-FRONTIERS- 
 OF FREEDOM 
 
 NEWTON D. BAKER.-
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 NEWTON D. BAKER
 
 FRONTIERS o/FREEDOM 
 
 BY 
 NEWTON D. BAKER 
 
 NEW ^Sr YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 191$. 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 PREFACE 
 
 As Mr. Dooley somewhere remarks, there is 
 a great difference between a "Sicretary of War" 
 and a "Sicretary of A War." 
 
 The first, to be sure, is in days of peace, the 
 Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds 
 in the District of Columbia and the President of 
 the Panama Railroad Company; he is Chairman 
 of the National Forest Reservation Commission 
 and Superintendent of Cleaning and Repairing 
 the Statue of Liberty; he is administrator of 
 laws relating to National Cemeteries and over- 
 seer of bridge construction on navigable streams ; 
 he has a multitude of other pastoral functions 
 that have not the slightest relationship to the 
 great god Mars. 
 
 But the second the war-time Secretary 
 fights a Nation's battles; he hears its censure 
 and sometimes its praise; he is the subject of 
 smoking-car debate and Congressional inquiry. 
 Within the bounds of No Man's Land, a people 
 to-day shut off from civilization by the ingrained 
 iniquity of its rulers, seeks to fathom his plans 
 and measure his potentialities. In Everyman's 
 W 
 
 2047294
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1911. 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 PREFACE 
 
 As Mr. Dooley somewhere remarks, there is 
 a great difference between a "Sicretary of War" 
 and a "Sicretary of A War." 
 
 The first, to be sure, is in days of peace, the 
 Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds 
 in the District of Columbia and the President of 
 the Panama Railroad Company; he is Chairman 
 of the National Forest Reservation Commission 
 and Superintendent of Cleaning and Repairing 
 the Statue of Liberty; he is administrator of 
 laws relating to National Cemeteries and over- 
 seer of bridge construction on navigable streams ; 
 he has a multitude of other pastoral functions 
 that have not the slightest relationship to the 
 great god Mars. 
 
 But the second the war-time Secretary 
 fights a Nation's battles; he hears its censure 
 and sometimes its praise; he is the subject of 
 smoking-car debate and Congressional inquiry. 
 Within the bounds of No Man's Land, a people 
 to-day shut off from civilization by the ingrained 
 iniquity of its rulers, seeks to fathom his plans 
 and measure his potentialities. In Everyman's 
 [v] 
 
 204729*
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Land he reaches into myriad homes ; and even as 
 she wipes away her farewell tear each sweetheart 
 and mother and wife wonders how he will care 
 for her boy. 
 
 What, then, does he say and think while the 
 world is being made over? What are the war- 
 time utterances of our Secretary of War? The 
 record has been meager. Secretary Baker 
 speaks always extemporaneously ; there is neither 
 manuscript nor notes. The comments here 
 brought together had to be gathered from more 
 or less fragmentary reports recorded, in most 
 instances, without his knowledge. Indeed, they 
 were seen by him first when these pages were 
 "galleys." 
 
 For those who have known him and, knowing 
 him, have loved him with a great love ; for those 
 who have seen him put the fine impress of his 
 soul into a Nation's armies ; for those who have 
 watched him, with the Commander-in-Chief, 
 make this war not the military venture of a class, 
 but the crusade of a people; for those, however 
 humble, who have been privileged to work with 
 him, who have seen him shun the market places, 
 and, in the silent watches, who have learned from 
 his consecration the greatness of the Cause for 
 those, these chapters need no apology. For the 
 others, these remarks are put into this more per- 
 manent form not alone because they are the
 
 PREFACE 
 
 expressions albeit impromptu of the head of 
 the military establishment of a great Republic, 
 but because they seem to speak spontaneously 
 the language of a liberalism that even, now is 
 coming into its own. 
 
 A. HAYES 
 
 [vii]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The addresses herein printed were delivered 
 extemporaneously and without any other prep- 
 aration than constant occupation upon the sub- 
 jects with which they deal. Because they are the 
 spontaneous reflections of the Secretary of War 
 upon the social, economic and personal aspect 
 of war waged by democracy and waged for very 
 great issues of right, my friend and Secretary, 
 Mr. Ralph A. Hayes, deemed me worthy of so 
 much preservation as nowadays falls to one 
 book more upon the groaning and bulging shelves 
 of libraries. Just how he managed to recover as 
 much as he has I don't know, though the ener- 
 getic gentlemen who write for the daily press 
 have doubtless been his chief source of supply; so 
 if I should be grateful for being preserved, it 
 must be to him and to them. If any of these ad- 
 dresses appear to have the merit of well-chosen 
 words, I must modestly, but frankly, give the 
 credit again to Mr. Hayes and to Dr. F. P. 
 Keppel, who divides everybody's labors in the 
 War Department and still finds time to read 
 the copies of proofs, which, as I wrote this, I 
 myself have not yet been permitted to see. But 
 I hope these preservers have found in their 
 [ix]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 search the sentences I have sought to form ex- 
 pressive of the meaning of the sacrifice which 
 the world is now making, and therefore the es- 
 sential glory of it all. 
 
 It would be an unbearable thing if this great 
 fire were found to have no purifying quality. I 
 am well aware that the theory of compensation 
 can be pressed too far and that one has to take 
 a long look into a very uncertain and undeter- 
 mined future even to imagine a world recon- 
 stituted upon sufficiently just and beautiful lines 
 to compensate for the agony of this trial to the 
 human race. And yet there are evidences of 
 reassurance on many hands. Our country has 
 responded to this call without passion or evil 
 sentiment, but with its head high and its purposes 
 written on its heart, as they have been wonder- 
 fully formulated into words by the President. It 
 is not without significance that, although we 
 have been in this war ten months, there has not 
 yet appeared in any newspaper or magazine, nor 
 has any public speaker ever suggested that we 
 should look for advantage or seek to balance our 
 loss account by the attainment of any selfish pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Meantime the people of our country have lost 
 some sense of distinction which was growing 
 up among us. The democracy of the new mili- 
 tary army and of the new industrial army 
 is too large to be obscured, and accepting de- 
 mocracy as "a rule of action rather than social 
 
 M
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 philosophy," our common effort in this great un- 
 dertaking seems to promise future common ef- 
 forts for purposes just as high in the reconstruc- 
 tion of our social and economic organization. 
 
 Some one has said that America will come out 
 of this war more a nation than she has ever 
 been. That is true; no more an old-fash- 
 ioned nation with nationalistic objects and dy- 
 nastic ambition, but a new-fashioned nation, 
 with sounder attitude toward itself. This new 
 nation will have learned to view in better propor- 
 tion the importance of sound daily living and of 
 community effort, and perhaps it is not too much 
 to hope that the people of America, in common 
 with the people of the other belligerent countries, 
 will have a firm and fruitful conviction, when the 
 war is over, that the glory of nations does not lie 
 in material things at all, except as they are neces- 
 sary to condition the development of the finest 
 freedom and the best opportunities for spiritual 
 growth among their people. 
 
 NEWTON D. BAKER 
 
 WASHINGTON, 
 
 FEBRUARY, 26, 1918.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SINGERS OF SONGS 15 
 
 First National Community Song Day, Washington, 
 December 9, 1917 
 
 THE TASK or THE COLLEGES 22 
 
 Gathering of College Presidents, Washington, 
 May 5, 1917 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF TRADE PUBLICATIONS ... 31 
 Conference of Trade Publication Editors, Wash- 
 ington, May 25, 1917 
 
 ON THE EVENING OF REGISTRATION DAY ... 37 
 Georgetown Citizens' Association, Washington, 
 June 5, 1917 
 
 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE IN THE NEW WORLD . . 42 
 Georgetown University Commencement, Wash- 
 ington, June n, 1917 
 
 THE INDEPENDENCE OF 1776 AND THE LIBERTY OF 
 
 1917 ' So 
 
 Independence Day, New York 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ENGINEERS 55 
 
 Society for the Promotion of Engineering Educa- 
 tion, Washington, July 7, 1917 
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF AN OFFICER OF THE ARMY 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES 61 
 
 Officers' Training Camp, Fort Myer, Virginia, 
 August 13, 1917 
 
 [xiii]
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LABOR'S DIGNITY AND ITS DUTY 66 
 
 Labor Day, Newport News, Virginia, 1917 
 
 THE MARCH TOWARD LIBERTY 76 
 
 Liberty Loan Meeting, Washington, October 8, 
 1917 
 
 INVISIBLE ARMOR 84 
 
 War Camp Recreation Conference, Washington, 
 October 23, 1917 
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 98 
 
 Mass Meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, October 17, 1917 
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 116 
 
 Tent Meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, October 17, 1917 
 
 THE PRICE OF PEACE 133 
 
 Boston City Club, October 25, 1917 
 
 THE REPUBLIC AS EMPLOYER 149 
 
 National Consumers' League, Baltimore, Md., 
 November 14, 1917 
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE MELTING POT 162 
 
 Convention of Police Chiefs, Washington, Decem- 
 ber 4, 1917 
 
 HONOR AMONG NATIONS 173 
 
 State Council of Defense, Richmond, Virginia, 
 December 5, 1917 
 
 THE EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY 189 
 
 New York Southern Society, December 12, 1917 
 
 THE NEW FREEDOM AND THE NEWER DEMOCRACY . 204 
 Woman Suffrage Association, Washington, Decem- 
 ber 14, 1917
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THRICE-ARMED AMERICA 218 
 
 Chautauqua Representatives, Washington, Janu- 
 ary 2, 1918 
 
 EXPRESSION VERSUS SUPPRESSION 225 
 
 National Social Hygiene Association, Washington, 
 D.C., January 31, 1918 
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR .... 237 
 Before the Senate Military Affairs Committee, 
 January 28, 1918 
 
 WITH THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN 
 
 FRANCE ... . . 328 
 
 To the Engineers, March 14, 1918 
 
 To the Officers of the General Staff, March 18, 1918 
 
 To the Rainbow Division, March 20, 1918 
 
 [xv]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM
 
 FRONTIERS OF 
 FREEDOM 
 
 THE SINGERS OF SONGS 
 
 Our adversary began a -war upon mankind with a song 
 of hate. It came like a childish, impotent expression of 
 feeble purpose, but it blistered the souls of people who 
 sang it. We made another choice. We sing no songs of 
 conquest; we sing the songs that express our love of 
 country, that daily lead us to justice; we sing the songs 
 of charity and helpfulness. 
 
 When this war is over I can imagine that upon many a 
 hillside in France, in Italy, in Great Britain, upon a sum- 
 mer's evening, there will be heard full-throated from the 
 hearts of the people of those countries, America's pa- 
 triotic songs being sung in memory of these days of glori- 
 ous cooperation. 
 
 FIRST NATIONAL COMMUNITY SONG DAY, 
 WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 9, 1917. 
 
 ANDREW FLETCHER, I think it was, 
 wrote that he once knew a very wise man 
 who said that if he might write the ballads of his 
 people he cared not who wrote their laws. And 
 if we examine the history of people we find their 
 most impressive moods as well as their heroic 
 deeds preserved to national memory by having 
 been recorded in song. I need perhaps to refer 
 [15]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 to but one as an illustration. I do not know 
 whether history records it but I imagine that the 
 song of Deborah was sung by the people of Israel 
 until the days of the Maccabees, for it embodied 
 the highest inspiration, not only of the military 
 and moral ideals of a great people ; it was the top 
 pitch of their national enthusiasm. 
 
 In our ordinary daily life the spur of competi- 
 tion is enough to stir individuals to effort and the 
 best that each individual can bring forth under 
 the influence of that spirit seems to have been 
 productive of the highest development of our civ- 
 ilization. But sometimes we come to a place 
 where everybody must sink his own personality, 
 must stop competitive strife, and must subordi- 
 nate the personal purpose to the common pur- 
 pose, where the individual success of any one 
 must be forgotten in the common good of all, 
 and then we have what in music is called the 
 chorus. It is only when each singer in the chorus 
 sings his or her part in due subordination to the 
 artistic whole, it is only when we have perfect 
 cooperation and perfect self-forgetfulness on the 
 part of the singer, that we have complete har- 
 mony. So it is in national effort of this kind. 
 We are no longer at the place where we are free 
 to pursue our little personal and selfish aims. 
 There may be some of us who are not making 
 direct personal contribution of sons, husbands, 
 brothers, in the armed forces of the Nation, but 
 there are none of us who are not having our 
 [16]
 
 THE SINGERS OF SONGS 
 
 hearts subjected to the same draft as our neigh- 
 bors' hearts, and when a soldier goes to the front, 
 whether he is my brother or son or not, my heart 
 goes out with him. Men we never heard of, men 
 whose families we have never known, may be- 
 come in these moments of consecrated self-sacri- 
 fice our heroes. 
 
 There is a process of affectionate adoption go- 
 ing on throughout the whole body of the people; 
 there is a call upon us ; we are rendered incapable 
 of little and petty and selfish and separate influ- 
 ences and interests; and all that constituted the 
 support of our daily life is submerged now under 
 the spur of a national purpose inspired by a na- 
 tional idea. One of the great goods of war 
 perhaps is that it enables people to discover in 
 themselves unsuspected capacities; it enables us 
 to bring to the surface latent superiorities of 
 which we had no previous knowledge. Some- 
 how or another, in the fiery trial of war, one 
 who was not regarded as promising develops 
 into a great, self-sacrificing, real representative 
 of the heart and soul of the Nation. And nations 
 are like people. We toddle along in our infancy 
 as a nation and cultivate grain in order to live; 
 and after a while we begin to lay down our law; 
 and then awakening to the full strength of our 
 capacity, we apply steam and electricity to me- 
 chanical arts. Then war comes great war 
 against a great adversary ; and when ships begin 
 to leave for France and carry that new Army of 
 [17]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 ours, it is only then that we see, as it were, rising 
 out of the sea, the very soul of the nation itself. 
 
 Songs are used for different things. Our ad- 
 versary began a war upon mankind with a song 
 of hate. It came like a childish, impotent ex- 
 pression of feeble purpose, but it blistered the 
 souls of people who sang it. We have chosen 
 otherwise. We are singing no song of conquest, 
 we are singing the songs that express our love 
 of our own country, we are singing the hymns 
 that daily lead us to justice, we are singing the 
 songs of charity and helpfulness. We have done 
 what we have with a proper and helpful devel- 
 opment of those powers which the Almighty has 
 granted us. 
 
 I remember that I once heard (these things 
 come back like pages from a scrap-book) how 
 some ancient king planned to send his army 
 against an adversary, and in advance he sent an 
 ambassador or messenger; and the ambassador 
 came back and said : "Your majesty, those peo- 
 ple cannot be overcome ! They sing as they fight." 
 Our Army in France will sing because of the help- 
 fulness of song. There are emotions which find 
 no other mode of expression. They will sing be- 
 cause their cause is just and they know it. They 
 will sing because they are sons of a free people ; 
 they will sing because in their own land doctrines 
 devised long ago have proved so fruitful and 
 fructifying that they have spread a benign in- 
 [18]
 
 THE SINGERS OF SONGS 
 
 fluence over the whole world and are an en- 
 lightenment to people everywhere. They will sing 
 because victory must come to men who represent 
 such a cause, and we at home will sing meantime 
 with all the confidence and pride that people can 
 have in our Army. We know that whatever the 
 struggle and whatever the cost, they will come 
 back to us with the fruits of victory and that 
 when we reach out and pick those fruits, they 
 will not wither in our hands as things we ought 
 not to have, but they will be for a higher life and 
 better uses for the sons and daughters of men 
 everywhere. 
 
 Every now and then in the great movements 
 of the world's affairs, we discover evidences of 
 design and plan almost like the last act of a tan- 
 gled and intricate play. Sometimes in a novel, 
 in the first chapter, a mysterious figure seems to 
 be present and when the final evolution of the 
 thing comes about and all of the complications 
 are to be swept away, this mysterious character 
 appears in the center of the stage, and we see the 
 hero. In 1776 a Republic was established over 
 here. There never had been such a one before, 
 it was like the mysterious character in the 
 story, separated by miles of ocean from the 
 civilized portion of the world; and after a while 
 things came to be invented, newspapers, cables 
 and wireless, which served to make closer ties be- 
 tween the old and new worlds, and still there 
 seemed to be no explanation for this first charac- 
 
 [19]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 ter that appeared. Now we are at the end of the 
 book, and the explanation is manifest, the peo- 
 ples of Europe who have a situation which is 
 truly admirable, which is built upon justice, upon 
 respect for traditions, upon considerations of re- 
 spect for humanity, those peoples have been at 
 death grips with the adversary, the enemy of 
 all that is just and humane. And now comes the 
 character from the first chapter of the book, the 
 Republic established in 1776, to join the strength 
 of this young giant with the vigor of a splendid 
 spirit, to bring the inexhaustible materials of our 
 great continent, to bring the splendid spiritual 
 love of liberty, in order that this volume of the 
 book of the world will close with the mystery ex- 
 plained, the trouble settled, the problem solved, 
 and a reign of justice inaugurated. 
 
 We sing songs in many languages, but all of 
 them on the same theme. When this war is 
 over, I can imagine that upon many a hillside in 
 France, in Italy, in Great Britain, upon a sum- 
 mer's evening, there will be heard full-throated 
 from the hearts of the people of those countries 
 America's patriotic songs sung in memory of 
 these days of glorious cooperation. When our 
 boys come back from France and have ac- 
 complished the mission which they are to accom- 
 plish there, our schools, our choral societies, will 
 sing, not as an exhibition of a type of music, but 
 as expressive of a great experience, patriotic 
 [20]
 
 THE SINGERS OF SONGS 
 
 songs of these countries with which we are now 
 allied. 
 
 I trust that this movement for a widespread 
 growth of the spirit of song will meet with in- 
 creasing success and that the songs sung will be 
 worthy of this people who in their hours ef 
 preparation are already so splendid and in their 
 cooperation abroad will furnish an incomparable 
 demonstration of the truth of that maxim that 
 in war morale is to force as three to one.
 
 THE TASK OF THE COLLEGES 
 
 We are in a great enterprise. The world must have 
 peace. We have discovered, at the end of a long and 
 patient experience, that the wo.'ld can not be rescued 
 from destruction and slaughter except by^ the major exer- 
 cise of the martial forces of this Republic. 
 
 GATHERING OF COLLEGE PRESIDENTS, CONTI- 
 NENTAL HALL, WASHINGTON, MAY 5, 1917. 
 
 THE War Department is especially anxious 
 not to disturb unduly the educational sys- 
 tems of the country. I have had within the last 
 two or three weeks a very large number of more 
 or less intricate and difficult questions arising in 
 the colleges, and no doubt each of you has had 
 to face those questions probably in more acute 
 form than I. When the call to national service 
 arose, spirited young men everywhere of course 
 wanted to be employed in a patriotic way, and I 
 suppose there is scarcely a boy in any college in 
 the country who has not very anxiously addressed 
 to himself the question: "What can I do?" A 
 number of college presidents have done me the 
 honor of asking me the answer to that ques- 
 tion, and I have had to confess each time 
 that I thought there was no general answer ; that 
 [22]
 
 THE TASK OF THE COLLEGES 
 
 even in those cases where it would be obviously 
 better for a boy to stay at college and prepare 
 for later and fuller usefulness, if the boy in so 
 doing acquired a low view of his own courage 
 and felt that he was electing the less worthy 
 course, the effect on the boy himself of that state 
 of mind probably was so prejudicial that it ought 
 not to be encouraged. 
 
 I think this, though, is more or less clear to 
 those of us who look at it from the outside : First, 
 that the country needs officers. There is no 
 preference of college men for officers, but be- 
 cause a man has had academic opportunities he 
 has to start with, presumptively at least, a better 
 foundation upon which to build the learning 
 which an officer must have; and therefore to a 
 very substantial extent the country desires its 
 college graduates and its college-bred men of 
 suitable age in the training camps in order that 
 they may be rapidly matured into officers and 
 used in the training of the new forces. 
 
 To the extent that the men in college are phys- 
 ically disqualified, or to the extent that they are 
 too young to meet the requirements of the De- 
 partment, it seems quite clear that in the present 
 state of the emergency their major usefulness 
 lies in remaining in the college, going forward 
 with their academic work; and the colleges can, 
 I think, lend some color of patriotic endeavor to 
 their so doing by such simple modifications of 
 their courses and curricula as will show the boys 
 [23]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 who stay that they are being directly equipped 
 for subsequent usefulness if the emergency lasts 
 until their call comes. 
 
 A number of questions have arisen with regard 
 to the possibility of the establishment of junior 
 training camp or training corps divisions in col- 
 leges. Pretty nearly every college in this coun- 
 try, when the national emergency arose, applied 
 for training camp or training corps facilities. In 
 some, such corps had already been established; 
 and there was an immediate and so far as I know 
 an almost unanimous demand on the part of the 
 colleges of the country in which such corps had 
 not been established for their establishment. 
 That presented to the War Department several 
 difficult problems which we have undertaken to 
 solve, and I trust we have solved them wisely, 
 though nobody could be more sensible than I am 
 that our solution has not been satisfactory in all 
 instances. 
 
 The problem presented by those applications 
 was this: That we are not now dealing with an 
 Army of two or three hundred thousand men. 
 We are about to deal with an Army of a million 
 and a half men ; and the mills and manufactories 
 in this country which are equipped and expe- 
 rienced in making army supplies and equipment 
 are too few to turn out the supplies necessary for 
 this larger force. 
 
 We therefore have this added burden that in- 
 stead of going out into a customary market to 
 [24]
 
 THE TASK OF THE COLLEGES 
 
 buy usual supplies, we must go into an unfamiliar 
 market, go clear back to the raw material in all 
 likelihood, and persuade persons, who have not 
 hitherto manufactured the sort of things we de- 
 sire to have, to divert their energies from their 
 normal domestic production into the production 
 necessary for the War Department. That of 
 course presented to us the problem of where we 
 are going to get the necessary equipment of uni- 
 forms, clothing, and other sorts of supplies 
 which this large Army will need; and it necessi- 
 tates a very parsimonious and husbanding treat- 
 ment of such supplies as we have or which are 
 in immediate prospect. 
 
 Therefore, on that ground, it seems wise not to 
 encourage the present formation of junior corps 
 which would be outside of the emergency forces 
 which it is our first duty to provide and equip, 
 because equipping such junior corps would to 
 that extent delay and diminish the quantity of 
 supplies and equipment available to the actual 
 forces which are first to go into training. 
 
 The second aspect of this matter is with re- 
 gard to officers for training purposes. We need 
 something like 20,000 additional officers for the 
 training of the first increment of 500,000 men to 
 be secured under the selective process. The 
 training camps, it is hoped, will give us a very 
 substantial number of those. Additional offi- 
 cers' training camps later on may be necessary 
 so that we can secure enough officers. It must be 
 [25]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 an exceedingly intensive process ; in other words, 
 there must be a very great deal of individual at- 
 tention paid to these young men who in three 
 months are to acquire what ordinarily three 
 years is none too much to acquire well ; and there- 
 fore the Army is going, to some extent at least, 
 to model its treatment of the problem upon the 
 tutorial system with which colleges are so fa- 
 miliar, and, as far as it can, give individual 
 treatment to the young men in these training 
 corps. That will necessitate a very rigid devo- 
 tion of the officers available for training pur- 
 poses to these training camps, and makes it im- 
 possible for us to disperse our officer talent and 
 energy by the establishment of these junior corps 
 widespread over the country, since these camps 
 would, of course, require competent officers to 
 make them succeed. 
 
 It was then suggested that there perhaps 
 might be a few such junior camps established at 
 certain places, and that the college men from 
 other colleges might be centered into a few col- 
 leges one, perhaps, in each training district 
 and taught in those places without too great a 
 draft upon our officer training material. I discov- 
 ered that the effect of such a process would 
 be to draft off, from all of the colleges at which 
 such corps were not established, their students 
 into the colleges where such corps were 
 established; and the effect of that seems to me 
 to threaten a very profound disorganization of 
 [26]
 
 THE TASK OF THE COLLEGES 
 
 the entire academic system of the country. It 
 seems to me that if there were forty colleges in 
 a district, and at only one of those colleges was 
 military training available, the other thirty-nine 
 would find themselves, temporarily at any rate, 
 losing a great part of their student body. The boys 
 would all want to go to the one at which this in- 
 struction was possible, and then perhaps forming 
 friendships and alliances there, being imbued with 
 the military spirit, they would return reluctantly 
 if at all to the colleges of their normal affilia- 
 tion; and so it seemed to me that such a plan 
 might prove to be destructive of the repose which 
 it is everybody's desire to keep as far as possible 
 in the common life of the country during this 
 time of emergency. 
 
 The policy of the Department, therefore, has 
 been to maintain such corps in tho_e colleges 
 where they have been established prior to this 
 emergency, but only so long as the officers there 
 detailed can be spared from the more important 
 duty of training the actual forces which are being 
 fitted for actual service. 
 
 In a democracy, the calling together of the 
 forces of the Nation for so unfamiliar a task as 
 war necessarily produces a profound dislocation 
 of practically every art and every association 
 which in normal times is characteristic of the 
 Nation's life. The college presidents, people who 
 are connected with the institutions of higher 
 learning, have a peculiar opportunity to exercise 
 [27]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 a steadying and restraining influence. I think 
 we ought all to adopt as the daily maxim of 
 our talk and our activity that the country shall 
 make every sacrifice necessary, shall break up 
 every alliance, if necessary, to bring our force 
 to bear in the most effective way ; but at the same 
 time I think that we ought to preserve the country 
 for the common good against every unnecessary 
 dislocation and against every unnecessary abridg- 
 ment of the processes of our common life. 
 
 I do not know any source from which that 
 sort of cool, helpful thinking can emanate with 
 as much effect as from the college presidents of 
 this country. We do not want to chill enthu- 
 siasm. We want to preserve enthusiasm and cul- 
 tivate it and use it ; but we do want to be discrim- 
 inatingin our enthusiasm, and prevent people from 
 getting th^ notion that they are not helping the 
 country unless they do something different, which 
 very often is not the case at all. The largest 
 usefulness may come from doing the same thing 
 just continuing to do it. Now, it is not un- 
 natural that there should be these ebullitions of 
 feeling, this desire to change occupation as a 
 badge of changed service and devotion to ideals ; 
 but you gentlemen can exercise a very steadying 
 influence in that regard. 
 
 One other thought : I believe everybody in this 
 
 country has been delighted at the freedom of 
 
 our country from ill-considered and impulsive 
 
 action in connection with this great undertaking. 
 
 [28]
 
 THE TASK OF THE COLLEGES 
 
 I think everybody in this country has been pleased 
 at the good feeling which our people have main- 
 tained toward one another, the freedom of the 
 country from internal disturbance and embit- 
 tered difference of opinion. I hope that will 
 continue; I think it will continue; and yet in a 
 country made up as ours is, it is very easy to 
 imagine difficulty arising from an indiscretion 
 or from an over-zealous state of mind. I can 
 easily imagine a man whose affiliations, for in- 
 stance, would be with a German ancestry and 
 German traditions, making an indiscreet remark 
 and arousing a very great deal of resentment, 
 and following this a heady community impulse 
 not only against him and his remark, but gen- 
 eralized against all persons who bore the same 
 kind of name or the same sort of traditional 
 affiliation. And I can easily imagine a com- 
 munity getting itself worked up into a pretty 
 feverish state of opinion, and feeling that it ought 
 to resent as disloyal what was perhaps only a 
 thoughtless and unmeant indiscretion. 
 
 Now, we are at the beginning of this. We are 
 going to have losses on the sea; we are going to 
 have losses in battle; our communities are going 
 to be subjected to the rigid discipline of multi- 
 plied personal griefs scattered all through the 
 community, and we are going to search the cause 
 of those back to their foundation, and our feel- 
 ings are going to be torn and our nerves made 
 raw. This is the time for physicians of public 
 ftfrl
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 opinion to exercise a curative impulse. You 
 gentlemen and the young men who are in your 
 colleges, who go to their homes from your col- 
 leges and write to their homes from your col- 
 leges, making up thus a very large part of the di- 
 rection of public opinion, you can exercise a cura- 
 tive influence by preaching the doctrine of toler- 
 ance, by exemplifying the fact that it is not neces- 
 sary for a nation like the United States, which is 
 fighting for the vindication of a great ideal, to 
 discolor its purpose by hatreds or by the enter- 
 tainment of any unworthy emotion. 
 
 We are in a great enterprise, gentlemen. The 
 world must have peace. The destruction of life 
 and property which is now going on in the world 
 is intolerable. We have at the end of a long and 
 patient experience discovered that the world 
 cannot be rescued from slaughter and destruc- 
 tion by any other process than a major exercise 
 of the great martial force of this Republic; but 
 we ought never to lose sight of the fact that the 
 purpose of this war is not aggression, is not 
 punishment; it is not inspired by resentments 
 nor fed by ambitions, but it is loyalty to an ideal, 
 and that ideal is freeing the world from an im- 
 possible international philosophy, a philosophy 
 in which, if it should prevail, no freedom is left 
 or is safe. 
 
 [30]
 
 THE FUNCTION OF TRADE PUBLICA- 
 TIONS 
 
 A declaration of war is always a declaration of an 
 open season for critics; and that is rather fortunate. 
 
 CONFERENCE OF TRADE PUBLICATION EDITORS, 
 WASHINGTON, MAY 25, 1917. 
 
 WE have devoted an enormous part of the 
 intellectual energy and the physical 
 strength of mankind to the conquest of the forces 
 and the resources of nature. We have reached 
 literally into the clouds and captured the great- 
 est servant mankind ever had and brought him 
 down and turned him to driving our dynamos. 
 We have reached down into the very center of 
 the earth and taken up portions of the earth it- 
 self, and, by processes which alchemy would have 
 regarded as miraculous, have used the bony 
 structure of the earth as a fuel for the produc- 
 tion of energy to serve us in physical ways. We 
 have taken the brain of man and put it on the 
 anvil of invention and brought out all manner 
 of physical and mechanical contrivances, inven- 
 tions, aids, and appliances, easing the burden of 
 doing the physical work of the world. And yet, 
 in the very nature of that process of consuming 
 [31]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 the earth and converting it into new forms and 
 agencies for service and helpfulness, the ques- 
 tion is not improper as to whether we have not 
 created a bigger servant than we can manage. 
 
 I imagine that the inspiration of the impossi- 
 ble political philosophy which at present seems 
 to govern our adversary is born of industrialism. 
 I suspect that the motive of the pan-German 
 movement, the Berlin-Bagdad movement, I sus- 
 pect that practically all of the major things that 
 have been involved in that diplomacy of Middle 
 Europe for the past twenty-five or thirty years 
 are based upon industrial aspirations and ambi- 
 tions, and if we look at it with perfect calmness, 
 I think we can say, in an uncritical or at least 
 in an unblaming spirit, that the German ruling 
 mind has become so obsessed with the grandeur 
 of industrial supremacy that it has completely 
 lost sense of the existence of moral standards. 
 
 You and I know many Germans. Many of 
 them have been our personal acquaintances and 
 our friends, and a more gentle and more neigh- 
 borly and more kindly and orderly set of ac- 
 quaintances none of us ever had. It is not in 
 their nature to spread poisoned candy and to 
 poison wells, and to commit assassinations as a 
 process of war upon the sea; it is no more a part 
 of their nature than of anybody's else to resort 
 to barbarity ; but when the great obsession comes, 
 after the nervous energies of a people have been 
 devoted for a continuous number of years to the 
 [32]
 
 THE FUNCTION OF TRADE PUBLICATIONS 
 
 idea of mechanical and industrial supremacy, 
 and the moral balance has been lost or withdrawn, 
 then such results as we now see come to pass. 
 
 Now, why is that? It is because war has be- 
 come a thing of industry and commerce and busi- 
 ness. It is no longer Samson with his shield and 
 spear and sword, and David with his sling; it is 
 no longer selected parties representing nations 
 as champions, and in physical conflict one with 
 the other; but it is the conflict of smokestacks 
 now, it is the combat of the driving wheel and 
 of the engine, and the nation or group of nations 
 in a modern war which is to prevail is the one 
 which will best be able to coordinate and mar- 
 shal its material, industrial, and commercial 
 strength against the combination which may be 
 opposed to it. 
 
 The very skies are filled with warriors, and the 
 underseas as well. No small part of the me- 
 chanical progress which has been made by man- 
 kind has been drafted into the making of what 
 is called the lethal weapon of war, and here in 
 Washington we are undertaking now to marshal 
 the genius and the vitality and the courage of a 
 great peace-loving people, in order that they may 
 throw their preponderating weight as a unit upon 
 the scales and so rescue peace for the world. 
 
 We start into this war as the evangels of 
 
 peace; we are mobilizing the industry and the 
 
 resources of the United States in order that they 
 
 may secure peace for the world. Every conflict 
 
 [33]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 we have among ourselves, every dissent which 
 we allow to be pressed beyond the point of that 
 expression of opinion which is necessary to se- 
 cure wisdom, every division which we allow 
 among ourselves, delays the achievement of the 
 great object of this war, and it is for that reason 
 that I address to you, as editors, these precau- 
 tionary remarks. It is not possible to take the 
 industrial, commercial, agricultural, and social 
 life of a nation of 110,000,000 people and divert 
 them out of their normal courses without creat- 
 ing here and there confusion and without break- 
 ing in upon the long-established and deeply cher- 
 ished habits of great numbers of men. 
 
 The greatest asset we have is our habits; it 
 makes unnecessary separate reasoning operations 
 for a great variety of things which we are com- 
 pelled to do daily, and it is not until we have con- 
 verted an operation into a habit that it becomes 
 an asset. Now, in this mobilization of the peo- 
 ple of the United States we are going to jar their 
 habits. Business houses are not going to be able 
 to do as they used to do, in many ways ; workers 
 in industrial establishments, farmers who are 
 tilling their fields, everybody is going to be asked 
 to give up, or at least to permit the temporary 
 obstruction of some of these deeply embedded 
 habitual modes of action and thought, and, as a 
 consequence, we are all going to be in a more or 
 less disturbed state of mind. Things are not going 
 to be as they usually are, and our minds are go- 
 [34]
 
 THE FUNCTION OF TRADE PUBLICATIONS 
 
 ing to be filled with questions as to whether the 
 things which are in an unusual state are in a 
 right or a profitable state. 
 
 You, gentlemen, are going to meet that in the 
 trades which your journals address. Some of 
 the reorganizations and readjustments in those 
 trades are going to be quite fundamental and 
 profound, and the disturbance of the line of 
 habit and normal business is going to be exceed- 
 ingly marked and difficult of rapid adjustment. 
 Now, if your journals, catching the spirit of the 
 community of enterprise, will preach to those 
 who read your papers and who are influenced by 
 them, and whose modes of thought are con- 
 trolled by them if you will preach to them the 
 constant doctrine of the necessity of the sacri- 
 fice of habit, in order that there may be com- 
 munity of enterprise in this new undertaking, if 
 you will just take the trouble to analyze the creak- 
 ing which the machine develops in the process 
 of readjustment, and point out in a large view 
 how necessary it is that these things should be, 
 if you will calm the apprehensions and spur the 
 courage and determination of your clientele, you 
 will have it in your power to make a contribu- 
 tion to this aggregation of our industrial and 
 other resources in a common cause which will 
 be second to no contribution made by any group 
 in the country. 
 
 I am not asking you to forbear criticism. A 
 declaration of war is always a declaration of an 
 [35]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 open season for critics, and that is rather for- 
 tunate. There are no perfect people, and all of 
 us who are imperfect are anxious to have our 
 imperfections called to our attention, so that we 
 can be more on guard against them, and people 
 who are exceedingly busy about great tasks are 
 quite likely to allow their natural imperfections 
 to run away with them, while they are absorbed 
 about other things, so that criticism is helpful. 
 But make it constructive. There is a man in my 
 country from whom I learned more than from 
 any man I ever knew, I think. He bought a 
 house in the country, and decided that it needed 
 a new roof. It was a very humble place, and as 
 soon as he decided that the existing roof would 
 not do he got a ladder and got up on the roof 
 and tore it all off; and when he got down to the 
 bottom of the ladder he realized that he had not 
 yet thought of buying a new set of shingles, and 
 it was a long time before he could either get the 
 money together or get his friends to bring the 
 new shingles out to him, and in that time the 
 rains came and the winds blew, and every make- 
 shift device that he could provide did not keep him 
 from catching cold and ultimately dying from 
 exposure. Make your criticism helpful and con- 
 structive ; point out the right way when you dis- 
 cover that anything is being done wrong, and 
 do not spare us who are here charged with re- 
 sponsibility, if, after you have pointed out the 
 right way, we persist in continuing in the wrong. 
 [36]
 
 ON THE EVENING OF REGISTRATION 
 DAY 
 
 Men have stood in the market-place and beaten the 
 drum and played the fife; and men have gone out to fight 
 for causes that were less high than this. By the rotation 
 of events and the irresistible logic of righteousness, which 
 summons every brave arm to the right side of the cause, 
 the United States has entered this war, and it will never 
 turn back until it has given peace to the world. 
 
 GEORGETOWN CITIZENS' ASSOCIATION, MONTROSE 
 
 PARK, GEORGETOWN, REGISTRATION DAY, 
 
 JUNE 5, 1917. 
 
 AS I sat here on the platform for the few 
 minutes before this meeting opened, look- 
 ing at this beautiful park with its fine old trees, 
 and saw the setting sun and heard the laughter 
 of children, there arose inevitably in my mind a 
 sense of the profound and almost indescribable 
 contrast between this and any other country in 
 the world. 
 
 Our life is full and rich and varied. Our old 
 and young alike have had a full life. If we se- 
 lect any other country in the world to draw our 
 contrast from, words fail us. One might draw 
 a sad picture of Poland, of Rumania or Belgium 
 or Serbia countries in which boys the size of our 
 [37]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 boy scouts are called upon to bear arms but it 
 would not give the whole truth. I saw a picture 
 a day or two ago of a child in the Serbian Army 
 at the end of a lo-mile walk carrying a man's 
 musket a child who had just stepped out of a 
 cradle into the ranks. And if we take all coun- 
 tries of the earth, we find privation and sorrow 
 written everywhere. Now, this war is costing 
 the world at the present time something more 
 than $60,000,000 every day, and something more 
 than ten thousand lives every day. And the sac- 
 rifice and the slaughter have gone on day after 
 day with solemn certainty and with an increas- 
 ing uncertainty as to the end of it all. 
 
 This is not the place for me to describe what 
 I believe to be the cause of it; and yet, if I am 
 permitted to put that cause in a sentence, it is 
 because a certain group of nations have set gain 
 above God, have set national aggrandizement 
 and aggression above national righteousness and 
 fair dealing. As a consequence of that, we have 
 witnessed an increasing savagery of war ; so that 
 it is no longer a question of even the most mod- 
 ern science in the art of warfare, with an aim 
 and purpose to ameliorate its severity and pro- 
 tect the innocent, but a complete surrender to 
 the bestial. As they have it now, it is no longer 
 a contest of bodies of men against bodies of men. 
 It is no longer an open conflict upon a fair plane, 
 where genius and strategy and courage work out 
 a national problem. But it is, in part at least, 
 [38]
 
 ON THE EVENING OF REGISTRATION DAY 
 
 the assassination by sea and slaughter by air, and 
 the killing of women and children. It is the 
 casual, pitiless slaughter of the unoffending and 
 the defenseless. 
 
