully we battle the casualty lists are bound to grow as we take over an ever-increasing part of the Western Front. Yet the happiness which can only be attained through much suffering, for the words happiness and victory are synonymous in the national vocabulary. The year we are just beginning is to be a long-remembered one in the history of the United States, for 1918 is going to show us whether our man-power and industries can successfully be transported to Europe and, more important than that, whether, when they arrive, they will be able to throw enough weight into the balance of the present deadlock to bring about a decisive victory. By spring our troops and ordnance should be ready to go abroad, by summer we should have a huge fleet of fighters with which to supply our Overseas Force, by October or November the first American drive should be on. We cannot expect an immediate advance on Berlin; but few of our troops have had their baptism of fire, and the war game must be learned bit by bit.

Just now we hope to beat the Germans and make the world a sage place in which to live, but we can at present merely hope; by the end of this year we shall know that such a victory is assured.