[2][3] Written at the peak of the preparedness movement and copyrighted on February 16, 1917, it was widely regarded as a reply to "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier," the pro-neutrality hit published two years before.

[6] Morris issued the first printing in February, with a cover designed by André De Takacs that billed the song as "The sentiment of every American mother."

[8] It was quickly taken up by other entertainers, including headliners like Elsie Janis; in an arrangement for band it was widely played by John Philip Sousa.

[11] Lange's music is a brisk march song, but with a verse in the parallel minor key that opens with a quotation of "Yankee Doodle."

Even though the song's popularity had diminished by the summer of 1918, the title, the music, and the lyrics were remembered in wartime plays like For Freedom and Mrs. Tubbs Does Her Bit and in postwar stories like Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews' Yellow Butterflies.