 And now, by the rotation of events and the 
 irresistible logic of righteousness which summons 
 every brave arm to the right side of the cause, 
 the United States has entered this war. And 
 it will never turn back until it has given the 
 world peace; not merely a cessation of conflict, 
 but peace based upon righteousness. And so now 
 we are in the business of summoning the re- 
 sources of the greatest nation on earth in the 
 purest mission that a nation ever espoused. Our 
 factories become busy; our young men register; 
 our armies become trained; and we undertake 
 our share in this conflict. Not to add a square 
 inch to the territory of the United States; not to 
 take from any man, woman, or child living in 
 the world a single thing which belongs to him; 
 not even for the glory of successful arms; but 
 in order to reestablish those principles of na- 
 tional justice without which national continu- 
 ance and life can not prevail, and to give to the 
 stricken peoples of the world who have been 
 fighting for the right, rest and respite to rehabili- 
 tate their almost destroyed civilization. 
 
 How splendid that cause is ! There have been 
 times in history when men stood off in the mar- 
 ket place and beat the drum or played the fife 
 and men went out to fight for causes that were 
 [39]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 less high than this a cause without taint of sel- 
 fishness and without tarnish of any unholy im- 
 pulse. It is a fight for principle and right, and 
 America responds to it; not gaily, as a nation 
 which likes to fight, but bravely and prayerfully, 
 resolved that it will fight to the end in a cause 
 for democracy. 
 
 There is an old story among the Greeks that 
 when Jason was off in some remote place and was 
 in need of soldiers he was told to sow dragons' 
 teeth; and, acting in faith on that advice, he 
 sowed dragons' teeth in the earth; instantly 
 there sprang up out of the bosom of the earth 
 full armed and panoplied, a company of soldiers 
 which he led to triumph. We have sown not 
 dragons' teeth, but we have sown the principles 
 of freedom, and when we summon the people 
 of this mighty Nation we obtain, as did Jason in 
 ancient times, our response. Here, all over this 
 continent, ten million men to-day have sprung 
 up ready to do battle for the fundamental prin- 
 ciples upon which their liberty and their principles 
 rest. 
 
 There are old men in this company who weigh 
 properly the significance of this day. They know 
 that war is terrible, and they view this day with 
 a solemn spirit. And there are young men and 
 young women here to-day who probably have 
 not had the background of knowledge and expe- 
 rience and training to aid them to grasp the full 
 significance of all that is going on, and who yet 
 [40]
 
 ON THE EVENING OF REGISTRATION DAY 
 
 feel a sense of consecration to national service. 
 And there are little people here to-day to whom in 
 some sense this is a holiday and a festival. But 
 when it is over and history takes the measure of 
 it, it will be recognized as really a day upon which 
 a great and free people vindicated themselves and 
 a cause to the rest of all mankind. 
 
 Against the doubt in the minds of some as to 
 whether a democracy could summon its strength 
 in the issue, we find that all doubts on that sub- 
 ject are unworthy ; that those who argue for dic- 
 tatorship and strong governments are answered 
 by the events of to-day. For I have had tele- 
 grams from more than thirty States of this Union 
 showing that registration has proceeded from 
 early morning until late to-day uninterrupted by 
 any improper or discouraging event. Nor is there 
 doubt on anybody's part that it is our patriotic 
 duty to obey the law provided in the wisdom of 
 Congress to summon soldiers in a just, democratic 
 and fair way, to arm the Nation in defense of its 
 rights. 
 
 [41]
 
 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE IN THE NEW 
 WORLD 
 
 When peace is restored, the voyagers from America 
 will go over not idly to find the place where Europe 
 was, but to bind up her wounds and enable her people to 
 begin again. That will be a great day for America. 
 
 GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY COMMENCEMENT 
 EXERCISES, JUNE n, 1917. 
 
 I KNOW of no more pleasant office than to 
 visit the pier of a great steamship to bid bon- 
 voyage and God-speed to friends as they are 
 about to undertake a voyage to a distant coun- 
 try. There is always just a little solicitude. The 
 imagination conjures up dangers and difficulties 
 which may lie in wait. And then, with happy 
 faces and the waving of handkerchiefs, the call 
 of glad good-bys, the ship is off; the voyagers 
 are bound for a distant land. And so with the 
 Commencement. It has always seemed to me 
 an especially gratifying and pleasant thing to 
 stand, as it were, on the shore and wave good- 
 by and God-speed to the young men who are to 
 embark on the voyage of life, and to allay their 
 fears and instruct them in the dangers which we 
 older people are assumed to have encountered 
 and overcome. 
 
 [42]
 
 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE IN NEW WORLD 
 
 Education is, after all, not really so much a 
 distinction as it is a trust. We are educated not 
 for the purpose of making us better than other 
 people but for putting us in a position where we 
 are able to reach down a hand and help others. 
 And those who properly conceive, I think, the 
 function of education and culture in the world 
 regard it as a disseminating medium for 
 the purposes of life and the distribution of good 
 to mankind. Education is a curious thing, too, 
 because of its constant change of character. 
 There was a time when there was very little 
 scholarship in the world as we now know it; not 
 that there were not always scholars. There were 
 certain men who preferred the higher things and 
 gave their time to reflection and contemplation 
 and meditation. But the orbit of their inquiry 
 was a very circumscribed one. Later, men 
 reached out into nature and captured new forces 
 and, with wonderful ingenuity, they have brought 
 these forces down and made them serve mankind, 
 to become sources of comfort and means of ad- 
 vancement. A great gift to the world is bestowed 
 when a college is able to hold out her palm and 
 give to mankind such young men who have en- 
 joyed four years of culture and discipline of mind. 
 
 To-day is a curious day for men who are be- 
 ing graduated from college. I remember an 
 old story of a child that went into a great hall 
 in some baronial castle, and as this child played 
 [43]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 about among the great emblems of the past 
 scattered through the hall, it went up to one 
 figure which was shrouded in a soft, silken 
 garment. The child stood wrapt in wonder as 
 the figure shed its garment and disclosed a 
 knight's armor. And so it is as you men come 
 forward to-day as your gowns fall open, the 
 khaki of the soldier is revealed. We are under 
 far different circumstances from those in which 
 Commencements are ordinarily held. This great 
 country of ours, this land of generous opportu- 
 nities and resources, this land wedded to peace, 
 this land married to justice, which has set justice 
 and equality of opportunity and fair play above 
 every material possession, this land of ours is at 
 war, and that war the greatest war in the his- 
 tory of the human race. 
 
 And as we reflect upon this, we are reminded 
 that the presence of war imposes new duties upon 
 us, calls for a new organization of our people and 
 a course out of the customary channels of our 
 life. This war began for us as no other war 
 within my knowledge of history ever began. 
 For one year, two years, and two and a half 
 years, the statesmen of this country were seek- 
 ing some way to compose the agitated powers of 
 the world, to restore justice and peace to the 
 world. We professed neutrality and pursued 
 and were loyal to certain fundamental principles 
 upon which we believed national peace to rest. 
 [44]
 
 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE IN NEW WORLD 
 
 Then, not driven by hurried thoughts to quick 
 emotions, but with a stern realization that things 
 had come to a state in which life was utterly 
 without security, we entered this war; not with 
 an ambition to take from anybody anything that 
 is his ; with no revenge to satisfy ; with no unholy 
 or impure purpose and no tarnish upon our 
 escutcheon, we appeared in this war as friends 
 of men; as the defenders of justice; as the re- 
 storers of peace to a stricken world ; as establish- 
 ers of international freedom, if in God's provi- 
 dence it may be that nations may dwell in se- 
 curity and peace. I have no doubt some of you 
 have read the stories of King Arthur and the 
 Knights of the Round Table. You will remem- 
 ber it was the function of these men to bring 
 justice and to relieve the oppressed. They went 
 out into the world with no particular quarrel of 
 their own except the eternal quarrel that man 
 has with injustice. They were knights-errant 
 seeking to reestablish a better world. And so, 
 although our own United States has had griev- 
 ance after grievance that more than justified its 
 entrance into war, yet in some sense the United 
 States is a knight-errant in this conflict; in the 
 sense at least that she is not seeking to effect a 
 wrong purpose but to bring peace and establish 
 justice in the shortest possible time, and seeking 
 to give to mankind a better basis for the enjoy- 
 ment of life. 
 
 [45]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 And so now we are in this great war. Our 
 110,000,000 people are being reasserted and new 
 tasks are being allotted to each of us. The sum- 
 mons comes to some of you to put on uniforms 
 and go as soldiers or physicians and take your 
 place with the military forces of the nation; and 
 to some it is a call to stay at home. It is for 
 all a summons to a part of the great task that is 
 to be accomplished in order that the great army 
 at the front may succeed. But whether your 
 place is in a trench or a workshop or factory, 
 whether the call to you is military or civil, the 
 call is of equal intensity to all of us to dedicate 
 ourselves and everything we have to the success 
 of the great cause for which our country has en- 
 tered the war to bring, as the result of our ac- 
 tivities, peace to the world. For that is above 
 all things what the world needs most. 
 
 But that is not especially a Commencement 
 theme. Some day this war will be over and then 
 there still remains a great fight to be fought. 
 This shattered civilization has to be reconstructed 
 and a world which has become out of order is to 
 be readjusted and there will have to be a rehabil- 
 itation of practically all the civilized people in 
 the world. Now there are not so many civilized 
 people in the world. More than two-thirds of 
 the people in the world live in bamboo houses and 
 the "civilized" peoples are at present destroying 
 one another at the rate of ten to fifteen thousand 
 [46]
 
 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE IN NEW WORLD 
 
 a day; their widows are dying, their children 
 starving, and the accumulations of ten centuries 
 of accomplishment are being destroyed and 
 leveled to the ground. And when this holocaust 
 is over, the rehabilitation and the reconstruction 
 make another task which remains to be under- 
 taken. I do not mean to undervalue your work 
 as soldiers. If your country reaches out for 
 one of you and asks that you give your life, then 
 thank God that you have the opportunity to 
 serve and if necessary to die. But if that be 
 not your task, when the rehabilitation comes, 
 then the education you have received here will 
 be in great demand ; the world will be very eager 
 for men of cultured minds, men who have stud- 
 ied the philosophy and the history and the sci- 
 ences of the race; men of learning and knowl- 
 edge; men who have caught the inspiration that 
 the college man has the best opportunity of be- 
 ing of service to his fellows. 
 
 And while this war is going on, I trust that 
 all of us will recognize the imperative necessity 
 of keeping the lamp of learning burning. We 
 must not allow our schools to be closed. We 
 must not feel that any of our young men who 
 can be spared should abandon the pursuit of 
 study. But rather all of us should feel that, 
 while the actual conflict is on, there should be 
 still another generation of cultured young men 
 who will be ready to proceed with this work of 
 reconstruction. 
 
 [47]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 I do not want to harrow your feelings by 
 drawing any picture of the desolation of the 
 world now, and yet it is known that empires are 
 laid waste; in certain devastated districts of Po- 
 land it is said there is not now living a child under 
 five years of age. Men, women and children 
 are deported from their native places. Even 
 babies are trampled out of existence and lost in 
 the alternate advance and retreat of the herded 
 people as they seek to escape their adversary. I 
 once saw a picture of Martinique just after the 
 volcanic eruption a picture of a great waste; 
 of desolation; the mountains slumbering as the 
 stars disappeared, and a solitary voyager search- 
 ing for the place where a city once was. That 
 is just the picture of the world abroad and the 
 realization of the destruction which has come 
 upon it. And when we have restored peace with 
 justice to this world, then the voyagers from 
 America will go over, not idly to find the 
 place where Europe was, but to bind up her 
 wounds and enable her people to begin again. 
 That will be a great day for America. 
 
 Our fathers established a nation in order that 
 we might be free, and in 1917, 1918, or when- 
 ever it is to be, in God's providence, that peace 
 is restored in this world, we will take up the 
 torch our fathers lit in 1776 and plant it in Eu- 
 rope to help make the whole world free. 
 
 I congratulate you, therefore, young gentle- 
 men, upon your graduation day and this com- 
 [48]
 
 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE IN NEW WORLD 
 
 mencement in life. I greet you especially be- 
 cause you are commencing at an heroic time 
 you are entering life in an heroic age. The com- 
 monplaces have been swept aside and there is 
 great men's work before you. Don't let your 
 learning stop with your diploma continue it, 
 and always hold it in readiness to bestow on 
 others. Adopt for your own the motto exempli- 
 fied in the life of Farragut, "who always lived 
 so as at any time to be equal to the greatest task 
 in the service of mankind which could by any 
 possibility be demanded of him." 
 
 [49]
 
 THE INDEPENDENCE OF 1776 AND THE 
 LIBERTY OF 1917 
 
 / can see the day when our harbors will be filled with 
 the mass of ships returning from abroad and bringing 
 back our soldiers. They will come with their ranks 
 thinned by sacrifice, but with themselves glorified by ac- 
 complishment; and when they tell us that they have won 
 the fight for democracy in Europe, we must be able to 
 tell them in return that we have kept the faith of de- 
 mocracy at home. 
 
 INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATION, THE MAYOR'S 
 
 COMMITTEE, THE STADIUM, COLLEGE OF THE CITY 
 
 OF NEW YORK, JULY 4, 1917. 
 
 IN 1776, on the 4th day of July, a nation was 
 born, dedicated to a new theory of govern- 
 ment and a new ideal of human liberty. On the 
 4th day of July, 1917, our newspapers announced 
 throughout the continent, to a people who for 
 nearly one hundred and fifty years have known 
 political liberty, and with it unexampled prog- 
 ress, that an expeditionary force of their sol- 
 diers had landed, without the loss of a man, on 
 the soil of France to defend in that place the 
 great principle of democracy and liberty under 
 which they have thrived so long. 
 
 In passing, it will be deemed appropriate for 
 [50]
 
 INDEPENDENCE, 1776 LIBERTY, 1917 
 
 me to pay a tribute of thanks from the Army to 
 the Navy for the superb way in which they ac- 
 quitted themselves of the grave responsibility of 
 that convoy. And I think I can say to the 
 American people that the splendid cooperation 
 between the Navy and the Army which charac- 
 terized this first martial exploit is a promise of 
 a happy and effective cooperation in the future. 
 So that we can look forward to the American 
 Army and the American Navy, the two strong 
 arms of the American people on many glorious 
 fields and on many glorious seas, sustaining the 
 traditions of our country and establishing for- 
 ever the belief that free men in a battle for free- 
 dom need fear no foe. 
 
 One of the traditional policies of the United 
 States from its beginning has been the avoid- 
 ance of entangling alliances. The United States 
 is in no entangling alliance. We are in this war 
 upon no sordid mission of any sort. We do not 
 seek to take the possessions of any other people 
 or to impose by force our will upon any other 
 people in the making of their government or by 
 an encroachment upon their rights. But after 
 a patience absolutely unparalleled and after an 
 effort worthy of our civilization to accomplish 
 the recognition of our rights and of our free- 
 dom, by diplomacy and by every peaceful art, 
 America is in arms now to vindicate upon the 
 battlefield the right of democracy to exist against 
 the denials of autocracy. 
 [51]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 Things have come to a pass in this world 
 where all mankind must choose whether the na- 
 tions of the earth are to be autocratic in their 
 government and militarist in their pretensions 
 or democratic in their governments and just in 
 their pretensions. 
 
 America has chosen nay, she chose in 1776 
 to be democratic in her policies and in her gov- 
 ernment, and our whole history in the years since 
 then justifies the statement that our people are 
 wedded and devoted to the idea of international 
 justice as the rule by which nations shall live to- 
 gether in peace and amity upon the earth. 
 
 So that when we entered this war we entered 
 it in order that we and our children and our 
 children's children might fabricate a new and 
 better civilization under better conditions, enjoy- 
 ing liberty of person, liberty of belief, freedom 
 of speech and freedom -as to our political insti- 
 tutions. We entered this war to remove from 
 ourselves, our children and our children's chil- 
 dren the menace which threatened to deny us 
 that right. 
 
 I want to appeal to you and to all Americans. 
 Never, during the progress of this war, let us 
 for one instant forget the high and holy mission 
 with which we entered it, no matter what the 
 cost, no matter what the temptation. 
 
 Modern times have witnessed many new 
 things. The great science of medicine and sani- 
 [52]
 
 INDEPENDENCE, 1776 LIBERTY, 1917 
 
 tation has wonderfully advanced, and all the 
 safeguards that knowledge and science can throw 
 around our soldiers are to be placed about them. 
 And in the great encampments, where they are 
 to be trained, modern recreation experts are to 
 provide wholesome and attractive amusements 
 for their leisure, so that when they come out of 
 the Army they will have no scars except those 
 honorably won in warfare against the enemy 
 of their country. 
 
 We must look forward to the end of this great 
 business. We at home must fight for democ- 
 racy here as our armies for it abroad. In the 
 midst of our military enterprises we must be 
 equally loyal to our own political theories here. 
 All this vast reorganization of industry must 
 be made without the loss of the great physical 
 and social gains which we have achieved in the 
 last sevenscore years, mostly years of peace and 
 fruitful effort and toil. 
 
 We must not allow the hours and conditions 
 of people who work and labor in factories and 
 workshops to be upset and interfered with. We 
 must preserve the sweetness of our rights. We 
 must agree in deeds of grace here, as our sol- 
 diers do deeds of grace on the other side, for 
 I can see the day when our harbors will be filled 
 with the mass of ships returning from abroad 
 and bringing back our soldiers. 
 
 They will come, it may be with their ranks 
 somewhat thinned by sacrifice, but with them- 
 [53]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 selves glorified by accomplishments; and when 
 those heroes step off the boats and tell us that 
 they have won the fight for democracy in Eu- 
 rope, we must be able to tell them in return that 
 we have kept the faith of democracy at home 
 and won battles here for that cause while they 
 were fighting there. The end of this whole 
 matter is that when this war is over and it is 
 definitely determined among the children of men 
 that autocracy is bidden to veil its face forever; 
 when government becomes all over the world 
 merely the instrument of enlightened popular 
 will and judgment; when the interests of the 
 lowest and the least in every society are vital to 
 the welfare and the interest of all that society; 
 when the rule of the people is established in the 
 world and the historians write it down that 
 America, born in freedom and dedicated to lib- 
 erty, has saved that great doctrine for the sal- 
 vation of mankind it will then be said that in 
 1917 we arrayed our Nation and sent to the war 
 our soldiers; that we sustained them by our in- 
 dustrial enterprises at home; that we kept our 
 national spirit pure and undefiled; and that the 
 dawn of liberty for men all over the world dates 
 from that day when our soldiers landed in 
 France and began the final battles of freedom. 
 
 [54]
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ENGINEERS 
 
 / hope that some day the pretensions of dynasties and 
 the contentions of autocracy will be swept into the waste- 
 basket of a forgotten age. 
 
 SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF ENGINEERING 
 EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, JULY 7, 1917. 
 
 THE art of war has always depended upon 
 such science as there was at the time. If 
 we take science out of the war in which we are 
 now engaged we would be back to the stone axe 
 and the javelin. If it be true, as I think it is, 
 that the engineer is the transmuter of the means 
 of science into the accomplishments of modern 
 industry and modern civilization, then there is a 
 message that can be given to those interested in 
 the promotion of engineering education. 
 
 Before attempting, however, to state what I 
 think the mission of the engineering schools is, 
 it may not be inappropriate for me to say as a 
 truism that never before in the history of the 
 world has science and engineering been as vital 
 to the conquest of war as it is now. The head- 
 quarters of a general in the field is now com- 
 posed not merely of adjutants and couriers of 
 [55]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 military character, but every commanding gen- 
 eral, I suppose, in this war is surrounded by 
 scientists and engineers, and no important mili- 
 tary operation can now be undertaken upon 
 what were at one time purely military considera- 
 tions; there must be concerted, for the guid- 
 ance of the commanding general, scientific data 
 with regard to the earth, the sky, and the waters 
 under the earth. 
 
 The place of the geologists, the place of the 
 constructing engineers, is at the council table 
 of the commanding general, and strategy in 
 war no longer consists of mere movements of 
 masses of men, but it takes into account accu- 
 rate and scientific knowledge of the physical sur- 
 roundings and the physical conditions, and that, 
 of course, can be brought to the coordinate 
 judgment of the commanding general only by 
 the aid of engineers. 
 
 This is true not only of the active military 
 operations conducted in the field; it is true in a 
 very much larger sense of all that goes into the 
 preparation of military activities. The electri- 
 cal engineer is now as much a part of the En- 
 gineering Corps and the Coast Artillery Corps 
 in defense of the country as any purely military 
 officer. That is merely descriptive of a situa- 
 tion. But the thing you are to consider is what 
 contribution ought now to be made by those in- 
 stitutions which are devoting themselves to the 
 production of engineers for the emergency in 
 [56]
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ENGINEERS 
 
 which the Government and the Nation finds it- 
 self. We are at war with one of the greatest 
 powers in the world, with a power that at the be- 
 ginning of the war was the greatest military 
 power on earth. Our adversary has reverted, 
 has gone back to ancient and, we believe, bar- 
 barous methods. Our duty is to answer every 
 nation that has gone back to inhuman methods; 
 to answer by taking an advanced method and 
 by bringing to the Government the latest and 
 most scientific devices; to answer our adversary 
 by wiser and more effective preparation, with 
 superior knowledge and advanced positions of 
 a scientific kind, so that we will overcome by 
 deserving to overcome, by using the latest re- 
 sources of mankind to resist his aggression. 
 
 Most of you gentlemen are connected with 
 engineering schools. We have in the Army a 
 certain number of engineers, but this is no oc- 
 casion for us to rely upon the handful of techni- 
 cal assistants which the Government has under 
 its constant service. There must be coordina- 
 tion of the scientific talent of the whole country. 
 There must be added all of the scientific genius 
 and knowledge of the country. The man in the 
 trenches who shoulders a gun and stands face 
 to face with his adversary is doing a more strik- 
 ing and a more heroic job, but the man in the 
 laboratory is doing a work by which our soldiers 
 may be less exposed in warfare ; in other words his 
 [57]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 aim will be to bring a maximum efficiency with a 
 minimum of loss, and this is as truly a necessary 
 task. 
 
 The progress in the art of war is from day to 
 day, not from year to year. There must be the 
 same sort of response by the engineering scien- 
 tists of this country. In addition to that, an 
 even larger subject is the relation of engineering 
 education and technical education to the prospec- 
 tive needs of the country. We are in need of 
 fresh accessions of trained young men from the 
 technical schools of the country. Our Coast Ar- 
 tillery and our Engineer departments are in con- 
 stant need of large accessions and they can get 
 them at their very best from the schools you 
 gentlemen are associated with. It therefore be- 
 comes the necessary thing that in peace time the 
 great engineering schools of the country should 
 in large part contribute to the actual organization 
 of the Army a substantial part if not the major 
 part of peace-time preparation for our defense 
 should aggression force us into defensive action. 
 
 I hope, therefore, if the thing can be made con- 
 crete, that it will be assumed that one of the func- 
 tions of the colleges and technical schools mainly 
 devoted to these subjects ought to be so to 
 modify the curricula of their schools that the 
 young men who have special aptitude for the 
 scientific things which are useful in military sci- 
 ence will have an opportunity to develop their 
 aptitude and bring their talent to the aid of their 
 [58]
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ENGINEERS 
 
 country either for peace-time preparation or in 
 an emergency such as faces the country now. 
 
 So that my suggestion to you gentlemen is 
 that all of the engineering and scientific talent 
 of the country and the utmost pressure should 
 be devoted to this end should study the solution 
 of the scientific problems presented by the war. 
 You ought to expedite the training of young men 
 for immediate use by the Government in this 
 great emergency, and you ought to look forward 
 for the future to a large contribution of your 
 great engineer schools and colleges and to corre- 
 lating the training so that it will be very easy for 
 the young men to render a maximum assistance 
 to the Government if the emergency comes. 
 
 Nobody knows what the world is going to be 
 like when this war is over. No imagination is 
 able to picture the sort of civilization the world 
 will have after this conflict. Nobody can say 
 how long this war is going to last. But we do 
 know that when this war is over the rehabili- 
 tation of a stricken if not paralyzed civiliza- 
 tion is going to be a long-drawn-out and up- 
 hill task, and there will be need on every hand 
 for trained minds, for trained and schooled men. 
 That day of the engineer will be indeed the great 
 day. Men should then be present in very large 
 numbers to help bring about the rehabilitation 
 of industries, and reconstruction upon an earth 
 which has been swept by an all-consuming con- 
 flagration. 
 
 [59]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 And so I think you ought to have as an es- 
 pecial object the urgent invitation to young men 
 of America to come into your technical schools 
 and devote themselves to engineering branches 
 of education; so that when this war is over our 
 struggle will not have been in vain; that our 
 young men can quickly and efficiently play their 
 part in reconstruction. 
 
 We have just emerged into the twentieth cen- 
 tury, and it seems there are just a few of the 
 legacies of the nineteenth century that must 
 be eradicated. When the reconstruction of the 
 world takes place ; when a finer and better civili- 
 zation has been worked out; when the human 
 race puts its shoulder to the wheels of industry 
 and begins to spread abroad the incalculably val- 
 uable discoveries of science, I can imagine that 
 a new history of the world will be written. And 
 it will date, I think, from this great war, when 
 men realized perhaps for the first time in a fun- 
 damental way that the waste in conflict was an 
 irrecoverable waste; that the upkeep of enor- 
 mous armies was too great a burden to bear; 
 and that the real happiness of mankind is based 
 upon those peaceful pursuits which aim to make 
 available the great resources of the world. 
 
 [60]
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF AN OFFICER 
 
 OF THE ARMY OF THE UNITED 
 
 STATES 
 
 We are in the business of making the world safe for 
 democracy; but we are also in the business of showing to 
 the world what we for a long time have known, that de- 
 mocracy is safe for the world! 
 
 CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST OFFICERS' TRAINING 
 CAMP, FORT MYER, VA., AUGUST 13, 1917. 
 
 "nX)R a long time the Army of the United 
 JL States was such an Army as a great Nation 
 bent on the ideals of peace might with propriety 
 have; an Army of men of the highest character 
 and most perfect training, but small in number; 
 and when this great occasion of war arose, the 
 quality of that Army became instantly apparent, 
 for in all the training camps scattered throughout 
 the country the same story has been told. Young 
 men in large numbers have been received, for the 
 most part without previous military service, and 
 in an incredibly short space of time have been 
 made to march and feel and act like veterans. 
 Thus our Regular Army has shown its vitality 
 by its capacity for rapid absorption and expan- 
 sion. I congratulate ourselves, and the whole 
 [61]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 country, upon the fact that at the call of the 
 country there could be assembled in these 
 training camps, and so rapidly, such numbers 
 of men without previous experience and train- 
 ing, but of a quality and character to take on 
 readily these new capacities and aptitudes which 
 are required in order that they may be officers 
 of the new Army. 
 
 We have for many many years thought most 
 of peace, and there were certainly many peo- 
 ple who doubted whether we could, in a short 
 space of time, develop the national capacity for 
 great military effort. But whatever doubts may 
 have been entertained at any time on that sub- 
 ject have been dispelled by you gentlemen in this 
 camp and your associates and fellows in the 
 other training camps of the United States. It 
 has not been very long since I first saw you 
 here upon the third day of your assembling. 
 Even then you had begun to acquire the setting 
 up and the appearance of soldiers, and in these 
 few short weeks you have acquired, as it seems 
 to my eye, the proficiency of men of long devo- 
 tion to military pursuits. It is an inspiration to 
 us in this country to feel that in our colleges, on 
 our athletic fields, in our daily social life, there is 
 not a deadening inertia, but there are latent ca- 
 pacities ready for rapid development, so that as 
 a free and peace-loving democracy we can count 
 with certainty upon the presence of these ele- 
 ments and upon the strength and daring of any 
 [62]
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF AN ARMY OFFICER 
 
 organizations which are necessary to defend the 
 Nation in the hour of need. 
 
 I shall not, of course, discuss the cause of 
 this war; that issue has been settled for the 
 people of the United States, and our country 
 has gone into the conflict, not tossing its cap in 
 the air, but with the moral law written on its 
 heart, stimulating and encouraging its every 
 energy. You gentlemen have been trained now 
 to be the first set of officers in the National Army, 
 and in a short time you will be off in other places 
 receiving the young men of this country and 
 molding them into an army. The men who are 
 to come to you have not been selected by the old 
 process of volunteering, chiefly for the reason 
 that under modern war conditions, involving all 
 the energies of a nation, that method of selection 
 is not sufficiently discriminating, and so another 
 process one in which the Nation lays down the 
 rules and exercises the choice has been devised 
 for inviting the young men of the country to 
 assemble in the Nation's Army. 
 
 These young men are considered as being in- 
 trusted to the Government, and you are the rep- 
 resentatives of the Government in receiving them, 
 for the purpose of being disciplined, instructed, 
 drilled, and ultimately used in the defense of 
 the principles upon which this Government rests. 
 
 I want you always to remember that you are 
 officers of a democratic army, that discipline 
 with us at least is not devised for the creation 
 [63]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 of pleasant emotions in a man who gives an 
 order, and humiliation in a man who receives it, 
 but is devised for the purpose of executing the 
 common will and of preserving the common right ; 
 in short, in the giving of an order you are the 
 trustees of the common voice to execute the com- 
 mon will and preserve the common safety. There- 
 fore, your duty as officers is to remember that the 
 men in the ranks, like yourselves, are citizens and 
 members of a free people, that all the obedience 
 and discipline necessary to effect the common 
 purpose is appropriate and proper; and yet that 
 the human relations in an army of a free people 
 are important, and the surroundings, the welfare, 
 the happiness, and the life of every man in- 
 trusted to you to command, is a part of the wealth 
 of this Nation intrusted to you to use most care- 
 fully, and to return with the utmost safety you 
 can. 
 
 The progress that the Nation is making in 
 the organization of its forces is a progress as- 
 tonishing to those who doubted the vitality of 
 democracy as a form of government. We are 
 in the business of making, in the phrase of the 
 President, "the world safe for democracy," but 
 we are also in the business of showing to the 
 world, what we for a long time have known, 
 that democracy is safe for the world. 
 
 You will go from this camp to places scattered 
 all over the United States. Some of you may meet 
 again in Army experience, and some of you may 
 [64]
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF AN ARMY OFFICER 
 
 not. You have been given here esprit de corps; 
 you have been given the best traditions of the 
 Army and the Nation. I ask each of you to feel, 
 in whatever company you may be, wherever you 
 are associated with men who wear the uniform 
 of our country, that you are a trustee of the 
 Nation's honor and of the Nation's interest, and 
 that it is your duty to pass along to those whom 
 you, in turn, shall train, the highest inspiration 
 and the splendid traditions which you have re- 
 ceived at the hands of those who trained you 
 here. 
 
 [65]
 
 LABOR'S DIGNITY AND ITS DUTY 
 
 // nobody had ever known honesty, it would have oc- 
 curred to some scalawag to invent it, for it pays. 
 
 LABOR DAY CELEBRATION, NEWPORT NEWS, VA., 
 
 SEPTEMBER 3, 1917. 
 
 I FIRST want to call your attention to two 
 things about the United States. There is 
 no other country in the world which has in the last 
 twenty-five or thirty years made such amazing 
 progress in all the mechanical arts. The ingenu- 
 ity and skill of our workmen has so transcended 
 that of any other country in the world that we 
 may say without boasting that ours is the first 
 industrial country of the world. And, second, I 
 want you to note that there is no country in the 
 world which, during the same period of years, 
 has made so much progress in realising the im- 
 portance of the life and health and welfare of 
 the worker to the nation as the United States. 
 I can remember that when I was a boy I used to 
 be told in Sunday School that all men were 
 brothers and because of this sonship in a common 
 faith, because of this brotherhood of men, we 
 owed one another an obligation of care, solicitude 
 and kindness. But that was a somewhat ill-defined 
 [66]
 
 LABOR'S DIGNITY AND ITS DUTY 
 
 and indefinite thing. We have made this discovery 
 in the United States that we are brothers not 
 merely in the sense of a common faith but in an 
 economic sense; that we are so tied together in 
 this modern world of industrialism that the wel- 
 fare of every man in society is of vital importance 
 to every other man in society. It used to be thought 
 that when a man had made a fortune, as it is 
 called, he could retire in happiness and that the 
 rest of mankind was to him a matter of indiffer- 
 ence; but now we have learned in America that 
 no man is so rich or so great as to be removed 
 from the necessary and vital interest in the wel- 
 fare of the poorest man in America. We have 
 discovered that if it be the fate of any group in 
 society to have learned to neglect the welfare of 
 its workers, that group is doomed to decay, dis- 
 integration and dissolution, because this fact has 
 been brought home to the people that the wel- 
 fare of a nation depends not upon the number of 
 its rich men nor the number of its wise men, nor 
 the quantity of wisdom nor richness, but it de- 
 pends upon the plane upon which the great mass 
 of mankind lives. If that be elevated a point, 
 there come into the life of the worker sweetness, 
 recreation and repose. If the door of opportunity 
 is open to the children of the worker, there is 
 predestined continuous progress and success. Now 
 as a consequence of our having reached that idea, 
 these things have been achieved in America and 
 we have made great ethical gains. . . . America 
 [67]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 is at the top among the nations of the world by 
 reason of this fact that we have compulsory and 
 universally free education, and that in the last 
 twenty-five or thirty years, this process of educa- 
 tion has gone on until we have written upon the 
 statute books of the various States wise and 
 prudent laws restricting the hours of labor of 
 women employed in workshops and factories. 
 Five, nearly six, million women in the United 
 States earn their own living and the whole mind 
 of America has been awakened to the fact that 
 the mothers of the future generation cannot be 
 sacrificed by too long hours or by insanitary con- 
 ditions without imperiling the generation that is 
 to follow. 
 
 One of the things that most interested me when 
 I first became interested in public affairs was child 
 labor. I remember how I used to point to the 
 mines of Pennsylvania and other places where 
 little children of nine, even seven, years of age 
 were employed long hours, with the result that 
 their little backs became bent, they became weak 
 and the whole vitality of the nation was threat- 
 ened by that assault upon its vigor. We used to 
 point out that while we were working children in 
 the factory nine or ten hours a day, insanity was 
 increasing so that there was not a State which 
 had room enough in its asylums for its insane, nor 
 room in its prisons for its convicts. As Mayor 
 of a great city, I used to stand in the police court 
 and see young men sixteen or seventeen years of 
 [68]
 
 LABOR'S DIGNITY AND ITS DUTY 
 
 age who had been put into mills and factories be- 
 fore they had had any education. Their con- 
 sciences and minds had been enfeebled so that 
 they yielded to the temptations of a great city, 
 and gave themselves up to crime. In the 
 twenty years which have elapsed since that day 
 there is not a State which has not prohibited that 
 sacrifice of the youth of our country; all over this 
 land we find our workshops inspected by public 
 inspectors who report the sanitary conditions un- 
 der which they work and there is going on a 
 gradual elevation of the life of the whole people 
 of the United States as a consequence of an 
 awakening on the part of the people to the fact 
 that right pays. I remember reading a statement 
 that if nobody had ever known honesty, some 
 scalawag would have invented it because it pays. 
 Right always pays. 
 
 Every now and then somebody tells me that 
 the people of the United States have not yet 
 realized that there is a war. You realize it. I 
 don't suppose it is possible for anybody to cast 
 his eyes over these waters without knowing 
 that war is going on. . . . How very different 
 this realization is now from 1914, when war 
 started. When the war first broke out, I have 
 no doubt everybody in this room was puzzled as 
 to what caused it to break out. We read the 
 newspapers with the thought: "This is another 
 one of those questions which pass the compre- 
 hension of us over here." Later we saw that it was 
 [69]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 becoming a universal question. We found that the 
 Central Empires were drawing themselves to- 
 gether and practically dividing the civilization 
 of the rest of mankind. We found that Russia, 
 great, vast, sleeping Russia, a land long gov- 
 erned by tyranny but a land predestined to a 
 great future (and you and I will all live to see 
 the day when the kinship between Russia and the 
 United States will show the development of a 
 democracy of which we can claim to have been 
 in some sense the authors, and of which we will 
 always be the partners and beneficiaries) we 
 found that Russia was involved; then England 
 was brought into it. Then we began to find this 
 strange thing, that, instead of being a war about 
 the Balkans or about some obscure question, 
 it was in reality a war to settle a question which 
 affects every man who lives on the face of the 
 earth. That question is not whether Serbia shall 
 apologize to Austria, but that question is: 
 "Are men created to be the slaves of a State or 
 is the State created to be the servant of men?" 
 I need not summarize the philosophy of the 
 Central Empires to you. The people of Germany 
 have been taught to believe that German culture, 
 German civilization is so much better than any 
 other civilization or culture in the world that it 
 is their duty to force it upon the rest of the world, 
 and to kill all the rest of the world in the process 
 if necessary. I am not stating it too strongly; 
 I am not stating it more strongly than their 
 [70]
 
 LABOR'S DIGNITY AND ITS DUTY 
 
 own philosophers have stated it. Our theory has 
 been other than that. We have inherited the 
 belief that the State is an association or part- 
 nership, organized by a number of persons for the 
 purpose of attending to their common affairs, so 
 that their lives can be lived in peace and security. 
 We have come to a place where it is to be decided 
 which of these philosophies is right; whether 
 autocracy or democracy shall rule; whether the 
 true life of men is that of servitude or that of 
 liberty and freedom. We were attending to our 
 own business and we tried to be as neutral as we 
 could, when the Central Powers suddenly began 
 more and more ruthlessly to encroach upon 
 our rights. They announced and lived up to the 
 policy that nothing should stand between them 
 and success and that they would not merely over- 
 ride their enemies but they would crush the life 
 out of neutrals and friends if necessary to accom- 
 plish their purpose. 
 
 It seems a remote thing and yet every time I 
 close my eyes I can see the docks at Queenstown 
 the boats coming in and landing women and 
 children, mothers dead with babes clutched in 
 their arms. All day long that procession comes 
 until at nightfall there lie on those docks hun- 
 dreds of people, many American men and Ameri- 
 can women; many American babies slaughtered 
 by the juggernaut of German Imperialism. 
 
 Our country, under the leadership of her Presi- 
 dent, was very peaceful. We are a peaceful peo- 
 [71]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 pie by nature. Our preference is for the paths 
 of peace. We love to do justice rather than to 
 make war and so, by all the arts of diplomacy, 
 we sought composition with our mad adversary, 
 until finally, after we had received promises 
 readily made but ruthlessly broken, after it be- 
 came perfectly evident that indiscriminate war 
 was to be made upon every man, woman and child 
 in the universe, and after it became apparent that 
 all America's rights were involved, then the Ad- 
 ministration, the Congress and the people of the 
 United States determined that we should go in 
 and help put an end both to this false philosophy 
 and to these murderers of civilized practices. 
 
