A very interesting point, and one which I certainly hadn't thought of
before. When he says 'fathers', he may well have been including himself as
the father of a lad who had been killed.
He may indeed have been thinking of possible misbehaviour, or undue
influence, which he exerted to get John into the army, but might he not also
have been thinking about his public contribution to war propaganda in
general? As I understand it, the speech which he was shown delivering in 'My
Boy Jack' was a fair sample of what he actually did both before and after
the outbreak of war.
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