 And so we are in this war. We are not stir- 
 ring up evil passions in ourselves about individu- 
 als. I think I can say that I do not hate any 
 man, German or otherwise, in this world; but I 
 know that the American people have a relentless 
 and unalterable determination to stay in this 
 struggle until this reign of terrorism is forever 
 banished and the relations of nations and peoples 
 upon the earth are established upon a basis of 
 justice and equality instead of limitless power and 
 insane ambition. 
 
 Some people say that they do not know how 
 long the war will last. I do ! It will last until we 
 win it. When it has been won, we shall not pun- 
 ish, we shall not undertake to defy the laws of 
 nature and the wishes of men; but with victory 
 in one hand, we will try to bring benefaction in 
 [72]
 
 LABOR'S DIGNITY AND ITS DUTY 
 
 the other and bind up the wounds of the human 
 race. Now why do I say this to you? There 
 are in this audience some young men wearing 
 the uniform of our country and it may be their 
 lot to fight in the trenches on the Western Front. 
 Most of this audience is made up of men and 
 women who can never bear that kind of a part 
 in the struggle. But you can bear another kind 
 of part in the struggle and that one of tremen- 
 dous importance. Under modern conditions, wars 
 are not made by soldiers only, but by nations. The 
 man who is at the riveting hammer in this ship- 
 building yard, the man who drives the trains that 
 take the goods to the people abroad ; the clerk who 
 enters upon his records the things to be shipped 
 every man, woman and child in the United 
 States is contributing to the aggregate of our 
 national strength in this cause. Since we first 
 began, I have been thrown much with labor 
 and its representatives. I have learned to love 
 and admire the abilities, loyalty and patriotism of 
 Samuel Gompers and his associates. I have 
 learned to know that labor is loyal, that labor 
 is part of this country in its determination to win 
 the war. I want to ask you especially who live 
 at Newport News, in this great center, this bee- 
 hive of war activity, I want to ask you to inspect 
 your own efforts with this kind of reflection: 
 Pick out some boy in uniform and remember that 
 some day he may be under fire and the thing 
 between life and death for him may be some 
 [73]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 thing that you are doing in Newport News. 
 Whenever you strike a rivet, men, regard it as 
 an act for justice and liberty. Do your share 
 here in order that success may come to those 
 abroad. Then when this is all over; when the 
 clock that God has fixed in His watch-tower 
 strikes twelve upon this horrible series of events, 
 when that time comes, America, by the coop- 
 eration of her workers and her statesmen, by the 
 cooperation of her soldiers abroad and her sol- 
 diers at home, will have built up a true democracy 
 of feeling among us, so that we can enter into 
 the life which is to follow this great struggle, 
 hand in hand. The distinctions and differences 
 will be broken down among us and a common pur- 
 pose created so to elevate the general life of our 
 country that the future generations of men and 
 women will get out of this war benefits that will 
 compensate for the losses and sacrifices which we 
 are called upon to put into it. I want the blood of 
 every American boy which must needs be spilled 
 abroad, if any must be spilled there, I want the 
 labor on this side of the ocean and on that side 
 given as a fructifying influence for true democ- 
 racy, and for the greater day to come when na- 
 tions will live together, bound in ties of justice 
 and arbitrating their disputes, taking common 
 council among themselves in order to improve the 
 conditions of men everywhere. So that when the 
 historian writes the story of this war, he will 
 close the chapter with the statement that out of
 
 LABOR'S DIGNITY AND ITS DUTY 
 
 this great struggle of the human race there arose 
 an heroic quality of spirit which, transmuted into 
 works, ennobled the people and the faith of man- 
 kind on earth. 
 
 [75]
 
 THE MARCH TOWARD LIBERTY 
 
 For a thousand years children zvill read in their books 
 of history, and the literature of the world will be enriched 
 zvith the poetry and romance growing out of this age in 
 which we live. We pour out our treasures, not at the 
 feet of the God of War, but into the lap of the Goddess 
 of Liberty! 
 
 LIBERTY LOAN MEETING, KEITH'S THEATER, 
 WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 8, 1917. 
 
 IN this center of the nation's activity; in this 
 city, which since we went into this war has 
 perhaps doubled in population ; in this city where 
 the once peaceful beauty of a quiet capital has 
 given place to almost feverish preparation and 
 activity, there seem to be obvious lessons on every 
 street and in every house, of the character of the 
 task which the nation has assumed ; and yet it is 
 not inappropriate that a few words should 
 be said that will give some comprehension, per- 
 haps, of the size of that task and bring home its 
 patriotic lesson to the people who are privileged 
 to live thus close to the center of the nation's 
 life. 
 
 For a thousand years, children will read in 
 their books of history and the literature of the 
 world will be enriched with the poetry and ro- 
 [76]
 
 THE MARCH TOWARD LIBERTY 
 
 mance growing out of this age in which we live. 
 The stories which will then be told, are the his- 
 tory which is now being made, and I delight, in 
 moments of idleness, to try to project myself into 
 that remote and distant future and see the bent 
 figure of some school-boy as he pores over the 
 history of this period; I think I can detect even in 
 a boy so remote from the action of this time, the 
 surge of enthusiasm in the things that the world 
 is now doing. 
 
 I shall not undertake in the very brief time 
 allotted for this address, to recount the history 
 of the European War prior to our entrance into 
 it nor the occasion for our entrance. But if there 
 be anything certain about a contemporaneous es- 
 timate of the historical facts, the verdict of his- 
 tory will be that this, the first great free nation 
 of the world in this age the greatest nation in 
 the world, in material resources, and in the prog- 
 ress she has made was also the greatest nation 
 on the face of the earth at this time in her moral 
 quality and in the superb patience with which 
 she endeavored to avert this catastrophe. 
 
 For long and weary months, with our minds 
 daily harrowed and our hearts nightly torn with 
 the stories of destruction, devastation, cruelty and 
 despoliation of peoples everywhere, we still hoped 
 against hope that the war could be brought to a 
 conclusion, just to mankind and promising for 
 future progress, without the unsheathing of our 
 sword. 
 
 [77]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 When, finally, after one bitter evidence had 
 accumulated upon another, and we realized that 
 this was really the final war of two great phil- 
 osophies ; and when we as Americans realized that 
 the nations fighting on what we now call our 
 side were really children of our spirit and bap- 
 tized with the notion of liberty which we had 
 fostered in this country for over a hundred 
 years; and when we realized that England, 
 France, Italy and Russia were fighting the 
 battle not for selfish aggrandizement, but for lib- 
 erty and opportunity, and for the philosophy of 
 democracy on the part of the whole world, it be- 
 came necessary for us to join with them in order 
 to vindicate that philosophy. 
 
 On the bottom of the pathless ocean lie now the 
 bones and the bodies of American men, women 
 and children slain while we were still neutral, in 
 defiance of every law that man ever ordained for 
 the limitation of the horrors of war. Our spe- 
 cial grievance was only the occasion, and now 
 that we are entered in this great conflict, we 
 realize, with an inspiration that I think must fire 
 every man, that this is merely the second stage in 
 the march of the human race toward liberty. It 
 began in 1776. In 1917 we pass the next mile- 
 stone, and when it is passed, men and women 
 everywhere will realize that no return of the 
 Darker Age is possible ; that victory has been won 
 in this contest, autocracy having been demon- 
 strated as too wasteful and too regardless of 
 [78]
 
 THE MARCH TOWARD LIBERTY 
 
 human life and human treasure to be tolerated, 
 and democracy having been demonstrated to be 
 not only the source of fruitful happiness and op- 
 portunity in time of peace, but to contain in 
 itself the strength to survive. Having thus 
 demonstrated the feebleness and viciousness of 
 the principle of autocracy and the virility and 
 salvation of the principle of democracy, we will 
 start from a fresh platform with a new idea of 
 its possibilities and a new hold upon permanent 
 liberty and democratic institutions. 
 
 As a result, this country presents a strange but 
 inspiring spectacle. I have had some opportu- 
 nity at Washington to participate in the formu- 
 lation of plans, and out of Washington, I have 
 had some opportunity to see the fruition of those 
 plans. In sixteen places in this country cities 
 have been built, as it seems, over night, housing 
 great multitudes of peoples thirty and forty 
 thousand young men selected out of the body of 
 our men ; not in response to a sudden impulse of 
 the military power, but selected by the civilian 
 agencies of our people and presented to our gov- 
 ernment to be trained as a great army to partici- 
 pate in this reconquest of the world's liberty. 
 Thus great cities have been built. 
 
 Where we used to spend five, ten, or fifteen 
 millions of dollars, we are now spending money 
 that counts up in the billions. We are financing 
 to some extent those associated with us in this 
 war who have been long bearing the drain and 
 [79]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 strain of continuous warfare. We are spending 
 money for munitions of war and for supplies, and 
 our factories are responding with extraordinary 
 energy. In workshops, factories, stores, the peo- 
 ple of America have associated themselves in this 
 great enterprise until our nation, our peaceful 
 and peace-loving nation, is to-day knit together in 
 spirit, more harmonious in its aspirations, more 
 effective in its occupations. We are more of a 
 nation to-day than we have been at any time in 
 the whole hundred years and more of our glorious 
 history. 
 
 I have stood at those camps and watched the 
 boys who are preparing to be soldiers. I have 
 seen them stream past by tens of thousands; 
 some of them fresh-called to the colors from 
 homes in remote places, far from the great rush 
 of the world's events; some of them students, 
 from colleges; some of them engineers, men of 
 occupations, professions, science; and as I 
 have seen those youthful faces I have had a new 
 realization of the springs of national action. As 
 I saw those men I could not persuade myself that 
 all of them were deeply read in the history of the 
 world; I could not persuade myself that they 
 knew the ultimate nature of this conflict of free- 
 dom with autocracy in the world; but there they 
 marched with the sun shining on their faces, with 
 flushed health in their cheeks, determination and 
 a heroic quality about them that simply pervaded 
 the atmosphere. And I realized that it is not 
 [80]
 
 THE MARCH TOWARD LIBERTY 
 
 necessary for a man to be a philosopher or a 
 scholar to be a patriot, that there is something 
 subtle in the very character of our soil that goes 
 into the system of those born on it, and that this 
 great army of young men reaching from the 
 Pacific to the Atlantic, and now streaming across 
 the Atlantic are men who possess that subtle 
 quality and are filled with the spirit of patriotism, 
 and that when our forces actually join with those 
 on the other side the great battle will be won. 
 
 And that schoolboy a thousand years from now 
 who reads the history of this age will read with 
 admiration and throbbing heart of France 
 leader in the world's civilization, that country 
 through which Defoe said every great idea had to 
 pass in order that it might be familiarized to the 
 world he will read of that France, not prepared 
 for this sort of struggle, devoting herself to the 
 redemption of her freedom and protection of her 
 soul. When he comes to her glorious victory at 
 the Marne, he will experience such a thrill as 
 we used to feel as we read the story of Ther- 
 mopylae and Marathon. And when he comes to 
 read of England he will have a realization of 
 the English people which I think is slowly being 
 brought home to us all. The English people speak 
 of themselves as "muddling through"; but that 
 schoolboy a thousand years from now will 
 promptly see that that nation, with its terrible 
 patience, was able to wait and coordinate its 
 military and industrial strength until it arrived at 
 [81]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 a point, when it could and did, with clock-like 
 regularity, beat back the foe. 
 
 Then he will come to our entrance into the war, 
 and coupling it up with what he has been read- 
 ing before, he will go back to the origin of our 
 liberty and see the people of this continent, 
 having wrought out their own civilization, having 
 elevated the individual man to a new dignity in 
 world affairs, join the others, and he will realize 
 that the victory will belong to the heroic quality 
 of these united races. 
 
 He will ask whether all the war, all the victory, 
 was won at the front. He will find that war had 
 become of such a quality that the fighting 
 men are but part of a nation's army, that there 
 is required to be at home in the field the grower 
 of food and in the factory the maker of products, 
 in order that the men at the front may fight ; and 
 that underlying the whole structure, is the finan- 
 cial stability and the financial willingness of the 
 people to fight the fight. 
 
 And so, with this opportunity to subscribe to 
 Liberty Bonds, we are appealing now to the very 
 foundation of the nation's strength and the indis- 
 pensable thing upon which its activities must 
 rest, and we ask the people of the United States 
 to sacrifice. I have had, since I have been Secre- 
 tary of War, thousands of letters from high- 
 spirited men and women all over the United 
 States, from children nine and ten years old to 
 men eighty and ninety, asking me "Where can I 
 [82]
 
 THE MARCH TOWARD LIBERTY 
 
 do my bit? What sacrifice can I make to ad- 
 vance this cause?" Some are too young and 
 some are too old to fight, but none are too old or 
 too young to sacrifice in this great financial 
 effort, which is the basis upon which all must 
 rest. 
 
 I can see victory ahead of us ; a victory in arms, 
 it is true, but a higher victory than that. I can 
 see the American spirit, the unselfish, uncor- 
 rupted, untainted spirit of America with which 
 we have gone into this struggle, dominant in the 
 world as the result of that victory. I can see 
 the peace that is to be made as the result of this 
 great struggle ; and it is a peace which brings us 
 no selfish advantage, no national monopoly of 
 the goods of the world, the possession of nobody 
 else's goods and fortunes as the outcome, but an 
 enkindling of a new spirit of justice ; a peace after 
 which the nations of the earth will join hands in 
 harmonious cooperation rather than in selfish, 
 deadly preparation for mutual destruction. And 
 in order that there may be a war fought to a vic- 
 torious conclusion, a peace so high and beneficent 
 as that, those who are carrying forward this 
 campaign ask you to pour out your money, not 
 at the feet of the God of War, but into the lap of 
 the Goddess of Liberty. 
 
 [83]
 
 INVISIBLE ARMOR 
 
 / want them adequately armed by their Government, 
 but I want them to have also an invisible armor to take 
 with them. 
 
 NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WAR CAMP COMMUNITY 
 
 RECREATION SERVICE, WASHINGTON, 
 
 OCTOBER 23, 1917. 
 
 THIS great national emergency presents two 
 responsibilities and two opportunities. One, 
 of course, is the perpetuation of the principles 
 upon which our Government is established, by 
 success against the adversary who has questioned 
 our integrity. The other is the coincident upbuild- 
 ing of the strength and wholesomeness and viril- 
 ity of our own people. The task, or a part of the 
 task, which in a special sense has been adopted by 
 you, has more to do with the latter than with the 
 former of those two opportunities, though it is of 
 first importance. 
 
 We are interrupting the normal life of this 
 Nation. We are summoning out of their com- 
 munities and their homes a vast number of young 
 men. We are taking men from their normal 
 environments, from their usual occupations; we 
 are violently interrupting their customary modes 
 84]
 
 INVISIBLE ARMOR 
 
 of thought. Now, everybody knows, of course, 
 that one of the great social restraints, one of the 
 things that make ordered society possible at all, 
 is the existence of a state of social habits on the 
 part of a people; that those social habits are the 
 things we acquire as we grow up in a community. 
 They are enforced by the sanction of personal 
 approval of the people with whom we have to 
 deal. They are enforced by the approval of 
 neighborhood opinion. They constitute the chief 
 force for the preservation of order and for the 
 progress which society makes. 
 
 I am sure that nearly everybody in this com- 
 pany will remember Emerson's description of a 
 child's first contact with society, how he goes out 
 of his house and finds a policeman, who to him 
 represents a restraint, the social restraint, of his 
 community. That policeman embodies the idea 
 of force in the interest of order; and as the child 
 grows up, he gradually enlarges the policeman 
 until the policeman becomes the Government. As 
 he grows older still, he philosophizes the police- 
 man, until the officer represents the consent of the 
 community to those sacrifices of individual lib- 
 erty which are necessary in the interest of the 
 common good. 
 
 Now that state of mind, which exists in every 
 community and in every individual, is being vio- 
 lently disturbed by our withdrawal of large num- 
 bers of young men from their homes, from their 
 families, from their social organizations, from 
 [85]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 their communities, from their church organiza- 
 tions, from all the various affiliations which the 
 young men have made as a part of their social 
 education. 
 
 We are collecting those young men in vast 
 groups and subjecting them to an entirely unac- 
 customed discipline. In a certain sense, we are 
 training their minds to an entirely new set of 
 ideals. We are sweeping away all of the social 
 pressures to which they have become accustomed, 
 and are substituting therefor military discipline 
 during that portion of their time when drill and 
 the military regime are necessarily imposed on 
 their lives. And we are taking these groups of 
 men and bringing them up to and in contact with 
 city civilization and town civilization. 
 
 Now a large part of these young men have 
 been accustomed to city life. Some of them, 
 however, are straight from the country. Some 
 of them are from remote parts of the country, 
 far away from the places where they have hith- 
 erto lived, away from the people whose opinion 
 has hitherto been their guide and control. We 
 are surrounding the people of this country with 
 an entirely new population, a population which 
 is not integrated with its life, a great mass of 
 people who are encamped on the borders of a 
 town or a city and are wholly foreign to the local 
 feelings and sentiments of the community. 
 
 Now that presents a very grave problem in 
 dealing with human beings. It presents several 
 [86]
 
 INVISIBLE ARMOR 
 
 problems. The first of them is : What are those 
 soldiers going to do to the towns, and what are 
 the towns going to do to the soldiers? 
 
 I think it is safe to say that no army ever be- 
 fore assembled in the history of the world has 
 had so much thought given and so much labor 
 performed in the interest of its social organiza- 
 tion. It is no reflection on anybody to say that 
 the ancient method of assembling an army was 
 first to have some sort of inspiring music played 
 through the street, to have a local oratorical out- 
 burst on the subject of the particular cause for 
 which the army was desired, to have young men 
 follow the music and then be taken off to make 
 their own camps and conditions, and with that 
 much training to be sent to the battlefront. 
 
 But the United States is a civilized country. 
 Nobody realized how civilized it was until we as- 
 sembled this army, for instantly there came from 
 all parts of the country a demand that this army 
 should not be raised as armies hitherto had been ; 
 that it should not be environed as armies hitherto 
 had been, but that such arrangements should be 
 made as would insure that these soldiers, when 
 actually organized into an army, would represent 
 and carry out the very highest ideals of our 
 civilization. 
 
 In the second place, this army came from our 
 country. Everywhere there was the demand 
 that these young men, whom we were taking 
 [87]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 from their homes and families, from wives and 
 children, from mothers, sisters and intimates, 
 these young men whom we were separating from 
 their church environments, their social organiza- 
 tions and social clubs everywhere, I say, there 
 was the demand that they should come back with 
 no other scars than those won in honorable 
 warfare! 
 
 Now the accomplishment of that task is not 
 difficult, but it requires a tremendous amount of 
 comprehending cooperation and sympathy, and 
 this great company of men and women here this 
 morning is the answer to that need. It shows 
 that the commercial organizations of our coun- 
 try, bodies like the Rotary Clubs, those organiza- 
 tions which are leaders in their various communi- 
 ties, appreciate the demand of the country with 
 regard to its soldiers, and are willing to supply 
 the social basis for a modern civilized army. 
 
 America has learned, I think, more than any 
 other country about the life of adolescent youths. 
 There is no other country, to my knowledge, in 
 which the task has been so thoroughly done as it 
 has been in America by the American colleges 
 and higher schools. I have sometimes been rather 
 skeptical about the advantage of intercollegiate 
 athletics. It has seemed to me to lay the em- 
 phasis on the wrong place, and rather to over- 
 emphasize the development of the athletic as 
 against the mental in the boy. 
 
 When we established training camps for young 
 [88]
 
 INVISIBLE ARMOR 
 
 officers, the American high schools and colleges 
 poured out into the lap of this Nation the finest 
 body of material for the rapid manufacture of 
 officers that any country ever assembled since the 
 beginning of time. And they came to us not 
 merely with trained minds, with handsomely de- 
 veloped aptitudes for acquiring new habits of 
 thought, but they came to us with finely trained 
 athletic bodies, and with the American spirit of 
 fair play, which, if not born, is at least nurtured 
 on the athletic field. If we can do for the boy 
 in the training camp what the American college 
 has done for the boy in college and what the 
 American high school has done for the boy in 
 the high school; that is to say, if we can 
 work his mind and work his body, and surround 
 his moments of recreation and leisure with such 
 wholesome opportunities as to keep him from be- 
 ing diverted and turned to unwholesome things, 
 we have solved the problem. 
 
 For a great many years in America we have 
 been struggling almost despondently with the 
 problem of the large cities. We knew that the 
 large city was economically and industrially more 
 efficient. We knew that by getting people close to 
 the place where they were to work, getting them in 
 large groups, we multiplied the industrial output 
 of the individual. We knew that by getting peo- 
 ple into large cities we were able to extend over 
 a wider surface the so-called conveniences of 
 modern civilization ; that people could live in bet- 
 [89]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 ter houses ; that they could have better sanitation ; 
 that they could have better medical care ; that they 
 could have freer access to public libraries and 
 opportunities for culture; that they could have 
 better schools. But we realized that we paid a 
 price for the city, and that price consisted in the 
 tempestuous and heated temptations of city life, 
 and every man who has had any opportunity to 
 study city life has had his mind more or less held 
 in a state of balance between its advantages and 
 its disadvantages. 
 
 It used to be said that a family living in a city 
 ran out in three generations, and that it was neces- 
 sary to replenish the vitality of city-dwelling 
 people by constant drafts upon the unspoiled peo- 
 ple of the countryside ; and that was, we learned, 
 because of the vices which grew up in cities, and 
 because all of those restraints of neighborhood 
 opinion were gone. A boy in the country was 
 known to everybody of his neighborhood. His 
 misconduct was marked. The boy in the city 
 could be a saint in the first ward where he lived, 
 and a scapegrace in the tenth ward, without any- 
 body in the first ward discovering it. There was 
 an absence of that pressure of neighborhood 
 opinion, that opportunity to cultivate the good 
 opinion of old neighbors, which was evident in 
 the countryside where conduct was more obvious. 
 
 Now, for a long time we tried a perfectly 
 wrongheaded process about the city; we tried to 
 pass laws which would cure all these ills and to 
 [90]
 
 INVISIBLE ARMOR 
 
 enforce them by policemen. I do not mean that 
 we ought not to have some policemen, but 
 we imagined that our sole salvation lay in the 
 passage of laws and in the employment of police- 
 men. And I can remember when I was mayor 
 of a middle-Western city, that every now and 
 then some movement would get its start to have a 
 curfew law passed in that city, to make everybody 
 go to bed at a particular time. Certain laws of 
 that kind were passed, and some Supreme Courts 
 held that they were unconstitutional, and some 
 held that they were constitutional, but no court 
 had any right to pass on the real fact involved, 
 which was that they were ineffective. 
 
 Then the discovery was made that the way to 
 overcome the temptations and vices of a great 
 city was to offer adequate opportunity for whole- 
 some recreation and enjoyment; that if you 
 wanted to get a firebrand out of the hand of a 
 child the way to do it was neither to club the child 
 nor to grab the firebrand, but to offer in exchange 
 for it a stick of candy! 
 
 And so there has grown up in America this 
 new attitude, which finds its expression in public 
 playgrounds, in the organization of community 
 amusements, in the inculcation throughout the 
 entire body of young people in the community of 
 substantially the same form of social inducement 
 which the American college in modern times has 
 substituted for the earlier system of social re- 
 straints. 
 
 [91]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 And now that we have these great bodies of 
 young men to consider, we have also the fa- 
 cilities which are necessary to apply to the task. 
 We have organized in the camps themselves 
 agencies to supply athletic opportunities, whole- 
 some recreation. The Young Men's Christian 
 Association, the Knights of Columbus, the Train- 
 ing Camp Activities Committee, are taking up 
 just as much of the soldier's unoccupied leisure as 
 can be taken up by the inducement process. 
 
 And now we come to the other side of it. 
 These boys do not stay in the camp all the 
 time; they move out of camp into the nearby 
 towns. I took a ride some two or three weeks 
 ago along nearly the entire length of Long 
 Island. There were two military camps on Long 
 Island at that time, the so-called "Rainbow Divi- 
 sion" and Camp Upton, which is the cantonment 
 in which the drafted men from New York are 
 being trained. Long Island at least the part I 
 saw of it is about ninety miles long, and it was 
 dotted throughout that entire ninety miles with 
 men in uniform. Every little village, every ham- 
 let, every small town and large town had soldiers 
 scattered through its streets and its hotels and 
 throughout all the places of entertainment to be 
 found there. The Chief of Staff, who was rid- 
 ing with me, remarked that soldiers always re- 
 minded him of ants in the directions in which 
 they traveled. They seemed to scatter from the 
 [92]
 
 INVISIBLE ARMOR 
 
 center in every direction, and for wholly unex- 
 pected and unanticipated distances. 
 
 Now that is what we have to face. The sol- 
 diers of these camps, in their days off and their 
 hours off and in their moments of relaxation, are 
 going to scatter through all of the cities and 
 towns nearby. The railroads, the street rail- 
 roads, and the motor cars will take them to all of 
 those centers of population. Now we must make 
 the advantages in these towns as wholesome, we 
 must make the inducements to wholesome think- 
 ing and wholesome living just as fine and as nu- 
 merous as we can possibly make them. 
 
 And in order to do that, we must organize every 
 social activity in these towns. With that thought 
 in view we must have the Y. M. C. A.'s of the 
 towns, the Y. W. C. A.'s, the Masonic orders, the 
 Elks, the Eagles, the churches particularly the 
 churches with social opportunities, those that 
 have large rooms where they can have gymnasi- 
 ums or sociables and receptions even the homes, 
 if they happen to be near enough to a camp to 
 make it possible, we must have all these invite 
 the boys in and give them contact with a normal 
 town life and the domestic opportunity which they 
 are cut off from by reason of their separation 
 from their own homes. I have no doubt there 
 are many examples of exactly that sort of thing 
 going on in this country. 
 
 Now, you gentlemen, you men and women, are 
 assembled for the purpose of spreading throturh- 
 [98]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 out the communities of this country that attitude 
 toward this army, and encouraging in this army 
 that attitude toward the cities of this country. 
 It is a tremendous problem. It has been par- 
 tially worked out, locally. But as this war goes 
 on we are going to have more and more camps, 
 more and more soldiers, and one set will go and 
 another will come. 
 
 These boys are going to France ; they are going 
 to face conditions that we do not like to talk about, 
 that we do not like to think about. They are go- 
 ing into an heroic enterprise, and heroic enter- 
 prises involve sacrifices. I want them armed; I 
 want them adequately armed and clothed by their 
 Government; but I want them to have invisible 
 armor to take with them. I want them to have 
 an armor made up of a set of social habits re- 
 placing those of their homes and communities, a 
 set of social habits and a state of social mind 
 born in the training camps, a new soldier state of 
 mind, so that when they get overseas and are 
 removed from the reach of our comforting and 
 restraining and helpful hand, they will have got- 
 ten such a set of habits as will constitute a moral 
 and intellectual armor for their protection over- 
 seas. 
 
 You are the makers of that armor. General 
 Crozier is going to make the guns; General 
 Sharpe is going to make the clothes ; but the in- 
 visible suit which you are making, this attitude of 
 mind, this state of consciousness, this esprit de 
 [94]
 
 INVISIBLE ARMOR 
 
 corps which will not tolerate anything unwhole- 
 some, this brand of righteousness, if I may speak 
 of it as such, this pride that they ought to have 
 in being American soldiers and representing the 
 highest ethical type of a modern civilization all 
 this you are manufacturing in your armories, 
 in the basements of churches, the lodge rooms of 
 societies, the dinner tables of private homes, the 
 rooms of Young Men's and Young Women's 
 Christian Associations. There are hospitals, 
 houses, all manner and kinds of places, where the 
 sound consciousness and sound mind of a com- 
 munity can be brought into contact, in a whole- 
 some and inspiring way, with the soldier group 
 in its process of training. 
 
 Now when this is all over, by virtue of the 
 work which this committee and this group are 
 doing, and are going to do, our soldiers will come 
 back to us better citizens, not merely for the patri- 
 otic heroism in which they have been engaged, 
 but because of this lesson of social values which 
 they will have learned. And in the meantime each 
 city in this country will have gotten, I think, a 
 greater start toward a realization of the com- 
 munity responsibility for the lives of people who 
 live in it, and near it, a higher realization of the 
 value of these experiences which we are putting 
 into operation, and a stronger sense of its own 
 greatness, by what it has done for the stranger 
 within its gates, than it has ever had before. 
 
 So that I see in this work, not merely a con- 
 [95]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 tribution to the strength of our Nation, great as 
 that is and I may say that an army is strong 
 just as its individual components are strong, and 
 a sick soldier, whether physically sick or men- 
 tally sick, is a detriment rather than an asset to 
 an army this work is going to contribute not 
 only to the strength of the army, making it 
 vigorous and sound physically, mentally and 
 morally, but it is going to advance the solution of 
 that vexing and perplexing and troublesome city 
 question which has for so many years hung heavy 
 on the conscience of our country. 
 
 And when the war is over, and our boys come 
 back, and our cities have strengthened themselves 
 by their cooperation, and we have throughout 
 the country the common feeling that we all 
 helped and shared the pride of having partici- 
 pated in this great undertaking and achievement, 
 then we will find that for the after-war recon- 
 struction, for this great remedial process as to 
 which none of us knows much, and of which most 
 of us are almost afraid to think, our people are 
 sound and virile and intelligent. We will find that 
 American public opinion has been strengthened 
 and made more wholesome and comprehending, 
 that America is truly a more united people, 
 and that it understands itself better than it ever 
 did in its history. 
 
 Everybody in America wants to help. Most 
 people in America want to do some well, I do 
 not want to say that but many people in 
 [96]
 
 INVISIBLE ARMOR 
 
 America want to do some individual thing. I 
 suppose I am just like everybody else. I would 
 like to go "over the top." I would like to storm 
 a rampart. I would like to grab a flag which was 
 shot down and raise it up and go forward with it, 
 and feel that I had taken Old Glory where it 
 ought to be. That is the heroic appeal, but one 
 of the great difficulties of life is that we fail to 
 realize that the master heroisms of social prog- 
 ress are aggregations of inconspicuous acts of 
 self-sacrifice. 
 
 Now this is the opportunity for us to show the 
 master heroism of this age. If you will im- 
 press that upon the people of your communities, 
 I think they will respond, and they will feel, not 
 perhaps the spiritual exaltation that comes from 
 carrying the flags, but they will feel that they are 
 really builders in the final and higher civilization, 
 the civilization of justice and opportunity, and of 
 high thinking and high doing which we pray is 
 to be the permanent state of civilized man after 
 this terrible visitation and tragic calamity is 
 safely passed. 
 
 [97]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 I do not love war; yet there are some things dearer than 
 life. Would we call back the Continental Army; would 
 we send Lafayette back to France; would we take the 
 sword of Washington out of his hands and break it over 
 our kneef 
 
 MASS MEETING, THE HIPPODROME, CLEVELAND, 
 OHIO, OCTOBER 17, 1917. 
 
 EVERYBODY in this audience will realize 
 my feelings in attempting to make a speech 
 on this lot and under this tent. I look back over 
 nearly twenty years and remember how often this 
 tent has been filled with the people of Cleveland as 
 they discussed among themselves, sometimes in 
 the words of the speaker on the platform, some- 
 times of the questioner in the audience, but always 
 in a lively way, matters of domestic concern. It 
 has also been used in national campaign discus- 
 sions. But to-night, I think, is the first time, 
 surely the first time within my knowledge, when 
 the tent has been used by somebody who came 
 from Washington to tell the people of Cleveland 
 something about a war in which our great country 
 is engaged. 
 
 It is no small task to turn the attention of the 
 people of the United States away from the op- 
 [98]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 portunities which they have enjoyed and culti- 
 vated in peace to the sterner demands of war. I 
 have no doubt that each one of you in your vari- 
 ous business occupations has found that this war 
 has somewhat changed the relations which you 
 sustain to other people, and that your business 
 sustains to other people ; but in Washington every 
 eye and every ear and every heart is devoted all 
 the time to a task larger beyond any comparison 
 than any task this nation has yet undertaken, and 
 I want to describe to you, if I can, in very brief 
 phrase, something of the size and character and 
 purpose and hope of that task. 
 
 When I went away from Cleveland to Wash- 
 ington, you may recall, peace reigned in the 
 United States, though war raged abroad. Wash- 
 ington, a city of very great beauty, was a quiet 
 and reposeful place, and yet the very night that I 
 left Cleveland to go to Washington a disturbance 
 broke out on the Mexican border which required 
 us to summon a military force to patrol that bor- 
 der and protect the lives and property of our 
 people in the States of Texas, Arizona and New 
 Mexico. And for some months we were raising 
 soldiers, the National Guard, and mobilizing our 
 army on that border until, finally, we had an 
 adequate force there to preserve order between 
 the turbulent forces of the Republic of Mexico 
 and ourselves. We had a small army. A small 
 army was enough. Then the Mexican situation 
 seemed to pass away, and our relation to this 
 [99]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 struggle across the water became more and more 
 serious and more and more difficult. We began 
 to be drawn into that struggle. It did not mat- 
 ter what our own motives and desires were; it 
 did not matter that we were following a policy of 
 neutrality and friendship to all the belligerents in 
 that contest; it did not matter that we were a 
 peace-loving people; that we had devoted our- 
 selves for sevenscore years to the building up of 
 a civilization which would do away with the neces- 
 sity of war and establish among men processes 
 for the working out of international difficulties 
 which would not need war as a means of arbitra- 
 ment all that made no difference. Inevitably, 
 as though some powerful magnet were drawing 
 at the very heart and vitals of this country, each 
 day seemed to bring us closer to this terrible thing 
 that was going on on the other side. No man in 
 America wished to go to war. From the Presi- 
 dent down to the humblest citizen in all this repub- 
 lic our only purpose, our only hope, our only 
 prayer was that we might be permitted to be a 
 strong and powerful friend to all of those bel- 
 ligerents and when the war was over, help to 
 reconstruct and adjust our civilization with a 
 fairer hope and promise for men everywhere. 
 We entertained that view, as you all know, and 
 yet, day by day, the situation became more diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 Now, just what was the situation ? We found 
 that our rights were being trespassed upon. We 
 [100]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 found that our present adversary I shall 
 refer to it always as the German Government, 
 and I draw a sharp distinction between any gov- 
 ernment and its people where that government is 
 an autocracy. If you speak of a government 
 which is a democracy, you include its people, 
 because there the people is the government; but 
 when you refer to a government which is an 
 autocracy, then you draw a sharp line between 
 the government and the people, because the form 
 of government gives the governing function to a 
 few or a class. We found that our present ad- 
 versary, the German Government, was enlarging 
 the scope of its activities by pressing its lawless 
 conduct upon the shoulders of neutrals, friend 
 and foe alike, and we found that the rights of 
 the United States were being more and .more 
 seriously menaced. We still hoped for peace. 
 Our President wrote notes of protest; he wrote 
 notes of pleading protest, many people believed, 
 and up to the very last hour he looked with a deep 
 devotion upon the ideal of peace and the hope 
 that we could remain, as I have said, a peaceful 
 and powerful friend of all these people. 
 
 International law is a system of agreements 
 among nations made for the purpose of abating 
 the horrors of warfare, and the progress of 
 civilization consists, so far as nations and their 
 rights are concerned, in constant improvement in 
 international law, and in constant amelioration or 
 betterment of the horrors and rigors of war. 
 [101]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 The progress of mankind is marked by the extent 
 to which nations agree to allow the horrors to be 
 visited upon the combatants alone and to pro- 
 tect the lives and property of innocent and non- 
 combatant members, either of a belligerent coun- 
 try or a neutral country. 
 
 When men started out to fight it was the prac- 
 tice of a successful tribe of savages to kill all the 
 men, women and children in the hostile tribe; 
 but after a while that was found to be wrong. 
 The moral sentiments rebelled against that prac- 
 tice, and gradually, step by step, new rules came 
 into existence, and those rules finally, at the out- 
 break of this European War, made it very plain 
 and very clear it was written in all the books 
 that the struggle of war should be limited to the 
 actual armies ; that it was fair and in accordance 
 with the laws of war for one army to attempt to 
 disable another army, but a civilian popula- 
 tion, not armed and not taking part in the con- 
 test, should not be subject to attack, and 
 neutral people, people who were not in the war, 
 were also free from danger and free from peril. 
 The difference between civilized people and sav- 
 age people consisted in the extent to which people 
 recognized those rules. When we came to apply 
 the established rules of international law to the 
 conduct of the German Government, we found 
 that at the very outset, in order to get a momen- 
 tary advantage over their surprised and unpre- 
 pared adversaries, the German Government 
 [102]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 had ordered the German army to march across 
 the frontiers of Luxemburg and Belgium and to 
 invade two peaceful neutral countries which were 
 not involved in the war and had no part or parcel 
 in the dispute. 
 
 Now, I shall not undertake to arouse your feel- 
 ings about what happened in Belgium, and yet I 
 think that this is a fair thing to say : Since the 
 days of savage warfare by wholly untrained and 
 barbarous peoples nay, since the days of war- 
 fare by cannibals I think there is no parallel to 
 some of the things that were done in some of the 
 cities of Belgium. That little country, once so 
 bright and beautiful, so gay and carefree for 
 Belgium, you know, was a little France, and Brus- 
 sels was in Belgium a kind of little Paris too 
 small to have any aggressive intentions upon any 
 other nation; too civilized to have any sort of 
 ambition to attack anybody else; a little, beautiful 
 nation, made up of a fine and cultured people that 
 gave itself to the arts and crafts and beauties of 
 life and to rich manufactures that little state of 
 Belgium, apparently so secure from disaster 
 of any kind, and chiefly from the disaster 
 of war, has been converted, by the invasion of the 
 German army, in many of its places, to heaps of 
 smoldering ruins. Not military places only, but 
 the churches that used to be filled with the con- 
 gregations that went on Sundays to worship, are 
 now simply smoked walls and ruins. The 
 sacred pictures and other beautiful works of art 
 [103]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 
 that decorated those churches are all defaced, 
 wrecked, as a result of artillery fire. The people 
 of Belgium and I ask you to remember that 
 they were innocent of offense, just as innocent as 
 you and I the people of Belgium had placed 
 over them a military government. Thousands 
 of them were taken out and lined up against walls 
 and shot, whole villages, cities, were set on fire; 
 soldiers invaded the houses and drove out, not 
 men with guns in hand, but all the occu- 
 pants, men, women and children, while other 
 soldiers outside slew them with the sword or with 
 the gun, until of three cities it is true to say that 
 not one soul was left. The destruction reminds 
 us of those stories in ancient history when a sav- 
 age adversary leveled the city to the ground and 
 sowed the place where it once stood with salt in 
 order to show that no future civilization was to 
 be built there. And these were innocent people ! 
 These were people who had done nothing except 
 to live in a country standing, by the accident of 
 fate, between the autocratic government of Ger- 
 many and its surprise attack upon Paris. Then, 
 after a little while, we heard that men in Belgium 
 were separated from their families and taken into 
 involuntary servitude in Germany, so that of the 
 nen who were left alive, the able-bodied ones have 
 been taken away from their families, away from 
 their homes, and their church, and have been car- 
 ried off in trainloads into the interior of Ger- 
 [104]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 many to work in German munition factories and 
 aid the German army. 
 
 Now, I do not complain, I would not complain 
 if the German Government were drafting its own 
 man-power, or drafting the man-power of an ad- 
 versary whom it had conquered in war, but I am 
 trying to picture to you the character of our 
 adversary's military operations; and, in order to 
 have you clearly understand it, I want you to 
 realize that the Belgian people were wholly with- 
 out offense; that they have been accused of no 
 offense by anybody, and yet, in spite of that, such 
 was the character of war imposed by the German 
 Government that these slaughters and burnings, 
 these sums of money exacted by way of tribute, 
 these depredations, and this involuntary servi- 
 tude were visited upon them. But the story is 
 told, and it comes from excellent sources, that so 
 stout is the heart of the Belgian, so patriotic 
 is he, so keenly does he resent the things 
 that have been visited upon him, that, although 
 the German Government has taken away thou- 
 sands of them in trains and put them into work- 
 shops in Germany, it has had to bring them back, 
 starved, to die at home rather than keep them in 
 Germany when they refused to work under an 
 unjust government that had tyrannized in so 
 despotic a fashion over them. Belgium really 
 presents a wonderful picture. It is a story of 
 patriotism that we might well imitate ; a patriot- 
 ism exemplified best in its noble king; exempli- 
 [105]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 fied in its courageous prelate, Cardinal Mercier, 
 who, although held in prison, as it were, by the 
 captors of his country, has never hesitated for a 
 moment to tell his captors of the iniquity of their 
 occupation. 
 
 We saw what went on there, and then we saw 
 what went on in Servia ; we saw what went on in 
 Poland; we saw great stretches of this world of 
 ours so laid waste that a year ago there was not 
 in many parts of what used to be Poland a single 
 child still living under the age of five years. 
 Babies all gone ! The heel of this kind of war 
 this ruthless war, as it had come to be called 
 trod upon that land until all the child life was 
 stamped out, and men and women who were able 
 to get away from the advancing power of the 
 conqueror fled to the woods and lived on roots 
 and leaves of trees and herbs, or starved to death, 
 and over Europe now there are places tens of 
 thousands of miles in area and extent where the 
 bleached bones of men lie who in their lives were 
 guilty of no wrong, no aggression, who were not 
 partners in this conflict, who had done nothing 
 to bring it on, and whose very nations were not 
 engaged in the war ! 
 
 Well, all of that went on, and we watched it 
 with amazement and with horror, and yet we 
 said to ourselves : "We are separated from it all 
 by an ocean three thousand miles wide." The 
 great founder of our country, George Washing- 
 ton, said to us that we must refrain from en- 
 [106]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 tangling alliances. The founders of this repub- 
 lic taught us that our destiny was here and not 
 there; and so there still seemed to be a lack of 
 personal occasion in all this to us. Then we be- 
 gan to consider the aggressions upon our own 
 rights. Is there anybody in this audience who 
 has forgotten how he felt on the day when the 
 Lusitania was sunk the fairest ship in the world, 
 filled with passengers going abroad on their own 
 business, protected by every line of international 
 law? Germany herself afterwards admitted that 
 the destruction of that ship was against and in 
 contravention of the Law of Nations. Not 
 merely international law written by England or 
 France or America, but their own book on inter- 
 national law, written by a German authority, pro- 
 tected the innocent travelers upon that ship. Yet, 
 as she sailed across the sea, carrying this precious 
 freight of men, women and children, she was sud- 
 denly and stealthily set upon by a submarine, 
 sunk in an hour, and on the bottom of the sea 
 where so many secrets lie, there lie some things 
 that are not secrets ! There are the bones of your 
 fellow-citizens, men, women and children, who 
 lie there, eloquent forever against a nation which, 
 in order to carry out an unrighteous cause, recks 
 not of the lives of the innocent, but is willing to 
 slay and to slaughter in order that it may emerge 
 in bloody triumph to an unholy end. 
 
 Not very long ago I heard Consul Frost, who 
 was our consul, as you may remember, at Queens- 
 [107]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 town, describe his duties when the Lusitania 
 sank. The word came to his office that the 
 great ship had gone to the bottom and that the 
 work of rescue was on. He went down to the 
 shore and spent days and nights there, caring for 
 such persons as could be rescued, and he formed 
 a corps to watch by the seaside and gather up 
 the bodies of those who were washed ashore. 
 For some four or five days they were kept busy 
 and each wave that came up brought its toll with 
 it, until, finally, there were no morgues, nor hos- 
 pitals, left in which to put the bodies. And as 
 the Atlantic, which ordinarily carried the peace- 
 ful commerce of our country with England kept 
 rolling in, those days and those nights, carrying 
 the bodies of American and English and French 
 dead, all they could do was to take them out 
 and pile them like cord-wood on the dock, until 
 there was a pile of human cord- wood some hun- 
 dred feet long and nine or ten layers high to show 
 the savagery of that slaying. And yet, what did we 
 say about it? All we said was: "It is not possible 
 that anybody wanted to do that. There must have 
 been some mistake. It must have been some mis- 
 understood order. It is not human." We said to 
 the German Government: "We protest against 
 the sinking of the Lusitania. We call your at- 
 tention to the provisions of international law 
 which prescribe that no merchant ship, no un- 
 armed ship, can be sunk, no matter whom she be- 
 longs to, without giving her crew and her pas- 
 [108]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 sengers time and opportunity to escape to a safe 
 place." And the German Government sent us 
 word, ''Yes ; we recognize that principle," and in 
 solemn phrase Von Bethmann-Hollweg, the Ger- 
 man Chancellor, under the direction, doubtless, 
 of his imperial master, gave Germany's pledge 
 that it would not repeat that deed, that unarmed 
 ships would not be sunk, unless they either resisted 
 or tried to get away, until the ordinary visitation, 
 search and opportunity of escape to the crew 
 and the passengers had been afforded. That 
 seemed a great victory for us. People every- 
 where said that the President of the United 
 States had won a diplomatic victory and had 
 rescued for civilization a great domain in inter- 
 national law. Yet how delusive and how de- 
 ceitful our fancied security was. Six weeks 
 after we got the solemn promise of the German 
 Government on that subject another ship was 
 sunk, and some nine or ten Americans were sunk 
 with it. And then one ship and another was 
 sunk. When the first one went down the Ger- 
 man Government sent us word: "Yes; we dis- 
 avow that act, and we will rebuke the commander 
 of the U-boat who did it" ; and yet every now and 
 then another went down. You remember the 
 Sussex, the Channel ship, that was sunk in the 
 same way. We protested, and they promised. 
 
 And then, finally, in February, 1917, this per- 
 fectly incredible thing happened: The German 
 Government sent us word that from then on it 
 [109]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 intended to wage ruthless warfare by U-boats; 
 that it had marked out on the space of the great 
 deep certain areas in which it would not permit 
 any ship to go; that there were certain lanes of 
 the seas into which we could send our ships and 
 they would not attack them, and that we might 
 send one ship a week to England if it followed a 
 prescribed course and was painted like a barber's 
 pole. And the German Chancellor, Von Beth- 
 mann-Hollweg, made this statement in the 
 Reichstag: That he had resisted the establish- 
 ment of ruthless warfare because he did not be- 
 lieve Germany was ready for it, but that he now 
 believed Germany was ready for it, and, there- 
 fore, he was in favor of it. In other words, a 
 solemn promise not a promise to give anything ; 
 not a promise that appealed to our greed or our 
 pride, but a promise made in the interest of hu- 
 manity and of human life, and of the protection 
 of the innocent, and of the observance of law 
 that promise was given to us, not because it was 
 intended to be kept, but merely in order that the 
 men who intended to slaughter might have time 
 to manufacture and sharpen more instruments of 
 execution. There was only one thing to do or 
 two, perhaps : We could yield t or we could fight ! 
 And in all likelihood yielding would simply post- 
 pone the fight. Can anybody imagine what 
 would have happened in this world if Germany, 
 the German Government, had been able to beat 
 the Allies and had at its command the armies of 
 [110]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 Europe and the fleet of England? Just place 
 yourself, now, in the position of the Kaiser. It 
 is an unpleasant invitation. I think he must 
 have dreams at night. 
 
 I do not love war. I look forward to the day 
 when war will be a reminiscence of an evil day 
 and of a half-progressed civilization. Surely 
 this earth that yields so bountifully its riches was 
 meant for the children of men to enjoy, as an 
 opportunity of improvement to us, and not a 
 place of a mutual slaughter. I do not enjoy the 
 idea of war, and yet there are some things dearer 
 than life. Our fathers fought from 1776 to 1783 
 to establish freedom. Would we call back the 
 Continental Army? Would we send Lafayette 
 back to France and Rochambeau? Would we 
 take Washington's sword out of his hand and 
 break it over our knee, and say: "Don't do that. 
 We would rather live forever slaves to a tyran- 
 nous government than have a fight about it?" 
 Would we call back any of the true wars that 
 have been fought for principle and for the estab- 
 lishment of right in this world? No! And to- 
 night, when we are in this war, there isn't a man 
 in America who has inherited any of the spirit of 
 the founders of this government, or caught any of 
 the inspiration of liberty and freedom ; there isn't 
 a man who loves his children and wants them to 
 have a chance, who does not believe that this 
 war must be fought to a finish; by that I do 
 not mean fought to an end, but fought to a finish, 
 [111]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 and that finish must be an absolute victory over 
 any power existing in the world that can visit 
 another such catastrophe upon the human race. 
 God didn't make many cowards when he made 
 America. I don't know where to find any. I 
 have gone from one end of this country to an- 
 other. I have visited the boys in the camps. I 
 have seen their mothers visiting them, and I have 
 seen those heroic and spartan American mothers 
 looking with pride and love and affection upon 
 their uniformed soldier boys, turning aside 
 now and then to wipe away a tear, but 
 never saying "Turn back." I have seen our 
 manufacturers changed from one occupation to 
 another in order that the great material resources 
 of this country might be mobilized to sus- 
 tain our boys at the front. I have seen our 
 government at Washington cooperating with 
 the representatives of Labor and of Capital, 
 both of them filled with patriotism, in order that 
 the sweetness of our national life might be pre- 
 served and the full mobilization of all of its 
 forces brought about. I have seen consideration 
 given to the lives of women and children in work- 
 shops and factories, the hours of labor of men in 
 certain occupations shortened all to the end 
 that we might build up a strong and virile people 
 here at home while this war is going on to 
 strengthen our boys at the front. And it is 
 highly important that that should be, for, while 
 our boys are making the world abroad safe for 
 [112]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 democracy, we must make at home democracy 
 safe for the world. 
 
 They are forming everywhere, a million 
 strong! They are going across the sea to fight 
 your fight and my fight. They are not going 
 over to conquer anybody else's country. They 
 are not going over to impose an indemnity on 
 anybody. They are not going over to slaughter 
 women and children. They are not going over 
 to bring back a long list of captives to put into our 
 workshops and factories. They are going over 
 to rewrite the Declaration of Independence! 
 They are going over to carry into effect the mes- 
 sage of freedom which America has already dis- 
 seminated throughout the world ! And they ask us, 
 you and me, to do our share as they do their 
 share. They do not, all of them, perhaps, un- 
 derstand the intricacies of this philosophical con- 
 flict. They may not know the details of the 
 atrocities which the German Government has 
 performed or the fearful injuries it has inflicted 
 upon civilization. They may not know what 
 Thomas Jefferson said about Democracy, or what 
 Nietzsche said about Power, but they were born 
 in this country, or have acquired citizenship here, 
 and they have caught the subtle effluvium of 
 patriotism and of freedom. They are going over 
 to enter the mouth of hell ! They are going over 
 to go through the gates of death ! They are go- 
 ing over where the very worst that science can do 
 for human destruction has been perfected. Long, 
 [119]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 sleepless, watchful nights in the trenches are ahead 
 of them death ahead of some of them. They are 
 going over to give all they have in order that you 
 and I and those who come 'after us and men 
 everywhere may live in a land of opportunity and 
 under a reign of justice ! Oh, my fellow citizens, 
 suppose a soldier came in here and said to you: 
 "Good people, I have been selected to go off and 
 hazard my life for you. I would like to have a 
 coat, and shoes, and a hat, and a gun ; I would like 
 to have a gas mask; I would like to have equip- 
 ment to make my task as safe as possible." Every 
 one in this audience would empty his pockets and 
 pour all that he had into the hat in order that the 
 soldier might have everything that he needed for 
 his comfort and safety. Women would take their 
 jewels and the men their money to decorate him 
 as a hero. 
 
 Instead of coming, he is training at Chillicothe 
 and Montgomery and at all the camps in this coun- 
 try. He is marching by the moonlight and get- 
 ting ready to fight your fight and I am coming 
 in his place. Just for a moment I represent him 
 as an advocate to you. I am coming to ask you 
 to clothe him and feed him, to pay his railroad 
 fare, to carry him across the ocean, and to put a 
 gun in his hand. I am asking you to give him a 
 chance to live, to come back to us with victory 
 in his hand victory for justice and right in the 
 world. And he will do it ! When this campaign 
 is over I want the German Emperor to have a 
 [114]
 
 THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICA 
 
 message from the people of the United States, 
 not written in a bank, nor written in some special 
 select room here and there, but written by the 
 lamp light in the humble homes of the people of 
 the United States, and I want that word to 
 read: "Sir Emperor, we have sent over to you, 
 by special messenger, this message: that 
 the American people are marching a million 
 strong to join your adversaries and to put 
 an end to your unjust warfare. They have come 
 at our bidding to rescue the human race from 
 your aggression, and we are back of them with 
 our hands, with our hearts, with our money. We 
 are piling up mountains of dollars in order that 
 they may use them to get at you and your 
 army until you finally yield the palm to justice 
 and are willing to live in this world, as everybody 
 else ought to live : with a just and due regard to 
 the rights of others and without a willingness to 
 sacrifice the innocent to an unholy ambition." 
 
 [115]
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 
 
 We have joined hands with free men everywhere, that 
 we way turn over a new page in the book of history. 
 They will find written with the finger of America the 
 message that unrighteousness shall not prevail. 
 
 TENT MEETING, CLEVELAND, OHIO, 
 OCTOBER 17, 1917. 
 
 THIS is a strange scene. For a good many 
 years we have met on peaceful missions, 
 seeking in one way or another to secure here an 
 ideal city, and we have discussed in a calm and un- 
 troubled atmosphere our domestic problems, with- 
 out the thought ever crossing our minds that the 
 time might come when this great nation would 
 be involved in war and the populations of 
 our great cities would be assembled to hear dis- 
 cussions of military preparations. Outside of 
 our own war our Civil War and the Spanish 
 War, which, while a brilliant exploit of arms in 
 a worthy cause, was relatively a small endeavor, 
 the very genius of our people seems to dedicate 
 our history to peace. And I suppose that if an 
 inquiry had been made of the people of the United 
 States prior to 1914 as to the possibility of a 
 world war, the judgment would have been sub- 
 [116]
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 
 
 stantially unanimous that, in the progress of civ- 
 ilization, the possibility of world-wide war had 
 been obliterated. 
 
 In the space of three years, we have been 
 obliged to reform all our notions on that subject. 
 We have not only seen the great civilized powers 
 of Europe at war with one another, on a scale 
 wholly unprecedented, but we find our own coun- 
 try now drawn into that war, and in some sense 
 one of the principal and most important factors in 
 it. Every now and then I hear people say that even 
 to-day we Americans do not realize that America 
 is at war; and every now and then, though not 
 often, I hear somebody say, "This isn't a popular 
 war." I try to analyze what they mean by that, 
 and my mind goes back to other places and other 
 times. I can see nations assembling their armies 
 amid the plaudits of the crowds ; I can see women 
 cheering marching armies and armed nations in 
 frenzy of madness and military spirit. And then I 
 look from that to our people and I say, "No, in 
 that sense, this is not a popular war." God forbid 
 that any war should ever be popular in the United 
 States in that sense. A disordered national 
 imagination, an unrighteous national ambition, a 
 lust for conquest, a craze for blood, a willingness 
 to take by force from other people who would be 
 content if left in peace with justice that spirit 
 has sometimes made what is called a popular 
 war. The present war, it was declared, was very 
 popular in Germany. I think it is less popular 
 
 [1171
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 now and growing still less popular. We remem- 
 ber the stories when the German Army was mob- 
 ilized how in every city flags decorated each 
 house and how women leaned out of windows 
 to throw flowers to the departing German troops 
 and told their heroes to return with the "Mittel 
 Europa" ideal realized. We have no such scenes 
 as that, but as befits a great, civilized and free 
 people, this war has the majesty of a great idea; 
 it has the dignity of a high ideal; it marks the 
 determination of a free people to reestablish jus- 
 tice on an earth which for three years has wept 
 in ashes and in blood. 
 
 We must realize that we are at war; we must 
 realize that the very character of our adversary 
 and the aggression which brought on our own 
 participation marks it as a supreme struggle. 
 Let no man imagine for a moment that 
 a feeble effort will suffice. If we are in 
 truth to rescue civilization out of this conflagra- 
 tion, then every nerve and every muscle, every 
 thought, every affection, every impulse, every 
 capacity both in us as individuals and collectively 
 in us as a nation, must be devoted to this under- 
 taking, not only that we may win, but that we 
 may win quickly. For every day that this war 
 continues decreases the wealth of the world by 
 at least $100,000,000 and many thousand lives. 
 So far these have been not your lives, nor mine, 
 nor those of our sons or brothers, but the lives of 
 fellow human beings, much like us, who are en- 
 [118]
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 
 
 titled to peace and liberty and opportunity in the 
 world and whose welfare is an essential ingredi- 
 ent, in any wide and popular view, of our own 
 welfare. So, if America can shorten this war by 
 a single day, it is worth the effort that it costs. 
 
 Now this task, in order that you may have 
 some notion of its magnitude, I shall describe 
 only by casual reference. When the war broke 
 out the United States had a Regular Army not 
 much larger than the municipal police force of 
 the city of London. It had a trained body of 
 officers. West Point, certainly the finest mili- 
 tary school in the world, had been turning out a 
 small contingent of officers and some additions 
 had been made from time to time from civil life. 
 And so we had officers enough for that small 
 army. But when we realized the character of 
 this war, there was a general feeling on the 
 part of the people that, in assembling quickly 
 enough the huge military establishment neces- 
 sary, there would be a great shortage of 
 officers; and it was doubted whether this mili- 
 tary establishment of ours could show the ex- 
 pansion necessary successfully to produce offi- 
 cers and trained men. Now what was the first 
 thing done? Training camps were opened for 
 officers. More than 100,000 young men in this 
 country applied for admission to those training 
 camps. In the space of about two months there 
 was assembled and trained as fine a group of 
 young men as ever donned uniforms on the face 
 [119]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 of tLis planet. I give you, not my own estimate, 
 but the estimate of the grizzled veterans of the 
 Regular Army the men who have spent 
 forty and fifty years in the Regular Army. 
 They tell me with one accord that this body of 
 young men who came from our training camps 
 is as fine officer material as any army in the 
 world has ever had. I want to pay this tribute 
 to the American college. The young men who 
 are in those camps were for the most part from 
 our colleges; in no large part young men of 
 wealth; in no large part professional men; but 
 sons of artisans and of workers just as much as 
 sons of professional men. They were a 
 cross-section of American life. But when they 
 put on the uniform and devoted themselves to 
 training, the essence of the athletic spirit that 
 American desire or demand for fair play and 
 the results of the universal education which we 
 have spread over America demonstrated their 
 value to us as a nation. We summoned them out of 
 the workshops and the cornfield and the office and 
 almost overnight fashioned them into officers. 
 Then we began to assemble the army. The 
 Regular Army was doubled in size by volun- 
 teers. The National Guard was filled, in some 
 places quite to war strength, by volunteering. 
 Our own State of Ohio increased its contribu- 
 tion of National Guard troops until it stood a 
 full division, so that it ranks third in the United 
 [120]
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 
 
 States, only three having a full division of the 
 National Guard. 
 
 And then the so-called Selective Service Law 
 was passed, and those who little understood the 
 nature of America, those who were victimized by 
 the fear or belief that democracies are necessar- 
 ily feeble in their institutions and that the inter- 
 ests of the citizens in a democracy are necessarily 
 selfish and individual as contrasted with commu- 
 nal and public people of that type of mind were 
 fearful when we asked the country to select an 
 army that the country would not receive well 
 this sort of invitation. Yet in the few months 
 that have elapsed, ten million young Americans 
 from 21 to 31 have been enrolled by our own 
 registration boards, by the use of civilians se- 
 lected out of our own communities. Boards of 
 exemption and review have selected and sent 
 into the camps or cantonments 687,000 choice 
 young men from the body of the country. I 
 want you to realize and take pride in that spec- 
 tacle ! Men used to go through the public streets 
 waving banners with legends on them that ex- 
 cited momentary passions, and, with the stirring 
 music of the fife and drum, young men fell in. 
 But here, as befits a democracy, the grave and 
 serious duty of defending the national interest 
 was apportioned by the selective process, with- 
 out the beating of a drum and without a murmur 
 of opposition. 
 
 Now I tell you what the result is: In those
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 camps, not the volunteer camps, each man is 
 asked: "What do you want to do?" I have 
 had reports from five or six of the largest camps 
 and they show that the majority answered in 
 effect "I don't care what I do just so I get to 
 France among the first!" The next question 
 asked them is: "What branch of the service 
 do you prefer?" Now one who didn't know 
 America would expect them to say: "Well, I 
 have been working in a store;" "I have been a 
 hand on a farm;" "I have been a mechanic;" 
 "I have been a clerk;" "I don't know much about 
 guns and cannon; perhaps the Quartermaster 
 Corps or the Ordnance Department or some one 
 of the non-combatant places is the place where 
 I can render the best service." But what is the 
 fact? Of these sons and brothers, drawn out 
 of life by selection more than one-third asked 
 to go into the infantry service. The next choice 
 is the light artillery ; the next is the heavy artil- 
 lery service ; the next is the aviation service. So 
 that what they asked for in a tremendously pre- 
 dominating majority of instances is, not the non- 
 combatant service for which their previous ex- 
 perience might qualify them, but the fighting 
 branches, so that they can take the risk of fight- 
 ing for their country with the real weapons of 
 war! Our nation need have nothing but mount- 
 ing pride at the spectacle they present. 
 
 For this army, amounting to more than a mil- 
 lion men, much preparation had to be made. We
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 
 
 had had a situation which might roughly be de- 
 scribed as this : The Chief of Ordnance or the 
 Quartermaster General went to buy supplies; he 
 took his basket and went to the nearest market 
 place and if he did not get what he wanted in one 
 market he went to another. But when we went 
 into this war, it was realized that there was 
 not in the country enough of many of the most 
 necessary supplies, and the task began of or- 
 ganizing the business industry of this whole na- 
 tion to do the things necessary to sustain and 
 carry forward this army. 
 
 It has required business to be done on a very 
 large scale. I made a speech two months ago 
 in which I was trying to tell the people of New 
 York the size of the operations of the War 
 Department, and I mentioned that before the 
 year was over we would have bought 5,000,000 
 blankets. That was two months ago. We have 
 already bought 11,000,000 blankets. The War 
 Department appropriation used to be two hun- 
 dred million or three hundred million dollars, 
 and under exceptional circumstances it sometimes 
 ran up to four hundred millions. Several 
 branches of the War Department now have each 
 three hundred millions to spend ; and this is only 
 the beginning. 
 
 America occupies this position: We must 
 
 not only supply our own army, but we must 
 
 continue to furnish large supplies to those 
 
 who are allied with us in this undertaking; 
 
 [123]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 and in addition to that, the normal process 
 of our life as a nation must go forward 
 in order that we may be strong now and strong 
 in the reconstructing process that will be neces- 
 sary after this war. Therefore, our effort in 
 Washington has been so to expand industry as 
 to meet our need and so to conserve the health of 
 our people by preventing where we could and dis- 
 couraging where we could excessive hours of la- 
 bor as to build a great army and equip it and turn 
 the industries of our country over to our allies in 
 accordance with their needs. At the same time we 
 have tried to keep building up a strong and vigor- 
 ous people, in order that our army might be prop- 
 erly sustained and that America, when the war is 
 over, shall represent a great reservoir of human 
 strength and high morality to put a fresh stamp 
 on the face of the world. 
 
 All of these things require money. They require 
 money in a very large amount. I remember only a 
 few years ago when we talked about a million dol- 
 lar contract as though there were something scan- 
 dalous about the work ; and now the expenditures 
 of our Government will probably be twenty bil- 
 lion dollars. It means that we must contribute 
 money. It doesn't mean a few people, but it 
 means that everybody must contribute. I want to 
 ask you to remember this : In twenty thousand 
 homes in Cleveland, there are mothers, fathers, 
 sisters, wives, who have somebody at the front. 
 Some of you may have soldier boys in training. 
 [124]
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 
 
 But whether you personally have or not, your 
 fellow citizen has! The little boys that played 
 about your doorstep, it seems only yesterday, are 
 now in uniform at Chillicothe or Montgomery, 
 or on the high seas, or have gone across the high 
 seas, to meet a military adversary the worst, in a 
 military sense, the world has ever seen. Their 
 safety will depend upon their having clothes, and 
 food, and protective devices. Can you conceive of 
 sleeping at night if you felt that Johnny who 
 played on your doorstep lacked any one of those 
 things because you hadn't done your duty? 
 
 I suppose some day the Adjutant General's 
 office will have a list of people from France, our 
 people, who have given up their lives for this 
 cause. It may be that telegrams will come to 
 Cleveland telling of losses among our people; 
 and our imaginations will fly to the fields of 
 France and we will see upturned faces of boys 
 whom we knew, who have given all for their 
 country boys it may be who can't even be 
 brought home to rest with their fathers. When 
 the list comes, when our imagination thus dwells 
 upon their heroic sacrifice and upon the splen- 
 dor of that contribution to the rescue of the. 
 world, don't let any of us have the shrinking and 
 shirking feeling that if we had done more in the 
 matter of supplying them with protecting devices 
 the story might have been otherwise! This 
 is very real to me. These hundreds of thousands 
 of Americans in a certain sense rest on my 
 [125]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 shoulders by the accidents of official position. 
 I come to you, my fellow citizens of Cleveland, to 
 ask you to help bear that burden. 
 
 I suppose that the world would not continue 
 to exist if there were not some doubting Thom- 
 ases if there were not some misguided people 
 who criticized some particular fault or another 
 drumstick orators about broomstick prepara- 
 tion and that sort of thing. But let us pass that 
 over. You can rest in the assurance that 
 America has shown herself worthy in her prepa- 
 ration and our boys are not going to want in 
 the supply of arms and ammunition and pro- 
 tective devices against the artifices of our ad- 
 versary. They are flowing out in adequate quan- 
 tity from our workshops. And in addition to that, 
 and I like more to tell you this than anything 
 else, there is going to be a better fighting army 
 than we have ever had, a better army than we 
 have ever had in this respect, that from the first 
 day that a soldier was called, it was determined 
 that the environment in which he was trained 
 should be a stimulating and wholesome environ- 
 ment. There are things that soldiers can bring 
 home that are worse than wounds. It was deter- 
 mined that so far as these training camps in this 
 country were concerned they should be wholesome 
 and stimulating and that the young men trained 
 in them should have opportunity to progress and 
 learn. So our camps are filled with boys play- 
 ing football and baseball and tennis. At the 
 [126]
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 
 
 last camp I visited I looked under the beds 
 where the boys keep their libraries and I found 
 one boy with a plane and solid geometry, 
 one with Caesar's Commentaries and others with 
 books of poetry and romance. We are sending 
 into this contest Americans of culture and high 
 ideals worthy of the cause they are going to 
 defend. And when they come out of it, they 
 will be stimulated and strengthened so far as 
 their minds and bodies are concerned heroes in 
 the highest sense of the word having contrib- 
 uted their services to a great ethical cause. 
 
 Now let me deal just a minute with the cause. 
 Every man in this country hoped that this might 
 not happen. When this war broke out in Eu- 
 rope, we stood back horrified and aghast. We 
 knew among our neighbors and friends mem- 
 bers of each of these nationalities and peoples. 
 We know them now! It seemed inconceivable 
 that aggregated as a nation they should much 
 differ from the individuals we knew. And when 
 philosophers tried to tell us a new spirit had 
 come over the government of the German peo- 
 ple, many of us thought of Schiller and Goethe 
 and of the splendid progress of these people in 
 art and civilization, and it was difficult to imagine 
 that theirs was a government which had foregone 
 and forgotten the moralities which ordinarily ex- 
 ist among civilized people. Yet we saw things 
 that brook no other explanation. When Belgium 
 was invaded as a military necessity, there seemed 
 [127]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 to be a sort of callous disregard for wrongdoing 
 that certainly excited many of us. And then 
 when the stealthy warfare of the U-boat began! 
 At first against their armed adversary, that 
 seemed horrible enough. It seemed to lack the 
 boldness which ordinarily characterizes war. 
 Then we saw the U-boat war extended to the 
 unarmed ship and we found in international law 
 that a merchant ship, even of an enemy, may not 
 be attacked without warning until the casual 
 persons, the passengers, are carried in safety 
 from the perils of the sea. And yet in spite of 
 that, we saw a ship like the Lusitania, filled with 
 non-combatant people, men, women, children, 
 some of them English, some Americans, who, at 
 the very moment, were friendly people to the Ger- 
 man Government we saw that great ship sent 
 down. And we tried to get away from the horror 
 of that spectacle! I am sure you felt as I did 
 for months after the Lusitania was sunk, as I 
 closed my eyes at night, I could imagine the waves, 
 each of those lines of foam no longer mere foam, 
 but the white shroud of some American woman 
 or child ruthlessly done to death! But Ger- 
 many had given up all charity and all thought 
 of consequences and was rushing forth with the 
 feet of war bent on conquest and destruction. 
 Our Government protested and the German 
 government said: "No! We don't intend 
 keeping on doing this," and made a solemn 
 engagement that passengers would be given 
 [128]
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 
 
 an opportunity to make a safe escape. Within 
 six weeks after that assurance, another ship 
 was sunk under somewhat similar circum- 
 stances; and the German government sent us 
 word they disavowed that action and would pun- 
 ish the captain of the U-boat. They teased us 
 and solaced us for our dead with promises which 
 they later confessed were only made to keep us 
 quiet until they had built all the submarines they 
 needed. I do not blame the German people al- 
 though it seems to me a great tragedy that a part 
 of the German people approved it after it was 
 done. But I blame their mad leaders who seemed 
 to have drunk of human blood until they were 
 insane. I blame German autocracy which sets 
 the law of the Hohenzollern dynasty above the 
 law of God on this earth and is willing to have 
 its own people immoral and the neutral nations 
 of the world subjected to ruthless slaughter in 
 order that it may magnify the pretenses of its 
 emperor king ! 
 
 And then came the notice that the German 
 government had built enough submarines to feel 
 safe and would march on the open highway of the 
 commerce of mankind and mark out lanes through 
 which we might send a ship or two provided we 
 painted them like barber poles! We could not 
 be assured that even these ships would be safe. 
 We were told that the Master of the Universe 
 and the Partner of God had decreed that cer- 
 tain parts of the ocean could not be traversed by 
 [129]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 ships and that if we undertook to continue our 
 commerce the ships would be sunk without warn- 
 ing. We had two courses. We could send the 
 ambassador home and rest with a protest. We 
 could have shrunk and shriveled and said: "So 
 long as you don't pinch us, you can eat every- 
 body else." We could have given up our rights 
 to be a nation. We could have knelt at the 
 foot of the Hohenzollern throne and said : "Thy 
 will, O Lord, is enough for us." We didn't do it! 
 We had no intention of doing it! Not because 
 it made so very much difference, perhaps, whether 
 we saved a ship, but because, by this time, it had 
 become clear that this war was not an ordinary 
 war but a conflict of philosophies; because we 
 had to admit autocracy as the only form of 
 government on this earth or else we had to dem- 
 onstrate that democracy was its master. 
 
 I hope my imagination is not too lively; but I 
 like to think of Jefferson and Washington and 
 the men who founded this country as looking 
 down upon the world and thinking that off in a 
 forest they planted a democracy for the better- 
 ment of mankind. I like to think of their follow- 
 ing the results of its example, until even China 
 shakes itself out of an empire thousands of years 
 old, and Russia shakes off autocracy, and then 
 saying: "These things are really the fruits of 
 our spirit; they are all our children." And if 
 they do see and have followed the course of 
 human events, they must realize that this war 
 [130]
 
 THE CALL TO FREE MEN 
 
 is a war for freedom, and, unless we saw our 
 way out, our .turn would be next. From the in- 
 vasion of Belgium it was evident that there was 
 a recrudescence of the spirit that led Augustus 
 Caesar in ancient Rome to try to conquer the 
 world. And now those in America under the 
 Stars and Stripes who learned to lisp almost 
 with their first words the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence have really joined hands with free men 
 everywhere so that, presenting a solid front, we 
 might turn over a new page in the book of history, 
 put there the authority and the sign-manual of 
 democracy on the earth, and by this cooperation 
 of effort strike down forever the false philos- 
 ophy that subjects the will to dynastic pretenses, 
 and establish on the earth once and for all those 
 lanes of justice and of freedom without which 
 further human progress is impossible. 
 
 I have finished. I came not so much to tell 
 why the war is being fought nor its nature, but 
 I came to tell you that this is your war and mine ; 
 and that those of us who are too old to fight, who 
 can't shoulder a gun and live in a trench or wear 
 a gas-mask, those of us who have not been 
 chosen for such service can still fight our part in 
 this war; and it takes only a stroke of the pen on 
 the application for a bond. We must build here 
 at home dreadnoughts of money and 42-centi- 
 meters of finance, and the message they will 
 carry will be one of encouragement to our own 
 soldiers. To those, on the other hand, who have 
 [131]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 brought destruction on the earth; to those who 
 have caused the awful holocaust and loss of blood 
 and treasure; to those at Potsdam who now, in 
 the providence of God, are beginning to tremble, 
 to them the message of this accumulation of 
 treasure by you will be the voice of doom ! They 
 will find written on the wall, with the finger of 
 America, the message which means that un- 
 righteousness shall not prevail. 
 
 [132]
 
 THE PRICE OF PEACE 
 
 The forty years of preparation which the German gov- 
 ernment went through were forty years of deadening the 
 minds of the German people so that they would not 
 realize the possibility of liberty in the world, so that they 
 would follow without asking questions, so that they 
 zvould substitute the welfare of the Hohenzollern Dy- 
 n-asty for any considerations of humanity. 
 
 BOSTON CITY CLUB, OCTOBER 25, 1917. 
 
 IF a man who is called upon to decide something 
 can only see the man to whom he is talk- 
 ing, he is quite likely to go wrong. But if a 
 man has just imagination enough to shut his 
 eyes and see over the head of the man he is talk- 
 ing to and see the persons who, though unrepre- 
 sented, are still interested, he is not likely to 
 make a mistake, either from lack of courage or 
 for any personal consideration. Hence when a 
 man gets into a public place, like the head of a 
 department in Washington, it is an important 
 thing to remember that the particular persons 
 who happen to be grouped in the relatively small 
 office in which he is situated are only an in- 
 finitesimal fraction of all the people who dwell 
 between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, and 
 that the real answer to the question always is, 
 [133]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 and sometimes it is rather painful and difficult, 
 not, how it will affect the particular individual 
 who is there, but how it is going to affect this 
 great lot of people who, so far as that question 
 is concerned, are just as important as the person 
 to whom he is talking. 
 
 Of course this situation is one in which not 
 only public officers in Washington, but men all 
 over this great country of ours, men of all walks 
 of life, and of all intricacies of interest in busi- 
 ness and industry, have, so far as they them- 
 selves are concerned, ceased to exist as persons. 
 There has been a great amalgamation of the 
 individual personalities of the people of the 
 United States into a composite national unit 
 type. I think it will be said of all the people 
 who are actively engaged in this war that per- 
 sonal interest and self-interest have all been for- 
 gotten, party distinction has been unremem- 
 bered, the old habit of getting and gaining in 
 life has been foregone, and there is a sponta- 
 neous and inspiring unanimity of opinion among 
 the people of the United States, whether in pub- 
 lic office or out of it, that nothing else matters 
 until this war is won. 
 
 I am glad to be here because I think it is highly 
 important that there should be an interchange of 
 opinion among the people of the United States 
 about the great business upon which our nation is 
 engaged. This war differs from every other war 
 in history, both in its size, in its intensity, in its 
 [134]
 
 THE PRICE OF PEACE 
 
 characteristics, and in the implements with which 
 it is being fought. The number of men now en- 
 gaged on the battlefields of Europe is perhaps 
 greater at this moment than the aggregate of all 
 the people who have been on European battle- 
 fields in one hundred years before this war be- 
 gan. And not only is that true, but the peoples 
 who are represented are more affected by the 
 war than any peoples have ever been by any war 
 which has taken place since men ceased to slay 
 all of their adversaries, including men, women, 
 and children. 
 
 There was, if one may so characterize it, orig- 
 inally a period of barbaric warfare, in which 
 the extermination, root and branch, of the ad- 
 versary was the aim of a combatant, and after 
 a victory had been won in that age it was cus- 
 tomary to gather all of the conquered men and the 
 women and children together, and enslave or kill 
 them, so that the extermination of the adversary 
 would be thoroughgoing. Then, as men began 
 to be civilized and began to have not only some 
 compunctions of humanity, but some realization 
 of the economic interdependence of men upon one 
 another, that mode of warfare was succeeded by 
 what may be called the era of civilized warfare, 
 in which year after year, and war after war, 
 new restraints were put upon the combatants in 
 the interest of the non-combatant population. 
 We began to draw up and set down in books, 
 and recognize and act upon, certain rules of so- 
 [135]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 called civilized warfare. Among those rules 
 were some that have become axiomatic, so that 
 everybody who hears them accepts them at once. 
 For instance, that a non-combatant civilian popu- 
 lation, not occupying a fortified place, and not 
 participating in military activity, is immune 
 from attack. Another, appertaining to the sea, 
 has been for many, many years well recognized 
 and lived up to by all civilized nations, that mer- 
 chant ships, even of an adversary nation, are 
 not subject to be attacked until after they have 
 been halted and searched and their non-combat- 
 ant passengers given an opportunity to secure a 
 safe retreat. Many rules of that kind have 
 grown up in the era of civilized warfare, with 
 this result that the rigors of war, outside of 
 the actual losses at the battle front and the in- 
 evitable griefs at home caused by them during 
 this long period, have been visited almost ex- 
 clusively upon the combatants. 
 
 Now we have suddenly drawn a line and closed 
 the age of civilized warfare, and have gone into 
 a new era of barbarous warfare, in which 
 one belligerent has so far cast aside all 
 of these rules and restrictions of civilized war- 
 fare that it has not hesitated to kill, to mutilate, 
 to maim, and to outrage women and children ; to 
 bombard defenseless and undefended towns; to 
 drop bombs from the sky upon civilian popula- 
 tions; and to organize a mode of warfare by sea 
 which, if it were individual in its execution, would 
 [136]
 
 THE PRICE OF PEACE 
 
 be called a process of assassination, and which 
 consists in an unseen implement, under the sur- 
 face of the sea, not taking the hazards of war; 
 not willing to play the game, not giving the other 
 fellow a chance; skulking away from any ship 
 which may have the means of defending itself; 
 lurking until it finds an unsuspecting and de- 
 fenseless victim; and then by stealth doing it to 
 death, without even giving the women on board 
 a chance to say their prayers. 
 
 The character of this war has not only be- 
 come thus barbarous, but its effects are no lon- 
 ger restricted to the combatant population and 
 the civilian population who are intimately con- 
 nected with those who are thus engaged, but 
 we witness now a coordination of the nations for 
 war which reaches out to the remotest village 
 and hamlet of a country engaged. Take our own 
 case. When we are, ourselves, thoughtless about 
 it, we think of this war as being fought in France. 
 Why, it is being fought in Boston, it is being 
 fought in Cleveland! It is being fought in Se- 
 attle, and in Waco, Texas. We think of it as 
 being fought by these army officers and the men 
 in uniform in the other countries. It is being 
 fought by you. It is being fought by your wives. 
 It is being fought in every factory, in every 
 workshop, in every store, in every home, in this 
 country, and by those marvelously subtle proc- 
 esses of modern scientific achievement whereby 
 we are all coordinated, as Lowell once said, "by 
 [137]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 a common nervous system," until we now have 
 an institution where every man's thought, energy, 
 and nervous system are electrically connected 
 through a center, and all made a part of the ag- 
 gregate economic force to win. So that this war 
 differs in character, in intensity, and in conse- 
 quences from any other. 
 
 I have no doubt many men in this room have 
 read the story of Napoleon's invasion of Rus- 
 sia. I think no greater book has been written 
 in the lifetime of any living man than Tolstoy's 
 "War and Peace." It tells the whole story of 
 war in Russia, the Napoleonic advance, the Na- 
 poleonic retreat, the withdrawal of the civilian 
 population in advance of the army; and Tolstoy's 
 purpose was to paint it at its worst not to be 
 satisfied with the glory, the waving of flags, and 
 the huzzas of victory, but to paint the individual, 
 personal side of war and so he told of families, 
 of villages, and of cities, and how they were af- 
 fected. Yet when you compare that tragic ex- 
 perience with what the world has seen in the 
 three years which we now look back upon, it 
 seems like the mimicry of children it seems 
 like sham battle as compared with the awful 
 devastation which the human race has suffered 
 in that time. 
 
 I need say nothing of Belgium. That is so in- 
 timately known to us that we, in our own bodies, 
 it seems to me, have suffered with the Belgians. 
 There was a poetic quality about the invasion 
 [138]
 
 THE PRICE OF PEACE 
 
 of Belgium. It seemed as though there was 
 something Greek about it. Here were those 
 people, letting everybody alone and willing to let 
 everybody alone, and asking only that they be 
 let alone; building up a little civilization, an at- 
 tractive and beautiful partner of the civilization 
 of their French neighbor; with a charming and 
 cultured people in a small and defenseless coun- 
 try; guaranteed as to its integrity by solemn in- 
 struments entered into by all of the surrounding 
 nations, by which each of them agreed not only 
 to prevent everybody else from interfering with 
 the integrity of that country, but to refrain them- 
 selves from violating it. 
 
 We followed the tragic fate of Belgium. We 
 saw its undefended cities leveled to the ground 
 and burned, and we saw houses entered by sol- 
 diers to drive out the civilian population, who 
 were lined up in the streets and shot by hun- 
 dreds, in order so we were told that the whole 
 world might take notice of how terrible the Ger- 
 man autocracy was when it really got started. 
 
 We saw later a large part of the Belgian popu- 
 lation deported a thing that had not happened, 
 so far as my recollection of history goes, since 
 the days of the Roman conquest of the world, 
 when the victims were brought in trailing at the 
 chariot wheels and the conqueror's glory was 
 counted by the number of his captives. Here 
 was a civilian population which had done nothing 
 yet the people were herded into trains and carried 
 [139]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 into Germany, put into workshops and subjected 
 to compulsory labor, judged and condemned to 
 involuntary servitude, for no crime, but merely in 
 furtherance of the central purpose of military 
 aggression and dynastic aggrandizement. 
 
 That story is so well known to us that we 
 scarcely need to have it called to our minds. But 
 all over Europe, in every corner of it, death and 
 destruction has laid its heavy hand in a way we 
 scarcely realize. Armies have swept over Po- 
 land; the shrinking, feeble, and timid women, 
 gathering their children about them, have with- 
 drawn into the woods and tried to hide from this 
 avalanche of armed men, and in the exodus of 
 a population, fleeing from things worse than 
 death, the little babies have been trampled to 
 death before the advance of the army as it 
 came to take possession. In Armenia a million 
 persons killed not combatant persons, not men 
 who bared their bosoms to the adversary and 
 said, "It is an even game; shoot me or I will 
 shoot you"; but people sacrificed to the fanati- 
 cal religious hatred of the Turk by reason of 
 the opportunity presented through world-wide 
 war, with the worst passions of the Turk stirred 
 to emulate the example of his over-lord, the 
 Kaiser, by the example which the German autoc- 
 racy had set among civilized people. 
 
 When I think of pictures like this I wonder 
 how the German Kaiser can sleep at night. How 
 fair the world was in 1914 ! The marching army 
 [140]
 
 THE PRICE OF PEACE 
 
 of democratic effort and belief was going all 
 over the world and adding victories for human- 
 ity and mankind to the great territory which it 
 had conquered in its original home here. I was 
 in Europe just before the war broke out; the air 
 was electric with the feeling that a reorganiza- 
 tion of the social and domestic relations of men 
 was in progress, that the thing which was 
 started here in Boston the spirit of liberty and 
 independence and of self-government, and of 
 the dignity of the individual, a message which 
 had been first sent from here was really being 
 heard over there. Men were getting to be recog- 
 nized in the world. In places where ancient aris- 
 tocracies had existed and present royalty and 
 their ancestors had ruled for years and years, we 
 were coming to hear of happy homes, of prosper- 
 ous and contented people, who had something ap- 
 proaching equality of opportunity, economically 
 and industrially, among their own people. In 
 the midst of that just when the spirit of the 
 age seemed marching to the redemption of 
 mankind this war was forced upon the world, 
 upon the flimsiest and most paltry of excuses, 
 because I think nobody can have examined the 
 original cause of this war, the ultimatum to 
 Serbia and its answer, and the things which 
 happened after that, without realizing that the 
 head of the German government willed this war. 
 And so when I think in this vein, after these 
 three years of slaughter, with civilization bear- 
 [141]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 ing vital if not deadly wounds in every part of 
 its body, with the hope of the human race de- 
 ferred centuries from the advancement that it 
 might otherwise quickly have attained, I won- 
 der how the German Emperor is able to sleep 
 at night. 
 
 I recall a picture that must be familiar to many 
 of you, entitled, "The Conqueror," and on a 
 shadow emblematic of a state of war I see 
 riding the majestic figure of a man who while 
 living had been a great conqueror. He is 
 riding along a highway, with his head bowed 
 down; and as you study the impressionistic mist 
 which covers the picture, you can see that the 
 high road over which he goes is made up of the 
 bodies of men who had been slain in order that 
 his military ambition might be satisfied. Along 
 the dim road through which this solitary figure 
 is riding, stand the accusing figures of the victims 
 of his wars, each of them only a spirit, only a 
 reminiscence, but with one accord each of them 
 pointing, as he rides by, to his conqueror. So I 
 wonder just how, when all the flattery and adula- 
 tion is taken away, and the Kaiser gets into his 
 own room and the supernumeraries who bend the 
 knee are away from him, and he is by himself and 
 realizes that the head and front of his nation has 
 let loose this war on mankind in the world I 
 wonder how he is able to sleep at night. 
 
 Now this war has been brought about. It in- 
 volves all of this vast coordination and aggrega- 
 [142]
 
 THE PRICE OF PEACE 
 
 tion of our national strength. It calls on each 
 of us to do our utmost in order that it may be 
 successfully and speedily brought to an end. I 
 am mightily interested in bringing this war to 
 an end. But I have no reference whatever 
 merely to having it stop. 
 
 This war went on for two or three years with 
 these barbarous attributes which I have de- 
 scribed to you, with the frankly professed philos- 
 ophy on the part of the German government 
 that it was going to make itself so terrible that 
 nobody would dare to resist it. We were sepa- 
 rated from the scene of the conflict by about 
 three thousand miles of ocean. First there was 
 the Lusitania, the master horror of this war 
 except one. The great tragedy of this war is 
 not the Lusitania, but it is the fact that the sink- 
 ing of the Lusitania was approved by the Ger- 
 man nation. That is the most tragic fact in 
 modern history. 
 
 But we had the Lusitania, and then our gov- 
 ernment protested against it, and the German 
 government sent out solemn diplomatic assur- 
 ances that that would not be repeated. Those 
 assurances had scarcely reached us before other 
 ships of the same general kind were sunk in 
 much the same way. And each time the German 
 government disavowed the act sent us word 
 that they had not intended to commit it that it 
 was unauthorized; and in one instance they said 
 that they had rebuked the commander who had 
 [148]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 made the mistake; giving us all the time, first, 
 the definite and positive assurance that there- 
 after warfare on the seas would be conducted in 
 accordance with the rules of civilized warfare, 
 and when these constant exceptions were made, 
 reassuring us that they adhered to their original 
 declaration. Finally they notified us, in Feb- 
 ruary, that they had made up their minds to 
 disregard these solemn assurances and promises 
 to us, to make another historical scrap of paper 
 out of a written engagement, to declare ruthless 
 submarine warfare on belligerent and neutral 
 alike, to go about the seas worse than ever the 
 Barbary pirates bent on the indiscriminate 
 slaughter of men, women and children, friend and 
 foe alike. They told us in plain terms that they 
 had drawn out on the map of the waters of the 
 deep certain narrow lanes in which we American 
 citizens might sail a limited number of ships and 
 so far as England is concerned, my recollection 
 is it was two a week that we could send to Eng- 
 land if we sent them in that lane on particular 
 days, and painted according to their directions. 
 
 Of course just this alternative presented it- 
 self to us. We could either yield we could 
 either say that we had grown so fat and 
 lazy and money-loving that we had forgotten 
 liberty; or else we could say, "No, all the pros- 
 perity, all the success, all the civilization, all the 
 ethical advance of our people, is due to one thing, 
 and that is that we have been free, and we in- 
 [144]
 
 THE PRICE OF PEACE 
 
 tend to remain free." And that is what we have 
 said. Now we are dedicated with all of our 
 efforts of every kind, with our lives, our for- 
 tunes, to win this war. Why? Because at last 
 we have realized that the forty years of prepa- 
 ration for it in Germany were not forty years 
 of military preparation. It does not take forty 
 years to prepare anybody to do anything in a 
 military sense. And all the things that the Ger- 
 mans had twenty years ago guns and ammuni- 
 tion, and all of that are obsolete and worn out; 
 so that their forty years of preparation were not 
 for the accumulation of military stores, but we 
 realize that the forty years of preparation which 
 the German government went through were forty 
 years of deadening the minds of the German 
 people, so that they would not realize the possi- 
 bility of liberty in the world, so that they would 
 follow without asking questions, so that they 
 would substitute the welfare of the Hohenzol- 
 lern dynasty for any considerations of humanity 
 that might be addressed to their attention. Now 
 we realize that our adversary, with this spectac- 
 ular illustration in his own people of the way it 
 blights the human intellect and dwarfs the human 
 conscience, represents the principle of autocracy. 
 Fate has taken us like children by the hand 
 and led us up to a place where roads divide, and 
 told us to choose. On the one side there is au- 
 tocracy, a certain kind of mechanical efficiency, 
 a certain absence of spiritual quality, a com- 
 [145]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 pletely selfish and ambitious attitude by a fa- 
 vored class. On the other side there is de- 
 mocracy, with its struggle and its chaos, but its 
 boundless horizon of opportunity for the indi- 
 vidual. We are asked to choose. That choice 
 is not hard for us to make. And now that we 
 have made it we are entitled to be cheered by 
 knowing that we are acting worthily upon our 
 choice. The inventive genius of America, a 
 thing which hitherto has been devoted to the im- 
 provement of manufacturing processes, has now 
 been diverted to a new and great scientific enter- 
 prise and contest. For a few short weeks an 
 incredibly short number of days chosen sci- 
 entists and inventors have been sitting in a room 
 in Washington, and each of them has given up all 
 of his own secrets and his trade formulas and his 
 competitive advantages, and they have pooled is- 
 sues, until they have made the Liberty engine for 
 our aircraft, which is perhaps the most striking 
 achievement of mechanical ingenuity and perhaps 
 the best indication of our success as an industrial 
 nation that we have had since this war began. 
 
 In the same way a standardized motor truck 
 this is a transportation war one exceedingly 
 simple in its construction, with interchangeable 
 parts, and easy to operate, so that its usefulness is 
 at a maximum, and one easy of production in 
 quantities, has been devised. On all hands, in- 
 dustrially, inventively, scientifically, mechani- 
 cally, from the point of view of the laborer, 
 [146]
 
 THE PRICE OF PEACE 
 
 from the point of view of the captain of indus- 
 try, all interests, all capacities, have been laid 
 at the feet of the Federal government as the 
 representative and the administrator for the 
 common good. Our army is already march- 
 ing, a part of it overseas, joining hands with he- 
 roes who have for three years borne the burden 
 and the brunt of this great struggle, presenting 
 now to civilized mankind a spectacle of complete 
 solidarity among the civilized nations and an ir- 
 resistible rampart thrown out to jam back and 
 prevent the further encroachment of a medieval 
 barbarism upon a modern world. 
 
 Already our soldiers are in France in substan- 
 tial numbers. And already we are training them 
 here in great numbers. Our preparations are 
 made. The material part of our preparation is 
 advancing rapidly, and the spiritual part of it 
 is even more impressive, for in our effort to pre- 
 pare, we have learned some things about de- 
 mocracy which we did not know. We knew that 
 it was beautiful, but we were not certain that 
 it was strong. We knew that it made for lib- 
 erty and for freedom, but we were not sure that 
 it had the capacity for self-preservation and pro- 
 tection against this kind of an adversary. And 
 now all of our doubts are gone. We are con- 
 solidated as one people. We have one thought. 
 We have abated and abandoned all of our sepa- 
 ratist tendencies and differences of opinion. We 
 are Americans now, ioining hands with the he- 
 "[147]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 roes of France and England, cheering their 
 wearied spirits if there be a wearied spirit 
 among them with the news that now the great 
 civilized powers of the world present an unbroken 
 front against this medieval autocratic invader, 
 and that the day is in sight when peace will be 
 written permanent peace based upon those 
 standards of justice, equity, and humanity, those 
 rights of man which we in our own national 
 experiment have demonstrated really to be the 
 vital principles of human life.
 
 THE REPUBLIC AS EMPLOYER 
 
 The privates' uniforms of the United States are not 
 being made in sweatshops; for once, at least, the Govern- 
 ment of the United States assumes the character of a 
 model employer in a vital industry. IVe shall set our 
 faces resolutely against everything which seeks to break 
 down those barriers set up through years of patient la- 
 bor against the enervation and dissipation of the child- 
 life, and of the woman-life, and of the man-life of the 
 country. 
 
 NATIONAL CONSUMERS' LEAGUE, 
 BALTIMORE, NOVEMBER 14, 1917. 
 
 WE have a curious form of government, not 
 only in the fact that it is a departure 
 from the political traditions of mankind every- 
 where, but in that it involves, I think, more 
 than any other government in the world, the co- 
 operation of the volunteer spirit. 
 
 People are wont to say in America that when- 
 ever a grievance arises it is discussed, an or- 
 ganization is formed, its officers get together 
 and appoint a committee and then it is all over. 
 In a sense that is so. We do multiply commit- 
 tees. We get up societies and associations and 
 leagues until we are sometimes weighted down 
 with the multifariousness of our diverse occu- 
 pations and interests, and are disposed to ques- 
 [149]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 tion whether or not many of them may not be 
 futile. Yet I make bold to say that if we were 
 to withdraw from the effective government of 
 the United States the voluntary effort which 
 is represented by sucft associations, our govern- 
 ment would scarcely exist at all. 
 
 There are governments which take into their 
 keeping all of the interests and all of the life of 
 their people. They make a calendar by which 
 their people live. They have the trusteeship and 
 custodianship of the intellectual and of the spir- 
 itual life of their people. They are what might 
 be called, if we were to borrow the language of 
 modern industry, completely integrated govern- 
 ments, and from the cradle to the grave the citi- 
 zen is merely playing an assigned part in the 
 life of the state, which is higher than the citizen, 
 and for which and for whose glory the citizen 
 exists. 
 
 Ours is an entirely different policy, an entirely 
 different theory of government. We are very 
 jealous about institutionalizing our government. 
 We are loath to make laws. I realize that the 
 vast volumes of published laws which come from 
 Congress and the state legislatures every year 
 seem enormous, but most of these laws are to 
 change people's names or do other immaterial 
 things. The actual body of fresh institutional 
 law passed in any one year in the United States 
 is exceedingly small, and fundamental changes 
 are made slowly, with reluctance. We are ex- 
 [150]
 
 THE REPUBLIC AS EMPLOYER 
 
 ceedingly loath to take away from the individual 
 or from groups of individuals any part of the 
 powers or rights or privileges or liberties which 
 at one time they enjoyed, no matter how incon- 
 sistent they may have become with a more ad- 
 vanced state of our industrial civilization. 
 
 For a supplement to this institutionalizing of 
 our life we rely upon voluntary effort, upon 
 leagues and associations and committees and 
 groups. Their function with us is a pioneering 
 function. They take up the slack of our life; 
 between complete autocracy of government and 
 a neglect almost as complete by government of 
 many of the interests of life, the voluntary asso- 
 ciations perform their function. They discover 
 the undiscovered country ; they keep track of the 
 development of things, and they agitate for 
 remedies; they often supply remedies. 
 
 I do not want to pursue the speculative sug- 
 gestion too far, because it is not necessary to 
 justify the existence of the Consumers' League 
 or of any kindred organization. What we ac- 
 tually do is to go out into the life of America 
 and find those things which are costing us more 
 than we can afford to pay, things which cannot 
 be counted in dollars and cents, which are just 
 over the horizon of the legislature's eye, things 
 which the legislative body has not yet appre- 
 hended, as it were. We get those deadly costs 
 and drag them into light and place them within 
 the horizon of the legislature, so that after a while 
 [151]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 what has been discovered by some such society 
 as ours as a neglected social duty, comes to be 
 recognized as an unescapable social obligation. 
 
 I cannot stop to illustrate what the Consum- 
 ers' League has given to the people of the United 
 States, but if you will run over in your minds such 
 organizations as our League, or the Child Labor 
 Committee, or the Civil Service Reform League, 
 and mentally take off the statute books of 
 the country the things which have been put there 
 through such voluntary effort, or take out of 
 our public life and consciousness the recognitions 
 which we have been forced to make through the 
 education which has come from such societies, 
 you will realize, I think, that organizations like 
 these are, in a sense, the forerunners of govern- 
 ment. They are an essential part of the Ameri- 
 can theory of government, of the American gov- 
 ernment itself; they are as essential as are the 
 more formalized parts of it, which appear in 
 persons who hold public office, or in laws which 
 appear written down in cold words upon the 
 statute books. 
 
 The importance of the whole speculation to me 
 is this: Our country is, of course, in the most se- 
 rious situation it has ever been in our history, se- 
 rious not alone because we are engaged in a great 
 war. Terrible as wars are and terrible as this 
 war is, we have had trying times in this country 
 before, and have been engaged in wars when 
 the right seemed to hang by a very delicate bal- 
 [152]
 
 THE REPUBLIC AS EMPLOYER 
 
 ance; there were many periods of time when it 
 seemed as though the right might perhaps not 
 prevail. We are in a serious condition because 
 this war is the first war in history since modern 
 industrialism came into existence. It is the first 
 war in the world on such a large scale and among 
 highly civilized peoples since transportation be- 
 came so large a factor in life. It is the first war 
 of any large proportion since the recent and very 
 great advances of science have been made, and, 
 therefore, it is the most deadly war. I do not 
 mean in the actual number of killed, but I mean 
 in the destructive effect upon the human ele- 
 ments engaged in it, it is surely the most deadly 
 war that we have ever had. 
 
 It is the first war in which such enormous 
 masses of men have been engaged. On the other 
 side of the ocean the entire man-power of the 
 nations is mobilized, until all fields of life have 
 had men drafted away from them. From all the 
 callings, from the most necessary of all, agri- 
 culture, men have been taken and have been con- 
 verted, for the time being into men of war, and 
 tremendous problems have resulted from this. 
 
 Only one or two of these problems can be con- 
 sidered by us at this time. The United States 
 has gone into this war. Inevitably, the taking of 
 a million, or a million and a half, or two million, 
 or any other large number of men out of the in- 
 dustrial and commercial life of our nation is go- 
 ing to make itself felt. There will be fewer men 
 [153]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 in the workshops. There will be fewer men in the 
 professions. There will be fewer men in the col- 
 leges, either as students or as teachers. There 
 will be fewer men in agriculture and in many of 
 the industries which we have regarded as vital. 
 As yet, the draft is relatively small; as the war 
 progresses, it is going to be increasingly large, 
 and as the draft increases, the need for an indus- 
 trial output will grow correspondingly greater. 
 
 Those nations with whom we are allied in this 
 conflict are getting further and further away 
 from their former productivity. Their work- 
 shops and factories are being rilled by boys and 
 women who have learned to perform only one 
 operation of what was originally a craft or a 
 trade. The all-around craftsmen, the journey- 
 men working in industry, are becoming fewer and 
 fewer in those countries, while on the other 
 hand their natural resources are necessarily much 
 diminished and are constantly decreasing. This 
 throws back upon us, as the freshest, most unex- 
 hausted and I hope, in a proper sense, the least 
 exhaustible of all the countries arrayed on our 
 side, an increasing burden to feed and supply 
 the world. 
 
 Now, unfortunately, machinery has given us 
 one great delusion. People have imagined that 
 when a machine was operated by a steam engine 
 or by an electric motor, the steam engine or the 
 electric motor actually did all the work and the 
 people who were attending it while it operated 
 [154]
 
 THE REPUBLIC AS EMPLOYER 
 
 were more or less negligible. As a consequence, 
 we indulged ourselves in the very unfortunate 
 and often fatal belief that unlimited hours of 
 labor were possible because it was the machines 
 which were doing the work. And now with this 
 pressure upon us from all over the world for an 
 increased supply of food and industrial mate- 
 rials of all kinds, the great temptation is to hug 
 that delusion to our hearts and demand of our 
 men, women and children in industry that 
 they give us longer hours of work. We over- 
 look the fact, which we had lately begun to ap- 
 preciate, that the person who tends the power- 
 driven machine is far more susceptible to ex- 
 haustion, is far more open to fatigue and to the 
 poisons that come from over-exertion and affect 
 the system than ever before. 
 
 We are likely to overlook that truth. Yet if 
 we do overlook it, we shall have in addition to 
 the terrible cost of the loss of life involved in bat- 
 tle, an equally terrible though far less spectacular 
 cost at home in the devitalized life of the men and 
 women and children in industry upon whom, as 
 a foundation, the whole social, industrial and 
 military structure of the country must rest. 
 
 Now, because of our realization of these things 
 the call comes to the Consumers' League as one 
 of these semi-governmental institutions, as one 
 of these silent partners in the government that 
 if it ever was busy it shall now redouble its busi- 
 ness; that if it ever had a call to point out to 
 [155]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 the American people the drain on life from in- 
 dustrialism and long hours of labor and insani- 
 tary housing and the like, that call shall now be 
 raised to the nth power. For this is the moment 
 when the imagination of the American people is 
 most likely to fail on that subject. They are most 
 likely to demand goods in increasing quantities 
 and not to stop to ask the cost of them. 
 
 We are taking out of industrial life now a mil- 
 lion and a half of men. The number of women 
 employed in our industries is being greatly in- 
 creased. I have no doubt that the inspectors 
 who are charged with the duty of enforcing State 
 child labor laws are having more and more in- 
 sistent demands from employers that they relax 
 their vigilance in the interest of the national 
 output. I have not the least doubt, as a matter 
 of fact I have some very definite knowledge, that 
 employers who have contracts with the Govern- 
 ment or with the Allies, or who make things more 
 or less necessary to the life of the people, are 
 constantly saying to themselves and to State en- 
 forcing agencies and to me as Secretary of War 
 and as a member of the Council of National De- 
 fense: "This is not the time to worry about 
 those restrictions; this is not the time to enforce 
 these laws about children and women and their 
 hours and condition of labor ; too large and mo- 
 mentous events are moving now for anybody to. 
 be delayed by these things." That demand is being 
 made everywhere. Now, the duty of the Con- 
 [156]
 
 THE REPUBLIC AS EMPLOYER 
 
 sumers' League and of every member of it, and 
 of everybody who knows its philosophy and be- 
 lieves in it, is to set his face resolutely against 
 everything that on any pretext seeks to break 
 down those barriers which we have set up 
 through years of patient labor, against the ener- 
 vation and dissipation of the child-life and of 
 the woman-life and of the man-life of this coun- 
 try. 
 
 While we have sometimes done some things in 
 the way of relaxation I think the Council of Na- 
 tional Defense has not done very much in that 
 direction, and it is safe to say that the Govern- 
 ment has rather advanced the standards de- 
 manded in industry since the war began than 
 relaxed them. I feel perfectly certain as to nine- 
 tenths of the work done for the Federal Govern- 
 ment since we went into this war, that the con- 
 ditions of hours, of pay, of sanitation and su- 
 pervision under which the work is done, are bet- 
 ter than they would have been under circum- 
 stances existing prior to our entrance. But I say 
 this not to claim credit. I say it because to that 
 extent the Government has recognized this most 
 solemn of all facts, that it will do us no good 
 whatever to send our sons to France to fight for 
 our political rights if, while they are waging the 
 battle, we surrender our industrial and our social 
 rights here at home. 
 
 We are gradually learning, I think, that lib- 
 erty is of a piece with all of its parts ; all of which 
 [157]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 we must acquire if we are to enjoy any one or 
 more of them. I have the right to go to Florida 
 and spend the winter. It does me no good. I have 
 not the time and I have not the money, so that 
 my one-cornered liberty is an ideal possession 
 and is enjoyed only when I have the leisure to 
 indulge in imaginary pleasure. And so it is 
 with political liberties. It does us no good to 
 be able to vote for people; it does us no good to 
 be able to call ourselves free and to describe our 
 land as the land of the free unless we have all 
 the component parts of real freedom. And that 
 means unless we have the political liberty to recast 
 our industrial life so that it will really be a life of 
 opportunity to the humblest person who shares it. 
 Now, our sons are going to France. When 
 they have finally done the thing which they must 
 do, when they have finally established on the 
 frontiers of France the eternal dominance of 
 free over autocratic institutions, when they have 
 done that, they will come home. When they 
 come back they will see the Statue of Liberty. 
 They will sail into New York harbor proud of 
 their victories, proud of their honors. And 
 when they come I do not want them to find here a 
 dissipated and depressed life. I do not want them 
 to find that they have been trying to gain one cor- 
 ner of freedom while the others have been ut- 
 terly lost ; but I want them to come back to wives 
 and sisters and mothers and brothers and chil- 
 dren filled with robust health, people who have 
 [158]
 
 THE REPUBLIC AS EMPLOYER 
 
 worked in industry and commerce, people who 
 have produced the goods upon which life de- 
 pends, people who have filled the workshops and 
 the factories and the fields with labor, done under 
 wholesome conditions. Let them find that, as 
 they were fighting at one end of the frontier and 
 winning one corner of freedom's fields, we at 
 home were enlarging the boundaries of indus- 
 trial liberty, that we were laying out new bounda- 
 ries of real freedom here among ourselves, that 
 we were enlarging the lessons we had hitherto 
 learned of the value, the indispensableness of 
 wholesome conditions for people who perform the 
 labor of the world, and establishing conditions 
 which it will be a privilege for them to come back 
 to rather than a grief. 
 
 It is the special function of the Consumers' 
 League to continue its work along that line. May 
 I drop my character as President of the League 
 for a moment, in order to thank the League 
 for the help it has already given? I have, as 
 most of you know, borrowed the General Secre- 
 tary of the Consumers' League. She will tell 
 you, and I have not the slightest objection to its 
 being told, that one particular branch of work 
 about which she happens to know, the privates' 
 uniforms of the Army of the United States, is 
 not being done in sweatshops. Not one of those 
 uniforms is being made in sweatshops ! Arrange- 
 ments have been made for the manufacture of the 
 clothing of the Army, so that it is now substan- 
 [159]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 tially all being made under sanitary conditions, 
 not in the homes of people who have to live in con- 
 gested places, but under suitable restrictions as to 
 hours of labor and under proper wage scales, so 
 that for once at least the Government of the 
 United States assumes the character of a model 
 employer in a vital industry. 
 
 That it was possible to find the enlightenment 
 to bring about this result is one of the glories of 
 the Consumers' League. A victory has been won 
 here at home, one that will not appear in the 
 newspapers as will a victory at arms, but yet a 
 real victory for better conditions. 
 
 You have the opportunity as you scatter 
 throughout the various States of this Union to 
 raise your voices against a relaxation of the 
 standards which you have so largely achieved. 
 You have an opportunity to be explicit in teach- 
 ing and impressing the lesson that we cannot 
 afford, when we are losing boys in France, to lose 
 children in the United States at the same time; 
 that we cannot afford when this nation is suffer- 
 ing a drain upon the life of its young manhood, 
 which is not learning the crafts by which the in- 
 dustrial and agricultural life of the nation is here- 
 after to be sustained we cannot afford to have 
 the vitality of women workers of the United 
 States depressed. If the Consumers' League and 
 its affiliated and kindred organizations will take 
 its stand on this platform and preach it con- 
 stantly, in season and out of season, then truly, 
 [160]
 
 THE REPUBLIC AS EMPLOYER 
 
 while some of the direct losses of this war will 
 be irremediable, there will nevertheless be some 
 by-products from it which will count for social 
 gains among us. After the wastage of the war 
 has really come to an end, there will be a solid 
 foundation of ground gained here at home upon 
 which further social advance and reconstruction 
 can proceed. 
 
 [I61J
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE MELTING POT 
 
 A broken accent does not mean a broken mind or any 
 lack of loyalty, but let us not hesitate a second when we 
 find a man eating our bread and drinking of the milk of 
 plenty who is disloyal! 
 
 ANNUAL CONVENTION OF POLICE CHIEFS, 
 WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 4, 1917. 
 
 HERE is assembled one of the most impor- 
 tant bodies of men in America. I say that, 
 in spite of the fact that I am a member of it. I 
 trust your memories are not so short nor your 
 records so ill kept as to fail to disclose the fact that 
 years ago I was elected a member of the Inter- 
 national Association of Chiefs of Police, and that 
 I have since carried the card of the association in 
 my pocket. I remember there was some little 
 controversy in our association on the question of 
 whether an election to honorary membership 
 lasted more than a single year. I don't know 
 how that trouble was settled. But always, when 
 I go to a strange place, I carry my card so that 
 if by any chance I shall be mistaken for some 
 man with other than honorable intentions, I 
 will be able to impress upon any of your sub- 
 ordinates the fact that I am to be treated with 
 [162]
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE MELTING POT 
 
 proper consideration and to have all favors 
 shown. 
 
 As a matter of fact, I have had a great many 
 years of intimate association with policemen and 
 police commissioners. For nine or ten years as 
 City Solicitor of Cleveland, I was the police 
 prosecutor. Chief Koehler used to say that it was 
 his business to arrest men and mine to convict a 
 few of those he arrested, and Cooley's job Dr. 
 Cooley was the Director of Public Welfare to 
 parole all I convicted. Later, when I came to be 
 Mayor of Cleveland, I had the rare privilege of 
 constant association with a man whose name 
 ought to be in some way permanently enrolled in 
 the records of this association as one of the really 
 great police chiefs that this country has had 
 I mean W. S. Rowe, present Police Chief of 
 Cleveland. Most of you must know Chief Rowe. 
 In all the years I knew him, it was his mind that 
 was doing the organizing and the solid, steady 
 work upon which the construction of a police force 
 must depend for its soundness and stability. 
 When he came to be chief of the department, his 
 work was characterized by a sense of justice and 
 a plain, homely common sense, which made 
 his administration an outstanding one and which 
 contributed very greatly, so far as Cleveland was 
 concerned, to placing the business of a policeman 
 upon a very high plane in the public respect of 
 the community. I saw in the papers some days 
 ago that Chief Rowe had decided to resign. If 
 [163]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 that is true, it ends, I think, forty-two or forty- 
 three years of continuous service, and while I 
 have no present recollection of what the record 
 books should show, I am confident that an exami- 
 nation of that record from the first day he went 
 in as a patrolman would not show a single justi- 
 fiable criticism upon his career. 
 
 So you see I have had some contact with police- 
 men. I am having a very much valued contact 
 with policemen now. The War Department is in- 
 terested in the training of a great army. The 
 country is in a situation where the possibility of 
 trouble exists in many of our cities in various 
 parts of the country. We are dealing with an era 
 in the enforcement of police regulations and the 
 preservation of peace and order in our communi- 
 ties, which is accompanied by peculiar difficulties 
 and embarrassments. The War Department is 
 called upon in many instances to cooperate in the 
 task. On Sunday last, happening to be in the 
 city of Columbia, South Carolina, I saw a mili- 
 tary patrol on the streets soldiers doing the 
 work of policemen, limiting their activities of 
 course to soldiers who were in the town, but 
 walking arm in arm and hand in hand, both in 
 fact and in theory, with the civilian policemen, 
 who were looking after their own work. I was 
 delighted to find that this military police force, 
 established to care for the soldier part of the 
 new population of the city, was fitting in har- 
 moniously and that the soldiers respected the po- 
 [164]
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE MELTING POT 
 
 lice and the police respected the soldiers. Ap- 
 parently a clear understanding has been brought 
 about between the military and civilian police- 
 men by which cooperation is everywhere achieved 
 and harmonious work is being done. 
 
 But our activities go further than that; in or- 
 der that this army shall be made a strong and 
 vigorous army, the military camps must permit 
 no opportunity for unruly and lawless persons to 
 come into the neighborhood and practice their 
 wiles and vices. The Congress of the United 
 States, acting through the War Department and 
 granting to it very wide powers, has made it very 
 evident that it is the will of the people that the 
 environment of our training camps shall be kept 
 clean and wholesome. The Department of Jus- 
 tice is working to the same end, and so are other 
 agencies, both governmental and unofficial. 
 
 In the last analysis, however, the situation in 
 any community rests primarily on the people who 
 live there, and their representatives of law and 
 order. The War Department is looking to the 
 Chiefs of Police of the United States to co- 
 operate with it in carrying out the purposes of 
 Congress and the purposes of the Government in 
 creating an Army which will not only be able to 
 win victory on the battlefield but will be truly 
 representative of the best civilian standards of 
 the United States. 
 
 Therefore I started out with the statement that 
 this is one of the bodies of men in America which 
 [165]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 at this moment I believe to be among the most 
 important. Our country is at war! We have 
 just started in that war and in all human likeli- 
 hood our energies and activities will be more and 
 more fully engaged in it. It will be necessary for 
 us to send larger and larger bodies of troops. We 
 can, if we choose to, send over men with balance 
 and training, men who know how to command, 
 and citizens who know how to live in those foreign 
 countries and who will win two kinds of victories 
 when they go over there one over their enemies 
 and one over themselves. They will bring back 
 two kinds of laurels the laurels that successful 
 soldiers bring back in the accomplishment of the 
 purposes of their nation when the treaties come 
 to be written the other kind of laurel, the respect 
 and affection of the civil population with whom 
 they have lived, who in after years will think with 
 affection of the men of this nation. I take very 
 great joy from the fact that General Pershing was 
 in Mexico for many months the greater part of 
 that time at one place and when he came out 
 of Mexico, he was accompanied by a very large 
 part or all of the civil population of the surround- 
 ing country. Our troops were there not as con- 
 querors ; they were there just as men, having the 
 military object of protecting our own fron- 
 tier, and not practicing cruelty upon the civil 
 population among whom they were situated, and 
 they gave peace and quiet and confidence and in- 
 dustry and opportunity to those people such as 
 [166]
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE MELTING POT 
 
 they had never had before. General Pershing 
 and his troops came back to the United States 
 out of Mexico with a great train of Mexican 
 farmers, merchants and small people among 
 whom they had lived, who came out with them 
 because they preferred civilization as represented 
 by General Pershing' s army, to the lawless con- 
 ditions which had obtained in their own country 
 for a long period of time. When our Army comes 
 back from France, I don't want it to win the 
 French people away from their own soil and bring 
 them along, unless they want to come. I don't 
 imagine, knowing the tenderness of a Frenchman 
 for his own vines and pastures and gardens, that 
 this will be one of the products of victory in this 
 war; I can't imagine that many French people 
 will come back with our soldiers. But I want our 
 soldiers to bring the hearts of the French people 
 with them, I want them to bring back their re- 
 spect, and the only way they can do that is by in- 
 stilling into them such principles as high-minded 
 men should have, so that they may have respect 
 for the rights of others, and by so training their 
 minds to honor and justice before they go over, 
 that the French people will recognize in them the 
 highest type of citizenship. 
 
 You gentlemen, in that case, will have to help. 
 The Chiefs of Police and the policemen of the 
 cities in the neighborhood of these camps are 
 representatives of law and order. A harsh and 
 intolerant attitude towards the soldier, an un- 
 [167]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 intelligent attitude, will be provocative of resent- 
 ment, while a kindly and sympathetic attitude to- 
 wards him will inoculate him with high-minded 
 ideals of law and order. In addition to what he 
 gets from the War Department in the nature of 
 military training I want him to get from the 
 cities in which he lives the idea of citizenship, and 
 I shall be perfectly content to have these young 
 soldiers of ours acquire their idea of duty and of 
 justice from you, if you will make it manifest to 
 them what your own ideas on those subjects are. 
 You have one other duty in this critical time. 
 We are already at war with Germany, and 
 the President to-day has asked Congress to de- 
 clare war on Austria-Hungary. There are num- 
 bers of people in the United States who were 
 born in Germany and in the Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire. There are many people whose ances- 
 tors came from one or the other of those 
 countries. Many of those people came to this 
 country because they were dissatisfied with 
 their institutions, dissatisfied with the opportuni- 
 ties which those countries afforded them many 
 of those people who have come here have been 
 rebaptized with the American spirit. They have 
 married this country for better or for worse, 
 and they are citizens of this country. There are 
 some of them who think they were married to this 
 country, who have been suddenly and rudely di- 
 vorced. There are some men who made a mock 
 marriage of it. I am persuaded that there are 
 [168]
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE MELTING POT 
 
 not many such, but with the growth in intensity 
 of our efforts in this war, there has developed a 
 feeling that the activities of such disloyal people 
 as there may be must be suppressed by you. 
 Therefore it is part of your opportunity in this 
 hour of universal service to our country and 
 its ideals, it is part of your opportunity to 
 search out disloyalty and to prevent the sapping 
 of the strength of our nation here at home, to re- 
 strain any seditious activities on the part of those 
 who have enjoyed the protection of American in- 
 stitutions and have nothing to give in return but 
 the undermining of its liberties and its strength. 
 That is a great opportunity for you, and it is an 
 especially difficult opportunity because it calls 
 upon you to discriminate with wisdom and patience 
 between those who are disloyal and those who 
 merely have ties of blood and tradition with one 
 of these countries, but who really and in spirit are 
 Americans. You and I are both too wise and we 
 have had too much experience in this country to 
 imagine that a broken accent means a broken 
 mind, or that a non- American name, or the inabil- 
 ity to speak readily our language means any 
 lack of loyalty in the man or in his make-up. 
 So I say it ought to be your effort, as it ought to 
 be the effort of all right-thinking people in this 
 country, to learn to apply the principles of justice 
 and fair dealing that have protected the oppressed 
 of the world for more than one hundred years, 
 and to prevent all those injustices that come 
 [169]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 from haste, ignorance and suspicion. But never 
 let us hesitate a second when we find a man living 
 here, eating of our bread and drinking of the milk 
 of plenty, when we find that man disloyal ! The 
 man who strikes us in the back, who undertakes 
 to sap our strength through fire or otherwise, 
 let us see that he is rendered harmless to accom- 
 plish any such purpose against the Government 
 and our people. I doubt whether any group of 
 people in this country has a more deliberate 
 responsibility than you have. It covers the whole 
 continent of America in its scope. It is part of 
 your daily duty ; it is a matter of having an oppor- 
 tunity and these unusual circumstances and the 
 conduct of this war will depend to a very large 
 degree upon the wisdom and patience, fair-mind- 
 edness and vigor with which you exercise the 
 functions that are entrusted to you. 
 
 In the training of our army those things must 
 be separated out that make up that part of the 
 town which collects the worst kinds of young 
 men there must be a separation of those 
 things from a training camp in order that our 
 soldiers may be well in body and well in mind and 
 spirit. Napoleon said that in war, morale is to 
 force as three to one. Everybody in this room, 
 everybody in this nation, wants us to win this 
 war. Now we want to win it with our strength 
 and our strength is a basis of four parts ; one of 
 them is our force, according to Napoleon, the 
 other three are our morale, according to Napo- 
 [170]
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE MELTING POT 
 
 Icon. You gentlemen are in part the manufac- 
 turers of morale of the nation. You are, there- 
 fore, contributors to the manufacture of three- 
 fourths of the aggregate of the nation's natural 
 strength with which we go into this enterprise. 
 
 I hope that everybody in this room will read 
 the President's message to Congress to-day un- 
 less he has already read it. Every now and then 
 somebody says that he does not know what this 
 war is about he does not know why the United 
 States is in it he does not know what we want 
 to get out of it. Of course the fact is that we don't 
 want to get anything out of it; we want to do 
 something. The President, as our leader, has 
 hitched his wagon to a star and leads not only 
 America but the people of the world. This is 
 what it means for the greatest nation in the 
 world to enter into this conflict. We want to 
 establish justice among men and equal oppor- 
 tunity among men. We want to establish the 
 same sort of respect for law and order among the 
 nations that you gentlemen have spent your lives 
 trying to establish among the civilian population 
 of the cities of this country. Just consider the 
 things that you are trying to enforce day by 
 day justice and respect for the rights of others, 
 consideration and sympathy. I know the police- 
 man far better than to imagine that the club which 
 he carries is anything more than the symbol of his 
 function. Occasions arise in the life of the com- 
 munity when the club must be used, but they are 
 [171]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 rare and exceptional. In the world at large and 
 at the present moment, we have the spectacle of a 
 member of the family of nations corresponding 
 in this larger sphere to the disturber of the city 
 streets, and he must be dealt with in the same 
 way as a disturber. Our mission in this war 
 like your mission in the cities in which you live 
 is to attempt to establish a definite atmosphere 
 of just conditions among men. 
 
 [172]
 
 HONOR AMONG NATIONS 
 
 / know how the Channel looks by night. I have seen 
 those waves when the moon was shining on them, and I 
 luive thought, "Surely, this is the golden path that leads to 
 the Favored Isles." I have seen the moon shining down 
 on the chalk cliffs and have thought the foam-flecked 
 waves a wonderful sight. But when I think of those 
 chalk cliffs and those moon-lit waves now, I see only the 
 white shrouds of countless women and children who have 
 gone down with the sea for their grave and the white 
 cliffs for their monument. 
 
 STATE COUNCIL OF DEFENSE, RICHMOND, 
 DECEMBER 5, 1917. 
 
 HAPPY is the nation which in the midst of a 
 great war can return from the examination 
 of its conscience with a smile. After sevenscore 
 years devoted to the arts of peace and industry; 
 after having spent money and men in experiments 
 in free institutions, and after devoting itself to the 
 culture of intellect and morality, at last this great 
 nation finds itself no longer able to abstain from 
 foreign complications, but actually plunged into 
 the heart of a great war. When it proceeds to 
 take stock of its conscience and to ask itself 
 whether its cause is just, it comes back from that 
 examination with a spring in its step, its head 
 erect, conscious that it did all it could to preserve 
 [173]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 peace among 1 men and that when it took up arms, 
 it took them up in defense of priceless principles, 
 more valuable than life itself. 
 
 I have sometimes sought to ask myself when 
 this war began, and I find that each answer I give 
 has ancestors, and I have to inquire as to the 
 biography of those ancestors ; and when occasion- 
 ally I think I am at a resting place, I discover 
 another set of ancestors for this war. 
 
 I shall not undertake any lengthy examination 
 of history to-night, but I ask your attention at 
 the outset to that Frederick, who was called Great, 
 and whose most spectacular achievement, upon 
 reaching his throne, was to set upon Austria 
 and rip from her a splendid ancestral domain, 
 apparently for no reason except that he needed 
 it, and having no justification, except that Marie 
 Theresa was young and beautiful, which did not 
 matter; and helpless, which did not matter; and 
 a woman, which did not matter. His next illus- 
 trious experiment was the partition of Poland. 
 With a cynicism which I think has not been equal- 
 ed in recent history, and has no parallel among 
 his contemporaries, he scoffed at the idea that 
 kings and dynasties were limited or bound by 
 moral considerations, or indeed by any considera- 
 tion, except force and success. And that same 
 Frederick, who was called Great, and whose prin- 
 ciples are those upon which the reigning house of 
 Prussia has built its subsequent conduct, is the 
 greatest Hohenzollern of them all. And so, 
 [174]
 
 HONOR AMONG NATIONS 
 
 when we think of this war and try to trace 
 it back to its ancestors, I think we can, without 
 injustice and with due regard to historical veri- 
 ties, say that this war had its birth in the prom- 
 inence which was given by Frederick the Great to 
 certain immoral doctrines affecting the conduct 
 of states and governments. 
 
 These immoral doctrines are that a state is not 
 bound by the laws of honor ; that treaties made by 
 it are merely covenants of convenience and that 
 they may be torn up into scraps of paper at the 
 will of whichever of the signers is able with his 
 strength to cover his dishonor. The second prin- 
 ciple is that no consideration of humanity shall 
 stand in the way of the success of a military en- 
 terprise. These doctrines are hateful and con- 
 temptible to us. The man who by virtue of his 
 physical strength and brute force imposes his 
 will upon his neighbors is deserving the con- 
 tempt of the people among whom he lives; and a 
 man who by his physical force imposes it upon 
 the weakness and defenselessness of children is 
 a bully and coward. 
 
 Now, time was when that was not true of na- 
 tions. But it has become true of nations and the 
 difficulty with the German Emperor and the cause 
 of this war lies in the fact that the government 
 of Germany imagines that civilization consists of 
 universities, learned doctors, the transformation 
 of chemicals into deadly compounds and physical 
 elements into new substances of manufacture,
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 without reference to spiritual values and moral 
 growth. 
 
 When the present reigning house began its 
 most recent career of conquest, its first victim 
 was the kingdom of Denmark, from which it 
 took Schleswig-Holstein. In order to make a 
 certain concession to the good opinion of the 
 world, which they were still small enough to 
 desire, they made a treaty with Denmark 
 by which at some time within ten years after 
 the conclusion of the war the people of the con- 
 quered territories were to vote as to whether they 
 desired to be detached from Denmark and at- 
 tached to Prussia. When the ten years were 
 nearly over and there had been no vote, certain 
 delegates came to see the Iron Chancellor about 
 the right to vote on the question, reminding him 
 of the provisions of that treaty. He got out the 
 treaty, tore it into scraps and handed it to them, 
 saying : "That is my answer." After the close of 
 the war between Prussia and Austria and just be- 
 fore the Franco-Prussian war, the then King of 
 Prussia planned that certain territory should be 
 violently detached from Austria and annexed to 
 Prussia. When remonstrated with concerning 
 this decree the King said, "All my ancestors have 
 added to their dominions by conquest, and I must 
 add to mine by conquest." 
 
 Bismarck, for reasons which he explained, op- 
 posed this plan not because it was not honest, 
 but because he did not think it was wise ; and so 
 [176]
 
 HONOR AMONG NATIONS 
 
 at that particular moment nothing was done. 
 When the Franco-Prussian war came and the 
 Prussian army swarmed down into Alsace and 
 Lorraine the same principle of warfare prevailed, 
 without the slightest observance of the laws of 
 humanity. The German army surrounded Stras- 
 burg and turned their guns, not on the forts, but 
 on the spires of the cathedral. The first victims 
 were some school children, who were studying 
 their lessons in a school building in the quietest 
 part of the city, which was struck by the heaviest 
 artillery fires. 
 
 Now, that was not because the German people 
 are cruel by nature. I must relate to you a story 
 which was told me by a man who was in Belgium 
 when the Germans invaded that country. I do 
 not, of course, know that the story is true. He 
 said he met a German soldier who carried in his 
 hand a bird-cage, in which he had a live canary, 
 and this soldier told him of the slaughter of hun- 
 dreds of women and children in the invaded town, 
 of burned homes and bombarded churches, but 
 seemed to imagine his rescue of the canary sig- 
 nified his humanity. Now, it was a humane sen- 
 timent which made him rescue the bird, but it was 
 the following of a hellish principle which made 
 the German regard as justifiable the burning of 
 houses, of religious institutions, and the slaught- 
 ering of women and children for the purpose of 
 terrifying the inhabitants of the city. Therefore, 
 it is not that a German citizen is not a good man, 
 [177]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 but from the time of that Frederick, who was 
 called Great, down to now, a misguided and mis- 
 begotten philosophy, that might is right, that the 
 leadership of the imperial Hohenzollern is 
 righteous, has permeated and poisoned the 
 thought of the German nation. 
 
 And so, when this war broke out, almost the 
 first movements of Germany were true to form. 
 They were what any informed student of history 
 would have had reason to expect. She brought 
 her ships off the coast of England, not by its 
 forts, where its ships of war were, but along its 
 undefended coast, its peaceful seaside villages, its 
 little summer resorts. They stood fourteen or 
 fifteen miles out to sea and under cover of dark- 
 ness bombarded sleeping towns, killing defense- 
 less women and children. When the great Zep- 
 pelin raids began to come over England there was 
 no attempt made to attack fortified places. Their 
 whole object was to use frightfulness as a means 
 of driving the people of England into submission. 
 
 Now, one of the greatest surprises to the Ger- 
 man government, but which doesn't surprise any 
 other people in the world, is this that you can't 
 scare Englishmen into subjection by killing 
 babies. Nobody knows what is in store for us in 
 this war. We are in it until we win it. It is just 
 as well to have some understanding at the begin- 
 ning and Germany should learn now that if, with 
 the help of the devil, she is able to find some way 
 to cross the three thousand miles of ocean that 
 [178]
 
 HONOR AMONG NATIONS 
 
 separate us and to make a secret and stealthy 
 warfare upon the women and babies of this coun- 
 try, she will not scare our men either. 
 
 The same policies were pursued with the sub- 
 marines. We built some submarines in this 
 country. I think we built the first I am not 
 sure of that but we built them as implements of 
 war, to attack warships. Nobody ever dreamed 
 of such use as they have been put to. But when 
 this war had been going on a while Germany be- 
 gan to use them against undefended merchant- 
 men, and while she was proclaiming that one of 
 her objects in this war was freedom of the seas, 
 she was really trying to rid the seas of commerce. 
 She attacked that kind of commerce which, under 
 every doctrine and canon of international law, 
 should have been immune from attack. The sub- 
 marine became a weapon of assassination. What 
 is an assassin? He is a man who's afraid to 
 fight; a man who will not take the risks of a test; 
 a man who will not come into the open, but who 
 selects a dark night when you are going to a place 
 where you expect, where you have every right to 
 expect, to be peaceful and saie; who puts a 
 mask over his face and, stealing up behind, stabs 
 you in the back. Does not every bit of that defi- 
 nition apply to the method by which Germany 
 undertook to rid the seas of neutral vessels? 
 
 Germany began to use her submarines against 
 peaceful commerce with an idea of driving a 
 strong competitor, although an honorable com- 
 [179]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 petitor, from the seas. She used this weapon 
 upon the commerce of a peaceful nation, a nation 
 with which she had no quarrel; a nation which 
 had welcomed her children and made them her 
 citizens ; a nation which had opened her wonder- 
 ful opportunities for education, peace and happi- 
 ness to the children of Germany. 
 
 America has been a generous and friendly rival 
 for the industry and commerce of the world a 
 legitimate ambition, in which she struck great 
 and ringing blows but a country which, so far 
 as Germany was concerned, never had action or 
 thought of hostility, yet Germany unleashed these 
 things, and sent them out to destroy our com- 
 merce. 
 
 She sank the Lusitania not our vessel but 
 partly filled with our people. I saw a picture 
 shortly after the sinking of the Lusitania. It 
 was the picture of the wife of an American citi- 
 zen and her family which had been lost on that 
 ship. I suppose there w r ere many other like cases, 
 but this particular picture somehow has burned 
 itself into my memory. I have forgotten her 
 name I wish I could forget her history but she 
 was a beautiful woman, simply dressed; by her 
 side were two fine boys and two little girls and 
 in her lap a baby, smiling. All the affection of 
 that family was centered in that baby but the 
 legend under that picture was that all of them 
 mother, sons, daughters and baby were victims 
 in the Lusitania! They were not your babies, 
 [180]
 
 HONOR AMONG NATIONS 
 
 thank God! not mine, thank God! but American 
 babies and an American mother. Now some- 
 where at the bottom of the deep, they have an un- 
 known, unmarked grave because they took pas- 
 sage on the Lusitania, a vessel protected by every 
 canon of international law against that sort of 
 attack or any sort of attack that did not give the 
 people a chance to escape. 
 
 I know how the Channel (now the grave of so 
 many ships) looks by night. I have been to Eng- 
 land many times before the war. I have seen 
 those waves when the moon was shining on them 
 and I have thought "surely this is the golden path 
 that leads to the Favored Isles." I have seen the 
 moon shining down on the chalk cliffs, and have 
 thought the foam-flecked waves a wonderful 
 sight. But when I think of those chalk cliffs 
 and those moonlit waves now, typifying for me 
 the English Channel through its length from 
 Ireland to Holland, I can see only the white 
 shrouds of that woman and those lovely children, 
 of countless women and children, who went down 
 with the Lusitania that night, with the sea for 
 their grave and the white cliffs for their monu- 
 ment. 
 
 After that sinking the United States served no- 
 tice on Germany that she was violating the laws 
 of nations; that she was imperiling our rights to 
 be upon the high seas; and the German govern- 
 ment half-heartedly disclaimed the sinking of the 
 Lusitania and gave a solemn promise that she 
 [181]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 would not make an attack upon neutral commerce 
 except in accordance with recognized rights and 
 with opportunity for safe escape by the people on 
 board. For some months our people said "Amer- 
 ica has won a diplomatic victory," and we said 
 of our great President "How splendid his quiet 
 spirit and his patient waiting !" 
 
 Then some more ships were sunk in the same 
 way and the German government served notice on 
 us and sent us a map, marking out certain portions 
 of the high seas which we might travel; certain 
 very indefinite lines, certain unused, tortuous 
 channels, long routes, which we might use with 
 safety, provided we painted our ships in a pre- 
 scribed fashion and did not send more than two 
 a week. Then this extraordinary thing took 
 place. The German Chancellor, the nearest ap- 
 proach to a responsible official that there is in 
 that irresponsible country he is responsible to 
 the Emperor, and the Emperor is not responsible 
 to anybody the Chancellor rose in the Reichstag 
 and said he had opposed unlimited submarine 
 warfare when it had been first suggested, not be- 
 cause he was too good, not because it was wrong, 
 but because he did not think that they had sub- 
 marines enough to carry it out. And he said, 
 "Now that we have built more submarines I am 
 in favor of it." In other words, a miserable 
 tricky sort of diplomacy was all there was to his 
 former promises. I am not sorry he imposed 
 upon us. I am glad we had enough faith left in 
 [182]
 
 HONOR AMONG NATIONS 
 
 the honor of nations to believe his falsehoods. 
 
 We had a choice then; by that time the game' 
 was perfectly clear. It was the intention of the 
 Hohenzollern family to throw a shadow across 
 Europe, beginning at the North Sea and extend- 
 ing to the middle of Asia as a start. Their in- 
 tention to destroy France was clear ; their purpose 
 to destroy England was clear and the German 
 Emperor did not hesitate to say to certain Ameri- 
 cans, prominent Americans, "When I am through 
 with the rest of these fellows, America had better 
 look out." So, we had a choice to make. We 
 could either cower and crawl to the feet of the 
 Hohenzollerns and say, "O Mightiness, your 
 frightfulness has terrified me! Your power is 
 too powerful ! I submit and become your subject 
 State. I accept your form of Kultur," or we 
 could fight. We chose to fight. 
 
 Sometimes I hear men say that there were peo- 
 ple nobody ever told me that he himself believed 
 it but I have heard men say that they believed 
 that there were people who believed that we were 
 fighting this war to help somebody else, England 
 or France. Suppose we were. We are not ; but 
 suppose we were. I do not know how it is with 
 you, but I have a limitless admiration for the 
 British and French people. I am not very sure 
 that I would not be perfectly willing to fight for 
 them and them only. But what America is actu- 
 ally fighting for is not England or France; we 
 [183]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 are fighting for what they are fighting for, and 
 that is liberty. 
 
 So far as the United States is concerned, we are 
 exceedingly fortunate in this war that we are not 
 the only people in the world who love liberty. If 
 the Hohenzollern family had made up its mind to 
 change the order of its conquests and to take us 
 first and to finish up the rest when they had 
 finished us well, our contest would have been no 
 different in the end, but very different in the 
 middle. 
 
 And so, my fellow citizens of Richmond, our 
 country is in this war because of the unfathom- 
 able hostility between autocracy and democracy; 
 because of the inevitable conflict between irre- 
 sponsible and immoral government and responsi- 
 ble and moral government ; and because when our 
 fathers left us this land of liberty, they did not 
 mean that the seed should run out with you and 
 me, but they meant that our children and our chil- 
 dren's children should inherit the estate. 
 
 Now, there are a few people in this country who 
 are said to be doubtful ; there are larger numbers, 
 I am told, who are indifferent; but the real state 
 of mind of this country is one of patriotism and 
 unanimity and I know it by every token by which 
 man may judge. Not very long ago a colonel 
 came into my office and said, "Mr. Secretary, I 
 am obliged to come and see you. I simply had to 
 come and tell you what I have seen. I have just 
 come from the State of Washington with a train 
 [184]
 
 HONOR AMONG NATIONS 
 
 full of soldiers and our whole journey was one 
 triumphal progress. At every stop the train made, 
 the people flocked to welcome us, to cheer us, 
 bringing bands to play for us. And so we came 
 from the other end of the country, from the far 
 Pacific to the Atlantic." 
 
 But sometimes evidences of enthusiasm like 
 this may be thought temporary. I have sat in 
 Washington now since the war began, day by day, 
 night by night, month by month. A large part of 
 my task is to receive letters and persons, present- 
 ing this message and this thought: "Here I am, 
 here is my bank, here is my factory; here is my 
 farm ; here are my resources, here is everything I 
 have. How can the Government use them and 
 me best in this emergency ?" And that has come 
 from every part of the country. There was a 
 great howl when the selective draft went into 
 effect. Men came into my office and said, "The 
 streets of this country will run with blood on the 
 day of the draft." But they did not. Nowhere 
 were there evidences that the youth of the country 
 meant to do anything but prove themselves law- 
 abiding citizens. The selective draft is the right 
 thing. It is the modern thing. The old-fash- 
 ioned mode of warfare called for old-fashioned 
 means of enlistment ; but this is a new-fashioned 
 warfare and we must use modern means. We 
 must do that thing which most speedily and ef- 
 ficiently mobilizes the forces of the country, and 
 all the forces. 
 
 [185]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 The trouble is that we have been thinking in 
 terms of ounces and pounds, pints and quarts, 
 dollars and cents. And so when we came to make 
 an army the first impulse was to make it along 
 old lines, forgetting that we were not fighting an 
 old kind of warfare, but a new warfare. The se- 
 lective draft has itself killed most of the opposi- 
 tion that was first evinced toward it. It is the best 
 mode of gathering the necessary men, the fit men, 
 and the mode that imposes the least burden on all 
 the people and all the States. The people see that 
 now. We were told that the people would not 
 see it because the people were not logical ; but the 
 people are logical and the people do see that the 
 selective service is the logical service. 
 
 The reason some people did not like the idea at 
 first was because they feared it might be unfair 
 and unequal; but when it was discovered that 
 Congress intended an accurate and just operation 
 of the law and that it should work to the univer- 
 sal good of the whole people, we saw a different 
 spirit and it has been accepted as the correct 
 measure. 
 
 When we began to assemble our Army, how 
 wonderful our people showed themselves! For 
 the last thirty or forty years we have been grow- 
 ing in grace in the manner of our civilization, and 
 the democracy of our institutions. We have 
 been building playgrounds, public parks, and 
 other institutions for the people of the cities and 
 have been striving in every way to enrich the com- 
 [186]
 
 HONOR AMONG NATIONS 
 
 mon life of America, and so when the time came 
 to build an army there was a demand that we 
 build a civilized army. Now in these great army 
 camps we are gathering the manhood of our coun- 
 try. We are not only providing for them modern 
 camps, furnishing them warm clothing, good 
 food, and civilized and legitimate instruments of 
 war, but the camps are placing every facility of 
 civilization at the disposal of the men in training 
 and what has actually been done proves that the 
 smokestacks and the church steeples are blending 
 their services for the good of our Army. 
 
 I have already spoken much longer than I in- 
 tended. I began with the reflection that it was 
 well for a nation, in the midst of a great war, if 
 it could return from an examination of its con- 
 science with a smile. It is so with the United 
 States. Our ancestors left us a wonderful in- 
 heritance. To them it seemed such an inherit- 
 ance as would always be safe, if we restrained 
 our activities between two oceans. Under the 
 influence of time, this inheritance has indoctri- 
 nated the world and democracy is on the rising 
 tide everywhere. 
 
 It is well with us because our cause being just, 
 our resources inexhaustible, our courage unfath- 
 omable, our civilization not external, but essen- 
 tial, because all these things are true, it is well 
 with us in this pivotal moment in the history of 
 the human race that we are sending our Army 
 [187]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 over to be knightly victors on the other side, and 
 that we are joining the forces of the British and 
 French in the greatest contest that ever engaged 
 the energies of man. 
 
 [188]
 
 THE EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY 
 
 Off in the far-flung corners of the globe the same 
 sort of progress is being made; lately has come the ro- 
 mantic and poetic news that Jerusalem is in the hands 
 of Allenby, and the children of civilization that sprang 
 from that country are now in possession of their holy 
 places and can walk untroubled by Saracen and Moham- 
 medan as Richard Coeur de Lion wanted to walk in what 
 was the promised land in years gone by. 
 
 NEW YORK SOUTHERN SOCIETY, 
 DECEMBER 12, 1917. 
 
 I THINK there has been no time in the history 
 of this Society when I would more esteem the 
 privilege and pleasure of addressing it than now. 
 The year 1917 is writing a new date line in our 
 history. It will take none of the glory from any 
 of our memories, it will leave us as a priceless in- 
 heritance the great traditions of our race, out of 
 which our institutions and our liberties have been 
 fabricated ; but from this year many things which 
 are separated in a sense will be all written under a 
 new date, and the supremacy of common sacrifices 
 in a common cause will make us more really a 
 united people, more really a nation, than we have 
 ever been in our entire history. 
 
 People love one another, people understand one 
 another better from having suffered together in 
 [189]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 the same cause. I remember a story that used to 
 impress my young imagination, of Dr. Kane, the 
 great Arctic explorer. He was walking down a 
 street of London late in his life, and, coming up 
 the street in the other direction, he met a man 
 whom he had not seen for many years, but who 
 had shared with him the hardships of one of those 
 long, dark winters in the Arctic. Utterly 
 changed the two men were, by age and years, and 
 yet they stopped, there was a flash of recognition, 
 and then, without a word, they rushed into one 
 another's arms, and at the end of a long em- 
 brace one of them said, "Oh, it was so dark 
 there for so long!" The memory of their com- 
 mon suffering, of their common enthusiasm, in- 
 domitable courage in the pursuit of a great idea, 
 of their association in a heroic enterprise, made a 
 bond which neither years nor intervening inter- 
 ests could eradicate nor diminish. 
 
 And so, after 1917 the North and the South, 
 the East and the West, peoples of all extractions 
 and of all lineages and ancestries, will have a 
 new feeling when they pronounce themselves 
 Americans. The family of the nation has be- 
 come continental. Many of these distinctions 
 which once troubled us will be absorbed in the 
 new glory of citizenship in the new nation. 
 
 And this will be especially true because of the 
 heroic character and the idealism of this enter- 
 prise. Every now and then somebody tells me 
 that he has heard somebody say that America is 
 [190]
 
 THE EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY 
 
 fighting somebody's else war, and my instant re- 
 flection is, well, suppose that were true? Is it 
 not more heroic to save somebody's else life than 
 your own? To whom do we build monuments, 
 for whom do we cast heroes' medals for the men 
 who save their own lives or those who save the 
 lives of others? What is the quality of heroism 
 if it be not unselfish self-sacrifice? 
 
 And yet it is not necessary, nay, it would not 
 be true, to say that this is an unselfish expedi- 
 tion in that sense or to that extent, for in very 
 truth our nation is engaged in fighting its own 
 battles, its own material battles if that matters, 
 but it does not. It is engaged in fighting its own 
 spiritual battle ; it is engaged in saving the soul of 
 democracy. 
 
 Truly all wars which have been waged for 
 the prestige of kings or the territorial extension 
 of empires fail of justification. There is a qual- 
 ity in this war which evokes a spiritual response, 
 and that will be a new kind of cement for the 
 making of a stronger and more triumphant people 
 when it is over. 
 
 And there is another exceedingly happy quality 
 in this war, that we are not fighting alone. I 
 am not even ambitious that the glory of the final 
 conquest should come to us alone. I would far 
 rather have the triumph of democracy the reward 
 of the associated effort of democratic peoples 
 everywhere ; so that when this war is over neither 
 we nor they can have any monopoly of that virtue, 
 [191]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 but will be partners in its glory, and so associates 
 in the further progress which is to be made. 
 
 For we must never forget, when we speak of 
 democracy, that it is not an accomplishment, it is 
 not a thing that has been done, but it is a prog- 
 ress, it is a system of growth, and though to-day 
 we might achieve what our limited vision pro- 
 claims to us as the democratic ideal, its quality 
 is such that when we stand on what now seems to 
 us the highest peak in the range, there will ever 
 be greater heights ahead to tempt and inspire us. 
 
 And so, when this war is over, and the crude 
 medievalism of the Hohenzollerns and the Haps- 
 burgs is at last confronting its fate; when this 
 contest is over and the David of democracy 
 has dealt with the Goliath of medievalism and 
 autocracy, there will still be work for David to do 
 worthy of his best efforts, and in its accomplish- 
 ment great benefits to the race will still remain ta 
 be achieved. 
 
 People are sometimes disposed to adopt a com- 
 plaining tone about our efforts; not many, but 
 here and there one. There are two ways of look- 
 ing at this war and our preparation for it. One 
 is to look at what we have done, and one is to 
 look at what we have not done. If we realize 
 that practically every activity of the Government 
 associated in this business has been required in a 
 very short space of time to expand 3,000 per cent, 
 if we take account of the things that actually have 
 been achieved, not only will we find that we have 
 [192]
 
 THE EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY 
 
 won the admiring comn^ctatTofi 0* --visiTors from 
 the Old World, wh/^'are familiar with what they 
 have done and are amazed at our progress, but 
 we will find solid ground for pride in the strength, 
 capacity and greatness of our own people. 
 
 Now, I am perfectly aware that in any great 
 enterprise where one starts in wishing to achieve 
 everything, there are things in the first rush of 
 preparation, for which the industry of the country 
 is not yet adequately prepared, things which time 
 will right; and so if you go about with a critical 
 and fault-finding spirit, you can always find 
 enough to satisfy that sort of spirit it does not 
 take much. 
 
 But think of us as a people who really love 
 peace, who for nearly a century and a half have 
 devoted themselves to its ideals and its practices, 
 whose affections have been engaged with the ac- 
 complishments of peace and civilization, who have 
 learned to love justice and who have embodied it 
 in their own political and social institutions, who 
 have established among themselves a generous 
 competition in industrial and scientific and com- 
 mercial progress, who have spread abroad among 
 themselves processes of universal education, so 
 that almost year by year the general level of the 
 material and intellectual and spiritual life of their 
 people has been visibly elevated. If you come to 
 recognize in us that sort of people, devoting our- 
 selves with an intense devotion to the working out 
 of finer adjustments for human happiness and for 
 [193]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 ^ 
 
 the recognit&ruL&C Tight* of the individual, and 
 then see us suddenly summoned .to. ,go back five 
 hundred years to deal with a recrudescence of 
 brute force, unilluminated by any sort of morality 
 or humanitarian consideration, and then see what 
 we have done in that space of time to readjust 
 ourselves to this odious and unlovely thing that 
 we are forced to do, I think you will agree not 
 only that we have done great things, but that we 
 can be reassured about civilization. 
 
 Civilization does not mean the enfeeblement of 
 a people. Disinclination to fight does not mean 
 inability to fight. We can with confidence, from 
 now on, pursue those processes which have hith- 
 erto engaged us and seem to promise so much, 
 always with the assured conviction that education 
 does not destroy courage and that a civilized, 
 peace-loving, God-fearing nation, if it has to pro- 
 tect itself against brute aggression, has the ca- 
 pacity, the concentration of purpose necessary; 
 nay, that in democratic institutions there is that 
 virtue which is perfectly sufficient to any contest 
 it may be called upon to face. 
 
 I shall not take your time to recount, in thou- 
 sands and millions, either of dollars or of blank- 
 ets, what the country has done. In the first place 
 those figures mean very little, and in the second 
 place, I cannot remember them. But this war 
 requires three things: It requires money, men 
 and morale. 
 
 The great talents of the Secretary of the Treas- 
 [194]
 
 THE EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY 
 
 ury have had a most extraordinary opportunity, 
 most wonderfully improved, to mobilize the 
 finances of this country back of this war. 
 
 The Congress of the United States was faced 
 with the question of mobilizing the men of this 
 nation, and I think the reception given by the 
 country to the solution they gave that problem 
 shows the youth fulness and ability to learn of 
 the American people. At the outset there were 
 those who remembered when armies were gath- 
 ered, such little armies as we used to have, by 
 a drum and fife corps, and an orator here and 
 there, who whipped the spirit of the community 
 into an enthusiastic outbreak, and gathered in the 
 willing and took them off to camp. Or some indi- 
 vidual's popularity was appealed to to raise a 
 company or a regiment, and men went more be- 
 cause they admired and loved a particular captain 
 than for other reasons. 
 
 But we had observed what was going on 
 abroad, and we saw that this kind of war 
 meant the mobilization of the whole nation, and 
 that to leave the volunteer to solve that problem 
 meant such a disorganization of the industrial 
 and commercial and social life of the country as 
 probably would result also in a weakened army. 
 And so the Congress said, "We will recognize at 
 the outset the universality of the obligation of 
 service and proclaim boldly that it is for the Gov- 
 ernment to decide, for the nation, acting as an 
 [195]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 aggregate, to decide where each man's talents can 
 best be used." 
 
 So they passed the law called euphemistically 
 the Selective Service Law. And some people said, 
 "Isn't it a draft?" And I, speaking below my 
 breath, replied, "Yes." Somehow or other every 
 time I mistrust democracy, I get punished for it. 
 
 Finally the law was passed and a day was set 
 for the registration of the young men of this 
 country, and in a single day ten millions of them 
 registered. No other country in recorded history 
 ever did such a thing, and it was done by us so 
 easily, so simply, so naturally, and so completely 
 as a matter of course that it passed by without 
 adequate notice of its significance. 
 
 It was not merely obedience to a law, it was 
 the acceptance of its spirit; and if there be a 
 lingering doubt in the mind of any one as to that 
 being true, let him go to Yaphank or to any other 
 of the sixteen cantonments in which the National 
 Army is being assembled, and he will find these 
 young men, just a cross-section of the common 
 life of this country college professors, college 
 students, merchants, mechanics, bankers, farmers, 
 men with any kind of occupation or none, all 
 of them now filled with but one thought, as it 
 comes to me in Washington by round-robins and 
 by letters from friends and by reports of ob- 
 servers and inspectors but one thought, and that 
 is, "Mr. Secretary, how soon can we go to 
 France?" 
 
 [196]
 
 THE EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY 
 
 In the meantime, the mobilization of the re- 
 sources of this country is an equally inspiring 
 chapter in this story. Even before the United 
 States was in the war there were uneasy pushings 
 forward of men in industry and commerce, say- 
 ing, "Can't the Government find some way to es- 
 tablish relations of usefulness for us to the Gov- 
 ernment?" There was a feeling in the air, just as 
 there is in the opera I am borrowing an illustra- 
 tion from John Fiske, I think but there was a 
 feeling in the air, just as there is in the opera, 
 when the violins play a kind of tremolo, and one 
 begins to have a sense that something is going to 
 happen that transcends in importance the other 
 things that have been going on upon the stage. 
 
 And so from all over this nation there began 
 to be a reaching of hands of helpfulness toward 
 Washington, and when finally the President ad- 
 dressed the Congress and war was declared and 
 the die was cast, and we were shoulder to shoulder 
 with Great Britain and France in this struggle, 
 Washington became almost an inextricable con- 
 fusion, men treading upon one another's heels 
 and crowding one another away from the depart- 
 ment buildings in their impetuous zeal to say, 
 "What can we do and how can we be used?" 
 
 And so all over this country there has gone on 
 a gathering unison of spirit, a gathering desire 
 for sacrifice. Industry is diverting itself from 
 less important to more important things. What 
 we used to know as capital and labor have for 
 [197]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 the most part forgotten their differences, and the 
 imperial theme now that guides every man's 
 thinking and every man's acting is service to the 
 nation. 
 
 Now, it strikes me as rather an interesting re- 
 flection that while we are in this war to make the 
 world safe for democracy, democracy is making 
 itself manifest here among us; for that is democ- 
 racy the cooperation, without distinction of 
 fortune or opportunity, of all the men of the na- 
 tion for the common good. 
 
 We are recognizing it, too, I think, in our hu- 
 man relations. I have been traveling around 
 over the country seeing these training camps, and 
 I find that when ten or twenty or thirty thousand 
 boys are camped near a city, large or small, the 
 city adopts them. There is an instantaneous and 
 widespread process of affectionate adoption going 
 on, so that men of my time of life, when they 
 walk along the street and see a man in khaki, 
 have an almost irresistible desire to say, "My 
 son!" 
 
 How beautiful that is, and how true it is ! For 
 when, on some moonlight night, on the fields of 
 France, some American boy's face is upturned, 
 some boy who has made the grand and final sac- 
 rifice in this cause, no passerby nor no imagina- 
 tion that reaches him will be able to discern 
 whether he came from a blacksmith's forge or a 
 merchant's counter or a banker's counting room. 
 He will simply be an American, and our affection 
 [198]
 
 THE EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY 
 
 for him, our adoption of him, our pride in him, 
 will be as undiscriminating. 
 
 Now all of this, I think, tends to afford some 
 consolation. It is one of the by-products of this 
 war that is going to be of immense value to man- 
 kind when it is over. I have already adverted to 
 the association with other nations. I suppose 
 every boy, when he is a boy and thinks of Heaven, 
 looks forward to communion with the spirits of 
 the great departed. Every generous soul desires 
 contact with greatness, and now we are sending 
 over to France unnumbered thousands of choice 
 young Americans to associate with a great peo- 
 ple, and with men who have responded to mag- 
 nificent inspirations. 
 
 When Joffre was in this country he was in my 
 office one day for about an hour, and I was deeply 
 impressed with his apparent imperturbable calm. 
 He spoke hastily, as it seemed to me; all French 
 seems hasty to me because I don't understand 
 it. But he was calm, and after he had gone 
 out I asked one of his staff officers who had 
 been with him from the beginning of the German 
 invasion of France whether he was always as un- 
 troubled and calm as that, and how he had be- 
 haved in the terribly disheartening and disastrous 
 days before the Battle of the Marne. His aide 
 gave me this picture of him : The old Marshal sat 
 in his headquarters, and day after day dispatches 
 came; every minute a dispatch, all of them dark 
 and menacing. They were handed to him by the 
 [199]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 young man who told me this story, announcing 
 the German advance here, and the French re- 
 treat there, and the capture of this city, and fi- 
 nally the approach of the German army to Paris. 
 
 And this Major told me that as each dispatch 
 came in the old Marshal would shrug his shoul- 
 ders and say, "Oh, well eh, bien !" until finally, 
 under the accumulation of this intense anxiety, 
 the last dispatch came, telling that the German 
 army was in sight of Paris, their objective, the 
 heart of the Marshal's nation. And in an instant 
 his "Oh, wells," his "Eh, biens," came to an end. 
 When this last dispatch came in he glanced at it 
 for a moment, tossed it aside, and said, "This is 
 far enough" ; picked up a pencil and with his own 
 hand wrote the message to the soldiers of France 
 which ended with something like these words: 
 "The enemy must be permitted to advance not one 
 step farther. The least that France expects of 
 any of her sons is that he will die where he 
 stands." 
 
 And that began the Battle of the Marne, and 
 from that day to this, France has realized her 
 expectation in her children. 
 
 And right alongside of them is that superb 
 British army, no longer the despised little army, 
 the contemptible little army, but Kitchener's 
 army, the army of Great Britain and her colonies, 
 gathered from over all the world. 
 
 Off in the far-flung corners of the globe the 
 same sort of progress is being made, until only 
 [200]
 
 THE EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY 
 
 day before yesterday the poetic and romantic 
 news came that Jerusalem was in the hands of 
 Allenby, and the children of the civilization that 
 sprang from thj.t country are now in possession 
 of their holy places, and can walk untroubled by 
 Saracen and Mohammedan as Richard Cceur de 
 Lion wanted to walk in what was the promised 
 land in years gone by. 
 
 It is a wonderful story, the alignment of the 
 nations which can truly be called civilized, against 
 the ancient medievalism which survives in the 
 heart of Europe. The hope of mankind, so often 
 frustrated, apparently is now to be accomplished. 
 It could not be done in Napoleon's time, in spite 
 of the French Revolution, and its philosophy and 
 its promise, because of what Danton called "The 
 Allied Kings of Europe." It could not be done 
 in 1848, because of the Metternichs and the Bis- 
 marcks. It could not be done in 1870, because 
 Hapsburg and Hohenzollern were still trium- 
 phant. But out of the West, out of this youngest 
 and latest and most hopeful of the nations of the 
 earth, out of this young giant, fashioned from all 
 the peoples, who originated and faithfully prac- 
 ticed a new philosophy, messages of democracy 
 have gone over and indoctrinated other peoples 
 in other parts of the world. 
 
 Now, in the fullness of time, this giant is 
 
 grown, and joins hands with other peoples, who, 
 
 though older, are yet the children of his spirit. 
 
 We are partners to-day with great men of great 
 
 [201]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 nations who have borne for three years heroically 
 the brunt of this struggle. At the end of it, out 
 of the noise and smoke of battle, there arises the 
 vision of a new federation of nations, of a new- 
 fraternity of mankind the sons and daughters 
 of civilization joining hands to protect the sacred 
 principles upon which the freedom of mankind 
 rests. 
 
 In and about our training camps new condi- 
 tions have arisen. All sorts of modern, advanced 
 ideas with regard to the amusement and enter- 
 tainment and recreation of young men in order 
 that they may be virile, strong, and high-minded, 
 have been adopted, not because of any particular 
 wisdom of any one man, but because of the 
 unanimous judgment and demand of the Amer- 
 ican people. And when our army goes abroad, 
 it will be a knightly army, not an army of con- 
 quest that expects to come home with chariots 
 loaded up with material spoils, and prisoners 
 chained to the wheels, but an army that is going 
 over to live and die for the fine fruits of a high 
 idealism and a purified national morality. 
 
 And when we add the righteousness of our 
 cause to the intensity and success of our prepara- 
 tion, mobilizing the material and spiritual and 
 scientific resources of our great people, and think 
 of the character of our army, we see but one pos- 
 sible conclusion to this. Its first step will be mili- 
 tary victory on the field, but its last step, its great 
 fruits, the victory which will enter New York 
 [202]
 
 THE EMBATTLED DEMOCRACY 
 
 Harbor some day written on the shields of our 
 boys who will bring it to us, the victory that we 
 will value most, will be a vindication in the sight 
 of all men everywhere of the virtue of freedom, 
 the vigor of civilization, of true civilization, the 
 inviolable righteousness of international engage- 
 ments and agreements the fact that among na- 
 tions, as among men, the wages of sin is death. 
 
 My fellow-citizens, we are in a war with all its 
 losses, material and human. There may be griefs 
 in store for us of a personal kind, and we shall 
 bear them with fortitude. But for mankind, and 
 for us as a nation, there is joy in store ; not only 
 in the introduction of a new and higher era for 
 the advance and effort of mankind, not only that 
 men and women and children are to have a newer 
 and larger liberty in the life that is to come, but 
 that we Americans, having so greatly enjoyed 
 under the favor of Providence these priceless pos- 
 sessions, have been privileged to participate in 
 making them a common asset for mankind. 
 
 [203]
 
 THE NEW FREEDOM AND THE NEWER 
 DEMOCRACY 
 
 It won't do for us to embrace the hollow figure in which 
 democracy was once a tenant and say, "This is De- 
 mocracy." We must have an image to represent it which 
 is suited to the environment in which the figure is to 
 play a part. 
 
 NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSO- 
 CIATION, POLI'S THEATER, WASHINGTON, 
 DECEMBER 14, 1917. 
 
 DOES it seem unnatural to you that those of 
 us who are especially charged with the re- 
 sponsibilities of this great world war and our par- 
 ticipation in it should be asking ourselves ques- 
 tions about its ultimate effect upon the world ? In 
 the struggle we are now facing, if the incalculable 
 waste of human life and human effort if the 
 hopeless loss of life and destruction of capacity 
 were not relieved by some hopeful and forward- 
 looking promise, the burdens of this struggle 
 would be quite insupportable for the human race. 
 As a consequence, I think, in those moments 
 when we are free from the burden and responsi- 
 bility of an insistent and instant demand, most of 
 us are seeking to penetrate the future, and see 
 what this war means for the betterment of the 
 race, at large, and in the future. I have often 
 [204]
 
 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 asked myself, "What does this war mean to wom- 
 en ?" And in asking that question, I always put 
 the accent on "this" war; because woman's por- 
 tion of most wars is a fairly obvious thing it is 
 a contribution of loss, a contribution of broken 
 hearts, a contribution of sacrifice and a ministry 
 of mercy. Except that her fight is inseparably 
 bound up with that of the nation of which she is 
 a member, it ordinarily has had no larger sig- 
 nificance for her. But when I put the accent on 
 this war, it seems to me that one of the large re- 
 deeming hopes of the struggle begins to appear, 
 because this is certainly the first war of its kind 
 which has been waged for democracy. 
 
 The President the other day made an illuminat- 
 ing definition of democracy by first denying that 
 it is a political philosophy and then, in his next 
 breath, stating that it is a rule of action. Now 
 the thing that I want to point out about democ- 
 racy to-night is that it is not an accomplished 
 thing to possess, but is a process of growth. It 
 is a series, an endless series of advances and, ac- 
 cepting the President's definition that democracy 
 is a rule of conduct, it is always the rule which 
 adapts the conduct of the individual to the best 
 purpose achievable in the environment in which 
 he is placed; so that, constantly, democracy and 
 the obligations of democracy and its opportuni- 
 ties are extending and changing with the environ- 
 ment. 
 
 It has been so long since I have had any oppor- 
 [205]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 tunity to look even at the back of a book of his- 
 tory that I hesitate to fortify that statement with 
 any historical illustrations; and yet some very 
 obvious illustrations do occur even to one who, 
 like myself, has had little acquaintance with his- 
 tory more recent than his college days. Democ- 
 racy in ancient Greece was a rule by a very small 
 and restricted privileged class, who among them- 
 selves preserved some equality of political right 
 and opportunity, but their rule was extended over 
 a very large population which was either eco- 
 nomically and socially inferior or absolutely en- 
 slaved. 
 
 Democracy in Rome was not much wider in its 
 distribution of political rights. The first consti- 
 tution, which was made under the French Revolu- 
 tion, was a constitution with altogether illogical 
 restrictions upon manhood suffrage. The very 
 people who wrote the rights of man as the decla- 
 ration of the principles upon which the French 
 Revolution was justified, wrote in the next breath, 
 in the laws by which they undertook to carry that 
 declaration into effect, an illiberal system which 
 restricted the right to vote and laid a property 
 qualification upon it. 
 
 And so, when our own tentative democracy, our 
 democracy of 1776 and 1789, was established- 
 accepting the President's definition and applying 
 it it was a rule of conduct adapted to the en- 
 vironment of 1789. And when later we come 
 to the present year or to recent years, it won't 
 [206]
 
 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 do for us to embrace the hollow figure in which 
 democracy was once a tenant and say "This is 
 DEMOCRACY," but we must have an image to rep- 
 resent it which is suited to the environment in 
 which the figure is to play a part. We must have 
 the democracy of 1917, because the democracy 
 of 1789 is not adapted to the environment of 1917. 
 
 Now what are the underlying facts which have 
 changed? Institutions and governments grow 
 more complex as they progress, because of the 
 necessity of their being constantly adapted to the 
 needs which they are to meet. In 1789 we were 
 largely a rural and agrarian population. The 
 family was no less the unit of society than it is 
 now, but the interests of the family were very 
 much more narrowed. The intimacies of the 
 family in the few interests they had were very 
 much more close; the process of representation 
 by a single member of a family was not in the 
 slightest degree striking or shocking or curious 
 to people of that time. More lived within their 
 own homes. The walls of the home and the 
 church were substantially the accepted perimeter 
 within which their rights and activities were all 
 contained. 
 
 Then we embarked upon an enlargement of our 
 activity. Our own civilization became more in- 
 tense. We not only departed from the stage 
 coach and the pack mule as modes of transporta- 
 tion, and adopted the steam railroad and the 
 electric motor, but we speeded up our intellectual 
 [207]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 processes in the same ratio. We speeded up edu- 
 cation and scattered it widespread over the land. 
 We made all of the industrial and commercial 
 processes of our people very much more intense 
 and by the introduction of machinery we took 
 away from industry and from commerce a very 
 great deal of the highly specialized skill which 
 made it necessary for a man to devote an entire 
 lifetime to the pursuit of a single activity in order 
 to become expert in it. At the same time we be- 
 came a very much more congested population, 
 and all of these things led to the advent of women 
 in industry and in commerce, and to the introduc- 
 tion of large numbers of girls and women into 
 spheres of activity which were previously entirely 
 restricted to men ; and as we began to be engaged 
 in the same work, there began to be a unity of 
 interest, began to be more and more of that in- 
 dustrial society which has finally come to be 
 recognized in the law. That is what always takes 
 place. Government at its best is the surrender 
 by each individual of only so much of his indi- 
 vidual right and liberty as must necessarily be 
 surrendered for the common good, which is 
 deemed higher than the good of the individual. 
 We surrender these rights very reluctantly. If 
 there were but one man in the world, he would 
 have all the rights there are he would have to 
 make no surrenders. But when we come to two 
 men with two rights, we find that each must sur- 
 render so much of his previously unrestrained lib- 
 [208]
 
 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 erty as is necessary to make them get along 
 together in the world which they both happen to 
 inhabit. And if we go from two men to ten men, 
 and to hundreds of men and to thousands and 
 millions of men, we find a constant increase in 
 the proportion of the previously unrestrained in- 
 dividual right which must be surrendered in order 
 that common good may come out of it and that 
 society may be protected. 
 
 So when we come to see society as we have it 
 now, we find ourselves a congested population of 
 men and women, with a tremendously increased 
 number of common interests, each of us being re- 
 quired to surrender more and more of our previ- 
 ously unrestrained liberty, and freedom of action, 
 in order that the common good may be repre- 
 sented and protected. 
 
 Now the result of that is that in 1789 it might 
 well have been possible to have defined as a 
 democracy a society in which the family was rep- 
 resented by a single representative a man; but 
 in 1917, society cannot speak of itself as a democ- 
 racy unless it forgets its old environment, unless 
 it remembers the change that has taken place. It 
 cannot speak of itself as a democracy unless all 
 the men and women who live under the adminis- 
 tration of that government and those institutions, 
 are recognized and represented in the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 And so we speak of this war as being a war for 
 democracy. Women are making sacrifices in 
 [209]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 this war, just as the men are making sacrifices in 
 it. The immense activities of the organized and 
 unorganized women of America who are con- 
 tributing to the strength of our nation as it is 
 being expressed in this contest, are not susceptible 
 of being withdrawn any more than the activities 
 of the men. I have made no careful search of 
 my own mind on the subject, but I think I am 
 prepared to say that, if all the women in America 
 were to stop to-night doing the things that they 
 are doing, and making the sacrifices and con- 
 tributions they are making toward the conduct of 
 this war, we would have to withdraw from the 
 war. We would at least have to withdraw until 
 we could bring about the entire reorganization of 
 our social and industrial structure. 
 
 So that one of the demonstrations which this 
 war is making, one of the conclusions it is bring- 
 ing home, is that men and women are essentially 
 partners in our industrial and commercial civil- 
 ization, in any modern civilization, and that the 
 democracy which we are struggling to establish 
 the only sort of democracy which will satisfy 
 anybody's heart and mind when we emerge from 
 this war, is one which recognizes the rights of all 
 the persons in that society. 
 
 Now that is a dreadfully unemotional sort of 
 thing with which to try to satisfy oneself in a 
 time like this. It seems an intangible sort of sat- 
 isfaction, and yet I wonder whether it is not about 
 as enduring as any satisfaction can possibly be. 
 [210]
 
 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 When this war is over we will write down in 
 books that at such and such a time there was a 
 battle fought, and a victory won, that our adver- 
 sary sent word to this, that or the other general 
 that he desired to make peace, that they began to 
 make parleys at that place, and that finally treaties 
 were written which settled the rights of nations, 
 and other things. They will put flags, the flags 
 of our country, and of France and of Germany, 
 of England and Italy and Austria, on the page 
 that records that great triumph. The philoso- 
 phers will talk about the defeat of Autocracy at 
 the hands of Democracy. There is something 
 infinitely romantic and poetic about that. I can- 
 not imagine any picture addressing my imagina- 
 tion with more appeal than that of the House 
 of Hapsburg and the House of Hohenzollern 
 coming out of the night, coming out of the Dark 
 Ages, medieval figures still, and meeting here in 
 the Twentieth Century the young, strong, in- 
 comparable giant of the modern spirit. 
 
 Poets will write about this struggle and his- 
 torians will record it. Most of it will be un- 
 doubtedly grouped around the surface indications 
 of democracy, the rights of more people to par- 
 ticipate in the government; but I suspect that 
 the real factor in this contest, the real fundamen- 
 tal element which is to go on and fructify in- 
 definitely in the future, will be the demonstration 
 of the fact that democracy itself is an effect, is a 
 progress rather than a state of being, and that
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 there will ever be new heights to which the human 
 spirit may climb, more and more benefits to be se- 
 cured for the human race, larger and larger lib- 
 erties and opportunities, more and more far- 
 reaching places within which the human spirit 
 can perfect itself. 
 
 This war is the culmination of a long history. 
 Nobody can tell how long ago it began in the 
 making. There is one of Shakespeare's plays 
 I confess I have forgotten which one in which 
 I see the picture of a general on a field in a tent 
 it must have been Richard III it was just before 
 the battle that was to decide his fate, and it was 
 night. And as his head sank over in sleep, while 
 he was seeking rest for strength in the next day's 
 conflict, there came trooping by him dream fig- 
 ures of those whom he had done to death. I 
 have no such personal feeling about the particu- 
 lar representative of the Hohenzollern family 
 who happens to be alive when the family history 
 comes to the breaking point, as to make him 
 represent the king within that tent; but Prussia 
 is before that tent, asleep, and the figures 
 that are trooping by are Silesia and Poland and 
 Alsace-Lorraine, and all the territory that Prus- 
 sia has racked and stolen and taken away from 
 other people, and all the violence it has done 
 in the world and all the recognizances it has 
 failed to make of the validity of the simple cardi- 
 nal rules of justice and truth in human conditions 
 as applying to nations. All of these are trooping
 
 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 by as dream figures in the troubled sleep of that 
 nation which is now brought to the day of retri- 
 bution. And as we look upon that nation 
 lying at the door of her tent and reviewing her 
 past, this war gives us a new lesson. It teaches 
 us that some day we may have to sleep in front 
 of the tent; as a nation there may come a 
 critical hour in our national life when we 
 will be called upon to review our past and see 
 whether we are worthy to live, whether or not we 
 ought to give place to something stronger and 
 more virile, and more righteous than we; and if 
 the figures that pass our tent door are denials of 
 democracy, are refusals to recognize our environ- 
 ment; if they are injustices to great groups of our 
 fellow-citizens ; if they are arrogations and special 
 privileges to particular groups of men or women, 
 of either to the exclusion of the other ; if those are 
 the figures that pass before the tent then we may 
 be very sure that the battle on the morrow will go 
 to the stronger race. But if the figures that pass 
 before that tent door are figures of a people who 
 really do love democracy and progress, who at 
 every step in their national career sought to read- 
 just themselves to the environment in which they 
 lived, if they are figures representing recogni- 
 tion of the rights of individuals to the highest 
 fine development of which their capacities are sus- 
 ceptible; if the figures that troop by are justice, in 
 the adequate and fundamental sense, and real 
 recognition of the rights of others; then we can 
 [213]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 face the breaking of the morning and the onset of 
 battle, just as we can face it now in the contest 
 that is ahead of us, sure that it may bring some 
 sacrifices such is the quality of blessings in this 
 world but sure also that endurance and per- 
 petuity must in the very nature of things and in 
 the justice of nature, be awarded to those who 
 are faithful to such ideals. 
 
 So analyzing this war, we realize that it is giv- 
 ing us of the Twentieth Century an opportunity 
 to keep step with our age. Before this war be- 
 gan, Democracy gave its name to a political party. 
 And as I happen to be a member of that party, I 
 like to think that party represents that policy ; but 
 Democracy is more than the name of a political 
 party now, and this war is teaching us to recog- 
 nize that, and to see women's share in it. They 
 have the opportunity to make the sacrifices ; they 
 have the opportunity to help ; they, like men, are 
 spurred on by its superb inspirations. Like men 
 they are discovering a new and latent and unsus- 
 pected capacity in themselves for action and as- 
 piration. The nation itself is discovering latent 
 capacities and unsuspected superiorities. Nations 
 are drawing closer together and discovering one 
 another's inherent nobility. And so, when this 
 war is over, and we begin the reconstruction of a 
 shaken and shattered civilization, after the pour- 
 ing in of oil and the binding up of the wounds of 
 the flesh are over, and we begin to try to bind 
 [214]
 
 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 up the spiritual wounds of mankind resulting 
 from this struggle, we will then have become 
 aware almost unwittingly we will have become 
 aware of the fact that the salvation of the world 
 lies really in the thing we have been fighting for. 
 This democracy that we speak of and follow, 
 must not be some traditional and historical thing, 
 something of official creed and stiff formalities, 
 a declaration written in lofty high-sounding 
 phrases; but what the President calls it a rule 
 of conduct by which each individual in the State 
 (reserving to himself jealously all the freedoms 
 and rights that can be reserved, yet gives up all 
 that is necessary, in the name of humanity, in 
 order that by the common effort of every one, the 
 common good may be effected. 
 
 If I had some subtle and instantaneous way of 
 using efficiently all of the good will and willing- 
 ness to help that there is in America, the world 
 could not stand against her five minutes. Facing 
 the fact that it takes some time to order the 
 process by which so much willingness and good 
 will can be used that is the difficult part of this 
 situation, and yet that is one of the prices that 
 we pay for democracy. 
 
 It is perfectly possible to have an ordered and 
 regimented society in which each person will have 
 in his pocket a card and upon that card directions 
 as to how he is to act under all sorts and condi- 
 tions of circumstances, and when a national 
 [215]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 emergency arises to have the public authority tele- 
 graph abroad, "Everybody act according to Rule 
 13." It would be possible to fix by congressional 
 enactment a particular breakfast hour for the hu- 
 man race and prescribe their conduct for every 
 five minutes of the rest of the day ; and in certain 
 forms of government that is a more or less popu- 
 lar amusement. 
 
 But one of the characteristics of democracy 
 is that it does not proceed that way. It scatters 
 its people; it allows them to go about here and 
 there, seeking by individual inspiration and un- 
 guided effort to find the avenue of their own 
 highest opportunity and enjoyment. All are 
 busy about their own concerns, and then, when 
 the national emergency comes, there is no Rule 
 13. Everybody has to ask somebody else, "Well, 
 what are you going to do ? What do you think I 
 can do?" After a while these severely troubled 
 waters do really come to a healing influence, and 
 we find that though we seem to have been going 
 in circles and apparently indulging in a good deal 
 of futility, yet the thing we have been really doing 
 is consulting about the mode of gathering the ag- 
 gregate strength of the nation for the accom- 
 plishment of our high-minded purposes. Men are 
 doing it just as women are doing it. The or- 
 ganizations of women in this country have been 
 tremendously effective they are growing daily 
 more effective. Throughout American life there 
 is developing in industry, in commerce, in finance, 
 [216]
 
 FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 among men and among women, in the philosophy 
 of this conflict, in the morality of this conflict, in 
 the hope of this conflict there is developing a 
 perfectly well-defined unity of fellow feeling, and 
 the consequence is that when this war is over, we 
 shall be more a nation in the best sense of that 
 word than we have ever been before. 
 
 Many of the old things that belong to the old 
 order will have passed away with that order. 
 The new date line of this central and pivotal 
 event in the history of the human race will have 
 made memories of a lot of things which have been 
 prejudices heretofore, and we shall start out with 
 one of the great fruits of this war, a new knowl- 
 edge of the progressive character of democracy 
 and a new faith in the capacity of men and women 
 to achieve the great promise which world democ- 
 racy holds for the race. 
 
 [217]
 
 THRICE-ARMED AMERICA 
 
 The Army is merely the point of the sword; the 
 handle, and the hand that wields the handle and the 
 body that controls that hand, and the subsistence of that 
 body, are all just as vitally indispensable to the effective 
 use of that weapon as the point itself. 
 
 CHAUTAUQUA REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, 
 
 JANUARY 2, 1918. 
 
 HAD I a message to bear to the American 
 people, it would be one of pride and en- 
 couragement at the splendid mobilization of the 
 national power which has actually taken place in 
 America. I think nothing has ever gone on in 
 the world like the thing which has gone on in this 
 country since we entered the European War. 
 Diverting our industries from their peace-time 
 occupation, turning our attention to the great 
 task and the great opportunity which has been 
 opened up to us, there has arisen among our peo- 
 ple a unanimity of spirit and a common willing- 
 ness to sacrifice ; a determination to see this great 
 job through, which has simplified the task of 
 those who have been more or less at the center 
 and the direction of things, and has proved to 
 us this great truth that it is not necessary for 
 [218]
 
 THRICE-ARMED AMERICA 
 
 people to doubt Democracy; that whenever 
 Democracy has an emergency to meet, it has the 
 inherent power to rise to that emergency and to 
 exert itself in ways that are adequate to any 
 attack which can be made upon it. 
 
 The wholesome and happy feeling I derive 
 from that is this : it gives us assurance to go on 
 building America as we were building it build- 
 ing it as a democracy, putting the emphasis on 
 liberty and freedom. We are now assured that 
 in a country organized in this way, with love of 
 freedom as its basic spirit, there is no weakening, 
 there is no enfeeblement of the coordinative 
 powers of the people. When the emergency 
 comes, the power is there and it lends itself readily 
 to coordination and to expression and to effec- 
 tive use. 
 
 Nothing is more valuable for the people of the 
 United States, I think, than that they should 
 have just grounds, as they have just grounds, for 
 retaining their belief in the validity as well as in 
 the beauty of democratic institutions. And our 
 people are entitled to have that assurance because 
 democratic though we are, we have effectively co- 
 ordinated the strength of the nation. We have 
 coordinated its financial strength, its industrial 
 strength, its man power, and its moral strength, 
 and dedicated them to a great heroic task in a way 
 that no other country in history has done. 
 
 I hope that you may bring the conviction to 
 [219]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 your audiences that every man in America is 
 interested in this war; that it is not the war of 
 the people in Washington; it is not the war of 
 the people in the army, it is the war of every 
 man in America, and the things which we 
 deem true and beautiful in civilization, and which 
 we are seeking to save by this great enterprise 
 cannot be saved by the army alone, but they are 
 to be saved by every man, woman and child old 
 enough to think and willing to do his share. 
 
 The army is merely the point of the sword. 
 It is simply the striking point of the national 
 strength ; but the handle and the hand that wields 
 the handle, and the body that controls that hand 
 and the subsistence of that body are all just as 
 vital and indispensable to the effective use of that 
 weapon as the point itself. 
 
 It is the heightened sense of individual respon- 
 sibility and individual participation in this thing 
 it is the dignity of the individual in the midst 
 of this vast enterprise that I would like to have 
 you bring to your audiences so that they can 
 actually feel and have a realizing sense of it, be- 
 cause if every American who looks to his coun- 
 try's interest in this hour, can be made to feel that 
 intimate sense of personal relationship to it; that 
 he is one with it; that his strength is being felt 
 in the push ; that his spiritual contribution is on 
 the forward moving side, I am quite sure that it 
 will make the country stronger and will give the 
 [220]
 
 THRICE-ARMED AMERICA 
 
 people of the country a more wholesome attitude 
 toward their own relation to the government. 
 
 When this war is over, wliat we want to be 
 able to do is to push ahead the work of recon- 
 struction. Some one is going to be chosen to 
 reconstruct the world. If the governments 
 which come out of this war triumphant are peo- 
 ples which have surrendered personal liberties, 
 subordinated the individual to the State, given up 
 the right of free speech and free thought; if 
 those will be the governments which will seem 
 most effective in this war, their model will 
 have to be chosen for future reconstruction. But 
 if the strongest force in this war is the vigor 
 and effectiveness of the free people, then, when 
 this war is over, that model will be chosen and 
 people all over the world will select that model as 
 the one on which to build the reconstruction of 
 the world. 
 
 In order to have America do its part in the re- 
 construction, we want to have the feeling in this 
 country when the war is over and the victory 
 won, that the whole victory was not won by the 
 soldiers alone. On the day when the victory is 
 won and the peace is accomplished, I'd like to have 
 everybody in the United States feel "I helped to 
 bring that about." 
 
 I'd like to have you tell the people of this coun- 
 try that, as Napoleon said, in war morale, or 
 moral force, is to brute force as three to one. The 
 same man said that God was always on the side of 
 [221]
 
 
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 the heaviest guns. Yet Napoleon, who to many 
 minds is the typification of force, recognized the 
 value of the spirit in war as being three times as 
 great as the value of mere numerical strength. 
 
 Now, if the people of the United States can 
 acquire a realization that this great war is the 
 greatest thing that we have been privileged or will 
 be privileged to see and help in, and that the sac- 
 rificial spirit which is necessary to sustain and 
 carry it to a victorious conclusion is one not dis- 
 colored by any sort of selfish advantage if they 
 can get this realization, then not only will we 
 win the victory on the field, but we will win the 
 victory after the field of battle, in the greater 
 opportunities that will come to the race. 
 
 Perhaps I can sum up. I'd like to have you tell 
 the people, first, that their country has risen to 
 this emergency; that it is meeting its responsi- 
 bility; that it is realizing its opportunity; that 
 the whole country, every part of it, is knit to- 
 gether in a community of spirit and a community 
 of effort which is bringing the great power of 
 our unexhausted and perhaps inexhaustible re- 
 sources to bear, for success. 
 
 Second, that this isn't one man's war, or sev- 
 eral men's war, or an army's war, but it is a war 
 of all the people of the United States ; and 
 
 Third, that the dignity of this task is so great 
 that every man's effort in it is an honor to him, 
 and by an appreciation of his participation in
 
 THRICE-ARMED AMERICA 
 
 it, each man makes himself ready not only for 
 better contribution now, but for a larger useful- 
 ness in the reconstructive work which is to come 
 after the war is over. 
 
 I am very anxious to have the German govern- 
 ment grasp what the people of America really 
 think about this war, and what we are do- 
 ing. Referring to Napoleon's maxim, I am 
 anxious to have our people show the spirit, and 
 feel the identity of interest in all this, which, by 
 those subtle processes of intercommunication 
 apparently now established between Germany 
 and this country, will finally get to the govern- 
 ing power of that empire, and which when 
 translated to them will be this: there are no 
 sectional divisions; there are no partisanships in 
 America; there are no jealousies; there are no 
 personal ambitions, but a people of one hundred 
 million have actually risen in a mass and have 
 devoted themselves to the job of putting an end 
 to the unholy aggression of Germany upon the 
 civilized world. 
 
 If the German Emperor has any sort of notion 
 that racial differences exist among us, or that 
 religious differences may annoy us, or that sec- 
 tional or partisan considerations may divide us, 
 let us send him a message that that is not so. 
 Let us send him word that we are just as much 
 one, although one hundred million of us that 
 we are just as much one as though we were an 
 individual, and that if he proposes to go on in
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 his attitude toward civilization he will have to 
 count on us as a people who are willing to make 
 the necessary sacrifices to bring the entire aggre- 
 gate strength and power of this nation to bear 
 against him. That would be a very good "three." 
 The army will be the other "one." With a moral 
 equipment of that kind, and the army, there can- 
 not be any doubt about our success.
 
 EXPRESSION VERSUS SUPPRESSION 
 
 / am not idealist enough to imagine that the time is at 
 all near when we can dispense with some admixture of 
 force in the carrying out of police regulations, and I am 
 heartily in accord with the belief that there should be 
 segregation, isolation and quarantine. We must use the 
 power which laws recently enacted by Congress have 
 given us< to diminish as far as we can by repressive meas- 
 ures opportunities for vicious infections which would en- 
 feeble the Army. 
 
 Yet I am idealist enough to believe that we have al- 
 ready passed many mile stones since we left the old con- 
 ditions, and that our progress, our substantial and tre- 
 mendous progress, is going to be along the line of healthy 
 and wholesome and stimulating and strengthening sub- 
 stitutes as counterbalances to temptation. 
 
 NATIONAL SOCIAL HYGIENE ASSOCIATION, 
 WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 31, 1918. 
 
 IN the office of the Chief of Police of Cleveland 
 there is a picture about the size of that tapes- 
 try on the wall facing me, done by a man with no 
 knowledge of painting. He knew blue when he 
 saw it, and he knew red when he saw it, 
 and that is about all he did know about col- 
 ors. It represents a little child crossing a 
 street, and you can see in her face, rudely as the 
 picture is done, the anxiety and timidity of a 
 [225]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 little girl crossing a dangerous highway. And 
 just alongside her is a great big humane-looking 
 policeman who is helping her across. And you 
 can see in her face, also, the anxiety about to de- 
 part and her reliance upon the policeman as her 
 guardian and protector. The man who painted 
 that picture did not know very much about art, 
 but he knew a very great deal about other things. 
 He made his policeman big enough and strong 
 enough to express the resolute will of society 
 against persistent wrong-doing. And he made 
 him also man enough to realize that the fears 
 of a child were worth providing against and the 
 confidence of the child worth fostering. 
 
 I have thought of that picture very often. 
 When I first came into the police court in Cleve- 
 land it was as sad a place as I ever knew ; every 
 morning, in addition to the hardened offenders, 
 the habitues of the place, there was a flock of 
 little children. I counted one morning seventeen 
 children under fifteen years of age, in what was 
 known as the "bull pen" of that prison, the city 
 jail. And those children, nine, ten, eleven, 
 twelve years old, were huddled into the ante- 
 room of the courtroom with hardened offenders, 
 men and women, and what they heard from the 
 time they were imprisoned until they were 
 brought into the court, perhaps to be sentenced 
 back to jail with those same people, was enough 
 to introduce a hardening influence into their lives. 
 It made of that kind of effort at law enforce- 
 [226]
 
 EXPRESSION VERSUS SUPPRESSION 
 
 ment merely a perpetuation of the evil effects of 
 accidental wrong-doing until the children became 
 calloused into relentless habit. 
 
 I am talking about the Dark Ages! All that 
 happened so long ago that I have to search my 
 recollection to find that such a thing could be 
 true; and yet it was true, not in Cleveland alone 
 but in cities throughout the United States gener- 
 ally. But we began to advance, and one of the 
 most conspicuous advances we made was the in- 
 stitution of the juvenile court system, by which 
 we substituted for the indiscriminate repressive 
 method a parental system of discipline. We 
 elected men to be juvenile judges, not because 
 they did not know any law, nor because they did, 
 but because the community which selected them 
 judged them to have a sympathetic comprehen- 
 sion of the point of view of children and of the 
 processes which society ought to adopt to rescue 
 children from their early mistakes. 
 
 We have no scales by which we can measure 
 social advances, but if there were some subtle 
 process by which we could measure in miles the 
 steps upward taken by society when the juvenile 
 court was established as a separate method of 
 dealing with juvenile offenders, I feel quite cer- 
 tain that the mileage of that advance would com- 
 pare favorably with any other social step we 
 have taken in the last fifty years. 
 
 Now the next contribution to that progress lay 
 in the idea of recreation. In 1850, as I recall, 
 [227]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 there were only two cities in the United States 
 that had public parks. To-day there is no city in 
 the United States which does not have public 
 parks; there are no small towns in the United 
 States which do not have public parks. And our 
 first idea about the park was just outdoor air and 
 opportunity, room for people to spread out and 
 get away from the depressing effects of the con- 
 gestion of modern civilization. Our factory sys- 
 tem had brought about the congestion of indus- 
 trial workers largely in city units in order that 
 they might be handy to their places of employ- 
 ment, and so we had outgrown the village unit 
 idea with the village common and had brought 
 ourselves into a civilization where we lived 
 pressed in between hard brick walls and with 
 nothing to walk on except stone streets. Indeed, 
 it isn't a jest, it is a solemn and pathetic fact as 
 told in Life some years ago, how some children 
 went from New York to get a breath of fresh air 
 on some fresh air mission's outing. When these 
 children got outside of New York and into the 
 open country, some of them were found sitting 
 on the top rail of a fence, entirely disconsolate 
 and with their eyes filled with tears. Asked 
 why they were sitting there, instead of romp- 
 ing about enjoying themselves, they said that 
 there were no gutters to play in. We had 
 brought their young life to a place where they 
 had an invincible habit of the restrictions of city 
 life and they couldn't be happy without them. 
 [228]
 
 EXPRESSION VERSUS SUPPRESSION 
 
 The child-life and the young life of our great 
 cities was growing up unrecreated. 
 
 So the park was developed, and after that the 
 playground, and it was on a perfectly logical 
 theory. Originally it was humanitarian, philan- 
 thropical, and benevolent in its start ; some kindly 
 man or some kindly woman who saw children 
 playing in the street, where they were likely to 
 be run over, would say, "Those children ought to 
 have a back yard to play in, a little square, or 
 a little common lot"; and that was provided for 
 them. Then, as always happens, philanthropy 
 became the pioneer of the functions of the State. 
 The business of the philanthropist is to discover 
 those things which society ought to do and, by 
 demonstrating that they can be done, challenge 
 the attention of society to its duties. So private 
 philanthropy gave parks and playgrounds, put up 
 swings and see-saws, and then the State or so- 
 ciety came in, either the State government or the 
 city government, and said: "This is our duty"; 
 and all over the United States now we have parks 
 and playgrounds in every city and in every place 
 where people are gathered in any numbers. 
 
 And then the next step. It was realized that 
 we could not reproduce in a city, by simply giving 
 a piece of ground, those normal opportunities for 
 play which occur in the sparsely settled country- 
 side; that the artificiality of city life intruded 
 itself into the playgrounds and that it was neces- 
 sary to have supervised play in order that it 
 [229]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 might be wholesome play; and so we began to 
 train experts. And, private philanthropy, pio- 
 neering again, set up schools for playground 
 teachers, and private persons employed them and 
 sent them to the parks to lead the children. And 
 after a while society said, "We might as well cut 
 down our bill for policemen, have only one-half 
 as many policemen and hire some playground in- 
 structors, leaders, play-masters, companions for 
 these children." And so all over the United 
 States now, we know of no city which does not 
 have as a part of its city budget, recreational 
 facilities and recreational instruction. 
 
 I could recount other steps in this general di- 
 rection. Those are the most important ones. 
 Now this same impulse has been recognized in 
 the Boy Scout movement, the idea of getting 
 the boy out of an unnatural environment and 
 taking him back to the thing that it is in the na- 
 ture of the boy to like doing, to make a woodsman 
 of him, take him on hikes, and in the doing of 
 these things to give him an opportunity to ac- 
 quire those generosities of nature which belong 
 to the natural man. 
 
 The Y. M. C. A., started I trust I offend 
 no one by this statement about it, I think I am 
 historically accurate started originally, in ac- 
 cordance with the temper of its time, as a more 
 or less denominational or strictly religious move- 
 ment with the idea of gathering young men in, 
 in order that they might have formal religious 
 [230]
 
 EXPRESSION VERSUS SUPPRESSION 
 
 exercises, and then it seized because it was akin 
 to this fine new thing that was discovered it 
 seized upon the idea of recreation as a means of 
 regenerating the spirit and body of young men. 
 Now all over the United States are Y. M. C. A.'s, 
 having as one of their most active interests and 
 enterprises, the athletic competitions, the gym- 
 nasia, the outing clubs, all those things which 
 tend to get young men together in wholesome and 
 normal environment taking them out into con- 
 tact with nature and relieving them of the con- 
 gestion of city life. 
 
 I don't suppose anybody ever compiled in any 
 comprehensive way the statistics as to the de- 
 crease in criminality consequent upon the estab- 
 lishment of recreational facilities. It has been 
 studied in spots. In Chicago when they began 
 the great playground movement, they have very 
 remarkable model playgrounds in Chicago, they 
 did keep an accurate account of juvenile criminal- 
 ity in the neighborhoods where these places were 
 established. And it showed almost instantly a 
 progressive decrease. 
 
 Finally we learned this lesson, these two les- 
 sons. We learned that where there was a healthily 
 conducted and adequate recreational opportunity, 
 it was impossible for the old downward tendency 
 of young men to continue; that in the presence of 
 that opportunity the natural and spontaneous 
 tendencies of young men asserted themselves. 
 We learned this other thing ; that the way to keep 
 [231]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 young people from doing bad things is to give 
 them an opportunity to do good things. There 
 is an immense reassurance in that. It demon- 
 strates to those who are watching it and follow- 
 ing it that really the natural tendency of the 
 young is toward the wholesome and the right 
 and that it is the occasional and accidental young 
 person, in an unfavorable environment and un- 
 der the pressure of adverse circumstances, who 
 acquires through such contacts the tendency 
 downward. 
 
 I can give you another illustration. We had 
 in Cleveland the problem of the dance hall. No 
 other problem that we had during the time I 
 was connected with the city government seemed 
 more refractory and difficult. The dance halls 
 were located at the corner hall, frequently over 
 saloons, sometimes over perfectly well-conducted 
 saloons. Cleveland is a large city with a very 
 large foreign-born population, and the habit of 
 many of those groups of foreign peoples was to 
 have a hall built in the middle of the neighbor- 
 hood in which they lived, which they would call 
 their national hall, naming it after their par- 
 ticular nationality, so that they might meet there 
 for social entertainments. These halls frequently 
 had a dance hall annexed, or were used for danc- 
 ing. But we found that the difficulty with the 
 dance hall was that it opened too early and it 
 closed too late, and it was commercialized by the 
 desire of those who conducted the entertainments 
 [232]
 
 EXPRESSION VERSUS SUPPRESSION 
 
 to admit as many persons as possible, because the 
 admission was the profit which went to the person 
 who conducted the enterprise. And we found 
 that the evil results of the dance halls were 
 marked and difficult to combat 
 
 We started out with the repressive idea. First 
 we put a police officer in each one, a kind of su- 
 pervisor; then we put a chaperone in each one. 
 Some improvement took place after each step. 
 And finally it occurred to somebody to offer a 
 wholesome substitute for the whole business and 
 see how that w r ould work. The price in the dance 
 halls usually was five cents a dance, for a dance 
 of three minutes. We took two very large pa- 
 vilions out in public parks, closed them up so 
 that they would be comfortable in winter time 
 and opened dances conducted by the city and 
 chaperoned by carefully selected men and 
 women. We opened them a little later than 
 the ordinary dance hall, and we closed them 
 just enough earlier than the ordinary dance hall 
 to prevent anybody going from our dance to any- 
 body else's dance it was too late to go anywhere 
 else when they left us; and we charged, instead 
 of five cents for three minutes, three cents for 
 five minutes. And everybody came to dance with 
 us! As a consequence, those dance halls out in 
 our public parks, with all of the fine inducement 
 which a well-protected and well-cared- for city 
 park affords, flowers in flower beds, Lake Erie 
 rolling off just in sight, good music, plenty of
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 light, discreet and pleasant persons about on ev- 
 ery hand, made the sort of social recreation 
 which those young people really wanted and were 
 looking for. 
 
 These illustrations are somewhat scattered. I 
 am going back rather hastily into a period of my 
 life which I don't often get a chance to think of 
 any more, and am selecting those high points 
 in my own experience which remain with me as 
 demonstrations of the theory to which I am 
 deeply committed, and which is that one of the 
 greatest elements in law enforcement and one of 
 the soundest character-builders which we have 
 yet discovered, is recreation for the young, recre- 
 ation for the middle-aged, and recreation for the 
 old. 
 
 Now consider our Army. That is the thing, of 
 course, that is in everybody's heart and mind at 
 this minute. Here we have an army of large 
 size. We have started to build it by getting 
 these young officers into training camps ; and we 
 called into those training camps the choicest 
 young men of this country, who have been 
 through the colleges and the high schools, where 
 attention was given not only, under our modern 
 practice, to the education of the mind, but to 
 their recreation as well ; where their minds were 
 filled with useful information and their bodies 
 were made lithe and active ; and where their social 
 point of view was made sound by association 
 under wholesome and stimulating conditions. We 
 [234]
 
 EXPRESSION VERSUS SUPPRESSION 
 
 called these young men into our training camps 
 and one of them was near enough to Washington 
 to allow most of this audience to see the splendid 
 spirit of the young men who attended these 
 camps. 
 
 Then we sent those fine young officers out, 
 selected right out of the body of our people, en- 
 dowed with the best gifts that our wisest and 
 latest method of dealing with young men can 
 give we sent them out to be the officers of the 
 young men whom we brought from homes all 
 over the country to form into this army. 
 
 I have gone from camp to camp and talked 
 with the commanding officers, and these com- 
 manders tell me that the discipline of this army 
 is almost automatic, and that the old problem of 
 disciplining soldiers has almost ceased to exist 
 as a matter of major concern and anxiety. We 
 have learned that the best control in the world is 
 self-control, and that the best inducement to self- 
 control is the kind of education that gives the 
 best that is in men normal opportunity to grow 
 vigorous. 
 
 I am not idealist enough to imagine that the 
 time is at all near when we can dispense with 
 some admixture of force in the enforcement of 
 police regulations, and I am heartily in accord 
 with the belief that there should be segregation 
 and isolation and quarantine. We must use the 
 power which laws recently enacted by Congress 
 have given us to diminish as far as we can by re- 
 [235]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 pressive measures, opportunities for vicious in- 
 fections which would enfeeble the Army. Yet I 
 am idealist enough to believe that we have already 
 passed many milestones since we left the old 
 conditions, and that our progress, our substantial 
 and tremendous progress, is going to be along 
 the line of healthy and wholesome and stimulat- 
 ing and strengthening substitutes as counter- 
 weights to temptation. 
 
 [236]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 / propose to speak of svme of the work of the War 
 Department, of some of its mistakes, and of some of its 
 plans for the future. There is always between the begin- 
 ning of preparation and the final demonstration of its 
 success, a period of questioning. We look back over the 
 past and realize that there have been delays and that 
 there have been shortcomings, that there have been things 
 which might have been done better. In so great an enter- 
 prise it is impossible for frankness not to find these 
 things. But our effort is to learn from them, not to re- 
 peat, to strengthen where there is need of it; to supple- 
 ment where it is required; and, by bringing these two 
 things together, our very best effort and the confidence 
 of the country back of that effort, to make our enemies 
 feel finally the strength that is really American. 
 
 BEFORE THE SENATE MILITARY AFFAIRS 
 COMMITTEE, JANUARY 28, 1918. 
 
 I PROPOSE to speak of some of the work of 
 the War Department, of some of its mis- 
 takes, and of some of its plans for the future. 
 The country is entitled to know what this war is, 
 what its problems are, and what steps have been 
 taken to meet those problems. 
 
 Also, I have a deep sense of obligation to the 
 
 officers of the Army and to the civilians who have 
 
 from the beginning of this difficulty labored in 
 
 a way which certainly, in my experience, has 
 
 [237]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 never been equaled for devotion, self-sacrifice, 
 and zeal, who have spent sleepless nights and tire- 
 less days in an effort to bring up the organiza- 
 tion of this great Army and its use in a military 
 enterprise most rapidly and effectively. 
 
 I have seen strong and grizzled men of the 
 Army turn away from my desk to hide tears 
 when they were asked to stay in this country and 
 do organization work here instead of going to 
 France where the glory of their profession lay; 
 and yet I have never known one of them to hesi- 
 tate for a second to obey the order, nor has there 
 been any lack of quality in the work which any 
 of them has done by reason of his natural ambi- 
 tion to be on the field of battle rather than in an 
 administrative task. Men of the largest experi- 
 ence and of the greatest talent in business have 
 been included in the great company of civilians 
 who have come to Washington from all over the 
 United States, laying down their private busi- 
 ness, sometimes accepting salaries which office 
 boys at other places enjoy, sometimes having no 
 salary at all. They have put up with the inade- 
 quate conditions which the city now affords be- 
 cause of its congested condition, and have worked 
 in season and out of season on this undertaking. 
 
 It would be a tragical thing if this tremendous 
 effort, this wholly unprecedented sacrifice made 
 by men, were found to deserve the comment that 
 it had failed. 
 
 I have not the least doubt that such currency 
 [238]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 as that feeling has received is due in large part to 
 the tremendous impatience of the American peo- 
 ple to do this great thing greatly. Every one of 
 you, and every one of us, wants to demonstrate 
 the thing which he knows to be true; that our 
 country is great and strong, and in a cause like 
 this will hit like a man at the adversary which 
 has attacked us. And always there is between 
 the beginning of preparation and the final dem- 
 onstration of its success a period of questioning, 
 when everybody, you and I and everybody else, 
 goes through searchings of heart to find out 
 whether all has been done that could have been 
 or that ought to have been done; whether any- 
 thing remains that can be done. And we look back 
 over the past and realize that there have been 
 delays and that there have been shortcomings, 
 that there have been things which might have 
 been done better. In so great an enterprise it is 
 impossible for frankness not to find these things. 
 
 But our effort is to learn from them, not to 
 repeat; to strengthen where there is need of 
 it; to supplement where there needs supple- 
 menting; and, by bringing two things together, 
 our very best effort and the confidence of the 
 country back of that effort, to make our enemies 
 finally feel the strength that is really American. 
 
 I have no bias in favor of individuals. The 
 issue before us is far too large for any preju- 
 dice or favoritism, and when I discuss, if I 
 shall discuss individuals by name, or if I refer 
 [239]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 to myself, I want it understood that the appear- 
 ance of any one of us in the casualty list any 
 morning is a negligible matter as contrasted with 
 the success of this enterprise. I am not here 
 either to defend individuals, including myself, 
 or to deny delays, mistakes, shortcomings, or 
 false starts; but I think I can say with confi- 
 dence that where those things have appeared we 
 have sought the remedy ; that in many places we 
 have applied the remedy. The largest purpose 
 I have in being here is to urge what I do not need 
 to urge, that your committee, that the Members 
 of the Senate and the Members of the House, 
 that every citizen in this country, official and un- 
 official, from the highest to the lowest, should 
 realize that this is their enterprise, not quite so 
 much as it is mine in the sense of responsibility, 
 but still essentially their enterprise, and to ask 
 from you and from them every suggestion, every 
 criticism, every constructive thought that may 
 come to mind. I ask when shortcomings are 
 pointed out to you, whether they be well founded 
 or whether they be not well founded, that you 
 will instantly convey them to me, so that by the 
 processes which the Department has, I may 
 search out where blame is to be attached, where 
 remedies are to be applied, and where strengthen- 
 ing and improvement of the organization is 
 possible. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, you made an address in the 
 Senate. It was at the conclusion of an investi- 
 [240]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 gation of two divisions of the War Department, 
 the Ordnance and the Quartermaster Depart- 
 ments. In that investigation some shortcomings 
 had been brought to the attention of the 
 committee some delays. They fall readily un- 
 der two or three heads. The delays were in the 
 midst of very large and involved transactions, 
 and yet, by reason of the effort of the committee 
 to trace them to their ultimate cause and to get 
 their proper leadings and bearings, they assumed 
 a disproportionate aspect in relation to what has 
 actually been going on in this war and in the War 
 Department. And if I may venture, with very 
 great respect to the chairman and to the com- 
 mittee, to suggest it, it seemed to me at the time 
 I read that speech that perhaps I would feel about 
 it thus : That without the intention of the chair- 
 man and without anybody's intention, its effect 
 might be to cause the country to feel that the 
 particular difficulties and delays referred to by 
 the chairman were characteristic rather than ex- 
 ceptional. I want therefore to address myself to 
 those incidents which were pointed out by the 
 chairman in his address to the Senate and see 
 whether I can not, with his permission and with 
 great deference to him and the committee, place 
 them in a light which will show that, rather than 
 being characteristic, they are instances of short- 
 comings and only instances, and that the general 
 thing to which they bear a relation is not to be 
 inferred as characterized by those instances. 
 [241]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 If I may say one personal word, I should like 
 to say that for some reason, which I do not un- 
 derstand, when I appeared before your committee 
 in these hearings with the intention of being 
 frank, weighed down, as I have been ever since I 
 have been Secretary of War, by accumulating 
 difficulties in that Department ( for I became Sec- 
 retary of War on the night that Villa crossed the 
 border and raided Columbus, and the Department 
 has been an active department ever since, and 
 there has been no hour thereafter when I have 
 not felt that the responsibilities which rested upon 
 me were of the very gravest kind and when I 
 have not wondered constantly where I might find 
 the strength to meet those responsibilities), yet 
 for some reason, with that sense of my duty 
 and my task, and with the utmost desire to aid 
 this committee to develop all that it wanted to 
 know and all that there was, I seem yet to have 
 left, at least upon the minds of some members of 
 the committee, a feeling that I was fencing in or- 
 der to defend the actions of my subordinates when 
 that was not my intention. 
 
 I have brought down here to-day, Mr. Chair- 
 man, no hurriedly gathered data with regard to 
 divisions of the War Department and their activ- 
 ities, which you have not as yet inquired into. I 
 am here, if I can, to make a compendious state- 
 ment of the whole situation, and if there be, as 
 doubtless there will be and ought to be, other 
 [242]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 phases of the War Department's work which 
 your committee desires to go into, I trust you will 
 go into them thoroughly, and when you have de- 
 tected any shortcoming or defect, I need not tell 
 you that if you bring it to my attention I will do 
 all I can, and that speedily and without fear or 
 favor of person, to correct, adjust, and improve it. 
 The chairman of the committee read to the 
 Senate tw T o letters dealing with instances of 
 neglect of the dead. They are pathetic letters. 
 They arouse every instinct of resentment and 
 indignation that a man can have. I had not seen 
 those letters before. At once, upon hearing of 
 them, I wrote to the chairman of the committee 
 and asked for the names of the writers of those 
 letters and the camps in which those incidents 
 were reported to have taken place. I wanted, 
 and I want now, to follow those through to the 
 very end to find out who was guilty of this inhu- 
 man treatment, to find out who was responsible 
 for the conditions complained of there, in order 
 that I may punish those who are guilty. The 
 chairman has felt that those letters came to him 
 in a confidential way and has suggested that he 
 will endeavor to have himself relieved from 
 that confidence so that I can ultimately get those 
 names and redress the wrong. Those are two in- 
 stances. I have had others. I have not had 
 those two, but it may interest the committee to 
 know that with more than a million men in arms 
 [243]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 in this country, with great hospital establishments 
 in all these camps, with hospitals established in 
 many camps other than those which are directly 
 devoted to the National Army, the National 
 Guard, and the Regular Army, the number of 
 complaints has been relatively small, perhaps 
 some dozen and a half. In each instance when 
 the complaint came, if it dealt with a question of 
 shortage of supplies, it has been referred to the 
 Surgeon General of the Army in order that in- 
 stant corrective steps might be taken, but where 
 it involved a breakdown in the human element; 
 where it involved some man who was intrusted 
 with responsibility as to the life and welfare and 
 safe custody of another individual; the remedy 
 has been always to refer it to the Inspector Gen- 
 eral of the Army for immediate investigation, 
 with the recommendation as to a course of action 
 to be taken which would not only be corrective, 
 but punitive where fault lay. 
 
 I have before me here the report of the In- 
 spector General on the cases with which he has 
 had to deal. Many of them show that com- 
 plaints which, at the outset, looked serious, were 
 not in fact serious. Some of them show that 
 the situation was serious, and remedies and 
 courses of discipline are suggested. I have, for 
 instance, a case somewhat similar to the one 
 which the chairman had, the report of the ship- 
 ping home of a body of a soldier unclothed. In 
 [244]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 this case the soldier was killed at the Toronto 
 Flying Field, his clothing was removed, his body 
 was wrapped in a winding sheet, and it was re- 
 ceived at the home of his parents thus unclothed. 
 Immediate inquiry was made and it was discov- 
 ered that that flying unit was under the control 
 of a major of the Royal Flying Corps of the 
 British army; that he followed the British cus- 
 tom of removing the clothes of the deceased and 
 returning them in a separate parcel. The under- 
 taker there employed to deal with this body dealt 
 with it as the English and the Canadians are ac- 
 customed to do. Immediate instructions were is- 
 sued that there should be an American officer at 
 that camp and that the American practice should 
 prevail should such a catastrophe happen again. 
 I have here a case of neglect of a patient, not 
 leading to a fatal result, at Camp Wheeler. The 
 Inspector General investigated it in a judicial 
 manner and came to the conclusion that the condi- 
 tions did not actually justify the complaint, but 
 that in the bitterness of her distress the wife of 
 this soldier felt that something more might have 
 been done if she could have had her soldier home 
 with her. In the judgment of the Inspector 
 General her complaints were based upon that sort 
 of distressed imagination, with which we are all 
 familiar. No further remedy in that particular 
 case was suggested than that care and consid- 
 eration should be had in dealing with the rela- 
 tives. 
 
 [245]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 The first case of all which came to my personal 
 attention came from Plattsburg, where a com- 
 plaint was made of the mistreatment of a soldier 
 by a surgeon. I sent immediately for the record, 
 I examined it personally, and I came to the con- 
 clusion that that particular officer, a man called 
 in from civil life when the emergency arose and 
 the rapid expansion of the medical corps required 
 it, had failed to understand his responsibility, 
 and I therefore dismissed him from the Army. 
 
 There are few cases, however; they amount 
 perhaps to a dozen or so altogether, and there are 
 no others of a graver nature than those I have 
 instanced, no others differing in character from 
 those that I have cited. The whole record, of 
 course, is at the disposal of the committee, if it 
 desires it. 
 
 In order that you may realize, Mr. Chairman, 
 that I am trying to be thorough in this matter, 
 I will say that there are still in the hands of the 
 Inspector General nine cases which are being in- 
 vestigated ; three allege general bad conditions in 
 hospital service; two, inefficient medical treat- 
 ment; another complaint is as to careless prepa- 
 ration for burial; two are complaints of neglect 
 by surgeons, and the last one is a simulation of ill- 
 ness with the connivance of a surgeon. I men- 
 tion these, not because they are as yet demon- 
 strated to be true, but because they are complaints 
 that have come to the department and have been 
 [246]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 put into the hands of that officer of the army who, 
 by reason of the fact that he bears no relation to 
 any other branch or bureau of the service, is in- 
 trusted with the investigation of every complaint 
 of this character. They are now being investi- 
 gated by men trained for such work for the pur- 
 pose of report and recommendation. 
 
 There are two cases which illustrate, in my 
 judgment, the attitude of the department on this 
 subject. The first is that of a lieutenant, 
 charged with neglect of patients at the base hos- 
 pital at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. He was 
 court-martialed and sentenced to be dismissed 
 from the service. The other case is that of an- 
 other lieutenant, charged with neglect of pa- 
 tients, court-martialed, and sentenced to be dis- 
 missed from the Army. Their cases present sub- 
 stantially the same facts. These medical officers 
 were in their hospitals ; in one case, an ambulance 
 drove up and a man was brought in claiming to 
 be sick. The doctor made a hasty examination, 
 looked at him, felt his pulse, or something of that 
 kind, and ordered him back, saying that he was 
 not sick. In other words, the doctor did not do 
 the things he ought to have done ; he did not ex- 
 amine the patient and diagnose his difficulty in 
 either of these cases, and the result was that in 
 both of them severe illness developed, and death 
 resulted. 
 
 When those cases came to me, I had them re- 
 [247]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 viewed by the Judge Advocate General to see 
 what further could be done. A court-martial 
 organized in accordance with the laws of the 
 army and of the land had sat upon these cases 
 and apportioned the punishment as dismissal 
 from the army. But when the Judge Advocate 
 General reviewed it for me he came to the con- 
 clusion that that sort of neglect went much deeper, 
 and recommended that both of those cases be sent 
 back to the court-martial which had tried them, 
 and that such imprisonment as could be added 
 under the statutes of this country for that kind 
 of neglect should be added to the penalty of dis- 
 missal. 
 
 As the letters I wrote on the subject will cover 
 the details of the cases accurately, I therefore 
 file and put into the record two letters, written 
 respectively on the 8th and 9th of January, in 
 which the action taken was the firm action of the 
 Department, turning its face against callous dis- 
 regard of the interests of soldiers. I want the 
 country to know that, though we have had to take 
 doctors out of civil life, because the number of 
 doctors in this country trained in hospital man- 
 agement and in group treatment of cases is lim- 
 ited, the lives and the welfare and the illnesses of 
 these soldiers are a responsibility which I will not 
 permit to be dodged or handled in any cavalier 
 fashion, and the policy of the department is one 
 of punishment where guilt is involved. 
 [248]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 In addition to this, Mr. Chairman, I may per- 
 haps be permitted to say a word or two about 
 what has been done in this matter by the War 
 Department through the Surgeon General's office. 
 When illness broke out in the camps I sent the 
 Surgeon General in person to inspect conditions, 
 and when he made his reports the reports came 
 to me involving criticism of various kinds as to 
 congestion, and other causes of illness I handed 
 them in person to the newspapers. I thought it 
 important that the country should know exactly 
 the conditions and exactly the causes, for two rea- 
 sons : In the first place I wanted no concealment, 
 and in the second place, I wanted the help of the 
 country in correcting the situation. 
 
 In addition to that I wrote a memorandum to 
 the Chief of Staff, that, in my judgment, the 
 Surgeon General's Office ought to organize a 
 system of continuous and constant inspection, for 
 while there is a medical officer representing the 
 Surgeon General's Office in every one of these 
 camps, and while the commanding general in 
 each of these camps is chargeable with responsi- 
 bility for general conditions in his camp, I wanted 
 to make this additional provision, that the Sur- 
 geon General's Office itself would organize a con- 
 tinuing system of inspection from day to day 
 of these conditions. I instructed the Inspector 
 General, who has inspectors going from camp to 
 camp, that he should especially charge his men 
 to examine into and report upon conditions in 
 [249]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 the hospitals. Finally, I telegraphed to a very 
 great hospital expert, Dr. John A. Hornsby 
 I did not know at the time that he was in the 
 medical service of the Army but I happened to 
 have had some previous contact with him when I 
 was superintending the building of a city hospital 
 in Cleveland, and learned at that time of his great 
 experience in all matters of hospital management 
 and construction I telegraphed him to come to 
 Washington in order that I might select him 
 as my personal inspector to go, without rela- 
 tion to any other part of the War Department, 
 from camp to camp and hospital to hospital and 
 make directly to me recommendations with re- 
 gard to necessary improvements. 
 
 When Dr. Hornsby came to Washington he 
 came in a uniform, showing that the Surgeon 
 General's Office had already drafted his talents 
 and had already assigned him to the task which 
 I intended he should perform, and it happens 
 that I have here in my hand at this moment a 
 telegram from Major Hornsby with regard to the 
 conditions at Camp Pike, one of the camps which 
 has been under comment. 
 
 The telegram is as follows: 
 
 "CAMP PIKE, ARK., Jan. 23, 1918 
 "SURGEON GENERAL ARMY, 
 
 "Mills Building, Washington, D. C. : 
 "Conditions at Camp Pike greatly improved. 
 [250]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 Morbidity lower, types milder. Ample accom- 
 modations for all sick. Convalescents and mild 
 cases housed well in unoccupied barracks. Roots 
 (that is, Camp Logan H. Roots) has taken 200 
 cases and will be ready for 500 at once. No 
 pressing need now. Leave here for Washington 
 Thursday night to report unless otherwise or- 
 dered. Address care Col. Thornburg. 
 
 "(Signed) JOHN A. HORNSBY." 
 
 I shall not, Mr. Chairman, read individual 
 testimony, although I have a great number of let- 
 ters and messages from men who have gone to 
 hospitals and found the conditions good, for the 
 reason that that is what conditions ought to be; 
 and it adds nothing to the case to say that this 
 man or this woman, this father or this mother, 
 has gone to a hospital and found a boy well cared 
 for; that is what ought to be the universal rule. 
 And yet I have a letter this morning, whfch I re- 
 ceived yesterday, and which I think I will read 
 into the record, because it is from a woman of 
 national fame; a woman who, for the last four 
 months, has gone from camp to camp in the 
 United States writing about them, and printing 
 her observations in public magazines and week- 
 lies; who has done me the favor and honor to 
 come a number of times to me personally to re- 
 port upon these things she has seen. It is a let- 
 ter from Mary Roberts Rinehart. As a matter 
 [251]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 of fact I gave Mrs. Rinehart, as I now recall it, a 
 letter which would admit her into any camp and 
 enable her to inspect it. 
 
 Mrs. Rinehart's letter is as follows: 
 
 NEW YORK, January 26, 1918. 
 "To the Honorable NEWTON D. BARER, 
 
 "Secretary, Department of War, Washing- 
 ton, D. C. 
 "Mv DEAR MR. SECRETARY: 
 
 "I have just been reading that tragic letter 
 from an unknown father read by Senator Cham- 
 berlain during the present Senatorial investiga- 
 tion. Its sincerity can not be questioned. As a 
 mother, and as the mother of a soldier, I feel, as 
 every one must, the deepest grief and sympathy 
 with the parents of that dead boy. 
 
 "Like every other mother in the country, I 
 want these cases known. I want to be assured 
 that they will be known. I want drastic punish- 
 ment applied to any man, of no matter what 
 rank, who is found guilty of negligence in the 
 care, physical or moral, of our boys. And I 
 want immediate remedy of conditions that re- 
 quire remedy. 
 
 "But I do feel that some step should be taken 
 to reassure our women just now. It is only fair 
 to them. It is cruel to allow every mother in 
 the country to judge the medical care that will 
 be given to her boy while in the service, because 
 [252]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 here and there, in the chaos of our readjustment, 
 men have been given responsibilities they are un- 
 able or unwilling to fulfill. That we have such 
 men is more than a national misfortune. That 
 they have been placed in positions of trust is a 
 national calamity. But the mothers of the 
 country should know in fairness to themselves 
 that the number of such inefficients is small. We 
 will not rest, we women, until they have all been 
 removed. But that, I know, will be at once. It 
 must be at once. 
 
 "I have a son in an army cantonment. He 
 enlisted as a private. He would receive, if he 
 became ill, exactly the same treatment as any 
 other enlisted men in our new army. And I 
 should have not only no hesitation in placing him 
 in the cantonment hospital, but I should do it 
 with absolute confidence. As a matter of fact 
 he has already spent a few days there with an 
 infected knee, and received the best of care. 
 
 "I know something about hospitals. I took 
 a nurse's training as a girl. I married a member 
 of my hospital staff, and I have been for many 
 years constantly in touch with hospitals. Dur- 
 ing the first year of the war I visited the hospi- 
 tals of France and England. Since we went 
 into the war I have, with the avowed intention of 
 seeing, for the women of America, that our boys 
 are to be well cared for in every possible way, 
 visited many training camps and camp hospitals. 
 [253]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 "There are conditions to be remedied. As I 
 reported to you very recently, the failure of sup- 
 plies has been a serious matter. There are not 
 enough women nurses. The quarters of both 
 nurses and doctors must be enlarged in many 
 cases. The percentage of serious illness has been 
 low in the cantonments I am not speaking of 
 the camps but the percentage of mild conta- 
 gions, which always occur when men are brought 
 together in the mass, and of heavy colds and 
 bronchitis, has been high. The result of sending 
 men with heavy colds for a few days into the 
 hospital has resulted in rather higher figures than 
 the seriousness of the situation would otherwise 
 justify. 
 
 "Of cruelty and indifference I have found noth- 
 ing. On the contrary, I have found the medical 
 staffs of the hospitals both efficient and humane. 
 When it is remembered that the medical men 
 of these National Army hospitals are volunteers, 
 who have cheerfully relinquished the result of 
 years of labor to give their services to the coun- 
 try, that they are of the best we have, as all vol- 
 unteers are, that they are willingly undergoing 
 deprivation and hardship to take care of our 
 boys, it is wrong that the country at large should 
 so misjudge them. The best specialists of the 
 country have placed themselves at the disposal 
 of the Army Medical Department, and ninety- 
 nine out of a hundred men in the drafted army 
 [254]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 are receiving better care than they could afford, 
 under the best circumstances, to receive at home. 
 
 "Nursing is on the same high plane. Again we 
 find volunteers, highly skilled and carefully 
 trained women, who have taken the small pay 
 and the discomforts of army life that they may 
 serve where they are most needed. 
 
 "Wards are large and airy. Beds are comfort- 
 able. I have found exquisite cleanliness every- 
 where. Moreover, I have found cheerfulness. 
 Food is good and plentiful. I have examined 
 storerooms and kitchens, and watched the diets 
 being served under the direction of a woman 
 dietitian. 
 
 "I do not like the orderly system. There should 
 be more trained nurses. At present the wards 
 where there are no serious cases are managed 
 by a ward-master, an enlisted man. And with 
 the best intention in the world, he is not always 
 efficient. The lack of nurses is a serious one, and 
 could be remedied probably by an appeal to nurses 
 to volunteer. But here again is the serious ques- 
 tion of the ill at home, the same which faces 
 the medical profession and the civilian hospitals. 
 
 "One hospital I know well. It is typical of 
 other cantonment hospitals, it is under the same 
 Army Medical Department direction as the oth- 
 ers, and it is only right to assume that conditions 
 there are representative. The same rules govern 
 all these hospitals. The same sums are spent 
 [255]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 on them. The same system is followed. The 
 food is the same, the supplies, the medical staff, 
 the nurses. 
 
 "And I have never seen a better war hospital 
 than the one at Camp Sherman. I will go 
 further, and say that in its operating rooms, its 
 X-ray department, its eye and ear department, 
 its nose and throat department, its dental depart- 
 ment, in short, in its facilities for caring for 
 every emergency and every weakness it will bear 
 comparison with any civilian hospital. 
 
 "And what'is true of the base hospital at Camp 
 Sherman is true of the others. 
 
 "I have watched the development of the war 
 hospital system from the beginning, when I saw 
 it first on paper in the office of the Surgeon Gen- 
 eral up to two weeks ago. I watched because it 
 was a vital matter to me. I had a husband and 
 a son in the service. I am like the other women 
 of this country. I would be content with noth- 
 ing less than the best. And I feel that we are 
 on the way to the best. 
 
 "It has not come yet, although at the present 
 moment, I would willingly trust any member of 
 my family, in such emergency, in any one of 
 our base hospitals. We need more supplies, we 
 need more nurses and enlarged quarters for 
 them. Sixty or even eighty nurses, divided 
 into shifts of eight hours each, is totally insuffi- 
 cient for a thousand men. We even need more 
 [256]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 physicians and surgeons. Although the staffs 
 are very large, the medical department in each 
 hospital is working to its maximum. 
 
 ''But what we need, as a nation, is something 
 more than this. We need knowledge and reas- 
 surance. There is no need in this country for 
 discontented resignation. I would suggest that 
 a committee of representative and unprejudiced 
 citizens from the nearest city visit each of these 
 base hospitals and thoroughly inspect it. And 
 that they publish in their local papers the exact 
 results of their investigations. Let them go 
 alone, to talk with the patients, the nurses, the 
 doctors, the ward masters. And let them tell 
 exactly what they find. 
 
 "The women of the country must know the 
 facts. They have the right to know them. It 
 is not fair to let them believe, as many of them 
 now do, that the great and humane American 
 people is not caring for the men who are to fight 
 to save them. We are preparing against the 
 inevitable losses of war. It is not fair to let 
 any of us believe that there is useless death, 
 and we are wasting lives we would die to save. 
 
 "And it is not true. 
 "Faithfully, yours, 
 "(Signed) MARY ROBERTS RINSHART." 
 
 There is no suggestion of remedy in that letter 
 which does not have my instant approval. In 
 addition to all the things which Mrs. Rinehart 
 [257]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 suggests and few are novel are a number 
 which I have already described to you as being 
 done. Let me point out to the committee that, 
 from the very beginning of this war the heads of 
 the medical profession, the very masters of that 
 profession, have been in constant contact with the 
 Surgeon General. He has formed around him 
 a staff the like of which probably does not exist 
 on the face of the earth, for building hospitals, 
 devising an organization, and supervising its per- 
 fection. One must consider that the average doc- 
 tor, whose attention has been devoted to the treat- 
 ment of individual cases, under home conditions, 
 under the necessities of this situation has been 
 thrown into a great organization where he is 
 compelled to deal with hospital conditions and 
 groups of men and sanitation, all on a large scale. 
 While it may be, and is, deeply to be regretted 
 that there should even be the necessity of im- 
 provement, yet the direction of this great medical 
 staff of men, the zeal and loyalty and patriotism 
 and efficiency of the medical profession are all at 
 work rapidly bettering it and the improvement 
 already wrought is very great. 
 
 We are not alone, Mr. Chairman. Our coun- 
 try is not alone in meeting with these difficulties. 
 No army was ever assembled, nor can any be, 
 which does not bring men together who thereto- 
 fore have been exposed to communicable diseases, 
 to which they are not immune. The most which 
 can be done is to meet these conditions with every 
 [258]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 device and suggestion which science and care can 
 devise. That, in my frank judgment, is the aim 
 of the Surgeon General, and in the doing of it 
 he has the unqualified support, and he knows it, 
 of every officer in the War Department from the 
 Secretary down. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the second set of difficulties 
 which you discussed with regard to the War De- 
 partment were those affecting the supply of ord- 
 nance. In my previous hearing before the com- 
 mittee we went into that with great fullness. 
 Clearly there are things about the supply of mu- 
 nitions of war about which men's minds may 
 differ. Not merely the relative excellence of cer- 
 tain weapons, but the extent to which speed of 
 procurement should be sacrificed for excellence of 
 performance when procured, are questions of 
 judgment, and their solution lies in the best in- 
 structed advice one can secure. 
 
 The first question of that kind which arose 
 affected the selection of a rifle for the army, 
 one involving the caliber of the rifle. The situ- 
 ation was, that the English were using a rifle 
 with a rimmed cartridge of one caliber, and the 
 French were using a rifle with a rimmed cart- 
 ridge of another caliber. We, in America, had, 
 admittedly, the best rifle so far developed in any 
 military service, the Springfield, using a rimless 
 cartridge, and we had in stock of those weapons 
 something like 600,000 in stock and in the 
 [259]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 hands of troops. This was early in the spring, 
 although my recollection does not permit me to 
 fix a definite date. The question had been in- 
 vestigated prior to that time, in order that there 
 might be a summary view of the possibilities of 
 rapid procurement of various types of rifles. 
 Finally the choice of a weapon was decided in 
 my office, as nearly as my recollection holds, at 
 about 1 1 o'clock at night, and there were present 
 in that conference, General Crozier, the Chief of 
 Ordnance ; General Scott, the Chief of Staff ; Gen- 
 eral Bliss, the Assistant Chief of Staff ; General 
 Kuhn, the Chief of the Army War College; one 
 or two other officers associated with the War 
 College ; the Ordnance Department experts on the 
 subject of rifles ; and General Pershing. 
 
 At that time General Pershing had been se- 
 lected as the commander-in-chief of our forces 
 ultimately to be dispatched to France, and as he 
 was to command the Army and was to use the 
 forces, it seemed an especially fortunate circum- 
 stance that he should be in Washington and able 
 to participate in that conference. 
 
 We did not know then, as I shall illustrate 
 a little later to the committee, whether our Army 
 was to fight with the French or with the Eng- 
 lish. The mode of our military operations was 
 not determined. The excellence of our weapon 
 was so well known that just before the outbreak 
 of this war, the British Government had decided 
 to remodel its weapon and rearm its army, and 
 [260]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 they were on the point of manufacturing a modifi- 
 cation of their own Enfield rifle, which would use 
 a rimless cartridge, and thus obviate the possibil- 
 ity of jamming in the weapon, making it a better 
 weapon. The sudden outbreak of the war com- 
 pelled immediate equipment supplementing that 
 which they had, and, fearing the confusion of us- 
 ing a new weapon in conjunction with their old 
 weapon, and trying, pari passu, to rearm their 
 army, they decided to adhere to their Enfield rifle 
 
 That conference considered every aspect of this 
 question, and it was finally decided to use our 
 own Springfield rifle, and to procure a modifica- 
 tion of the Enfield which would allow it to be 
 chambered for American ammunition, in order 
 to get the advantage of the large and organized 
 manufacturing facilities already built up in this 
 country for the production of the Enfield. That 
 decision, made that night, had the unanimous 
 concurrence of every person in the conference. 
 The Master of Ordnance and Production, the 
 Chief of the Army War College, with his techni- 
 cal advisers and experts, the Chief of Staff and 
 his assistants, and the Commanding General of 
 the expeditionary forces, whose army and its use- 
 fulness were at stake, were present. 
 
 When we undertook to remodel the Enfield 
 rifle, it was discovered, that although there were 
 three plants in this country manufacturing it, the 
 bolt from one factory would not fit the rifle from 
 another factory. Instantly the question arose of 
 [261]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 procuring interchangeability in the rifles pro- 
 duced. 
 
 At the outset it was thought that some eight 
 or nine interchangeable parts would be enough. 
 Later it seemed advisable to increase that num- 
 ber. 
 
 It was decided that a larger degree of inter- 
 changeability should be required, in order that 
 when these rifles got to France and were used 
 under battle conditions, if a man found himself 
 with a defective weapon, and alongside him was 
 another defective weapon, he could, if the emer- 
 gency required it, take out of one defective wea- 
 pon a perfect part and replace the defective part 
 in his own weapon, and be equipped ; in order in 
 short to enable us to repair rapidly rifles rendered 
 inefficient in service, so that a constant supply of 
 these weapons will be ready at the front. 
 
 There was some delay in designing with the 
 particularity necessary tolerances of a thou- 
 sandth of an inch in some instances specifica- 
 tions for this remodeled Enfield, and that delay 
 led to this result : That when our troops actually 
 were assembled in the camps it was some time 
 before they were fully armed with rifles. At the 
 outset they had very few rifles. There was a dis- 
 tribution of Krags and obsolescent weapons, in 
 order that they might drill with them, but it was 
 some time before they were adequately supplied 
 with the remodeled Enfield rifle. 
 
 That was foreseen. Gen. Leonard Wood came 
 [262]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 to my office I have forgotten when, but it was 
 early and suggested to me the advisability of 
 instantly calling out a larger army. I said, "But, 
 General, we have not the clothes and we have not 
 the weapons for them." He said, "I know that, 
 Mr. Secretary, but they need many things, before 
 they need the rifles. They need to learn to live 
 together, get used to camp conditions, they need 
 the elemental discipline of camp life. They need 
 to be taught to keep step, they need to know the 
 subordinations of the Army, and it will take some 
 time to give them that preliminary instruction." 
 He pointed out to me that in England the so- 
 called Kitchener army drilled for months, as he 
 said, in their civilian clothes, with top hats and 
 using a stick for arms. I said to him, "General, 
 I agree with you that it is important to have our 
 army equipped rapidly so that a prolonged period 
 of training may be given to them ; but we will call 
 out first the Regular Army and then we will call 
 out the National Guard, building it up to war 
 strength. But the draft army will have an addi- 
 tional period of training in the field by reason of 
 the fact that the army can not be shipped abroad 
 in bulk, suddenly." It was necessary to attempt 
 to forecast the amount of time needed for train- 
 ing, and it was deemed wise to put the men in the 
 camps in order that they might learn this matter 
 of camp discipline, camp sanitation, the elements 
 and essentials of the soldiers' life a little in ad- 
 vance of their being fully tried with arms. 
 [263]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 I have here a statement of the rifles which were 
 supplied to the camps at the outset. At the be- 
 ginning there were Krags in the cantonments. 
 Senator Chamberlain in his speech to the Senate 
 speaks of the weapons in the possession of the 
 Department at that time as a motley collection 
 and I have no feeling about the phrase. The fact 
 is that what we had was about 600,000 Spring- 
 fields and something over 100,000 Krags. 
 Also this is true: That in the greatest mili- 
 tary establishment in the world, in the Ger- 
 man army, when they call out raw recruits they 
 give them an obsolete rifle as a practice rifle until 
 the men learn to take care of it, before a service 
 rifle is actually put in their hands. And so as a 
 mere drilling and training weapon the Krag was 
 not an improper weapon for them to have. 
 
 I do not undertake to say, gentlemen, that that 
 question was decided infallibly. It might have 
 been better to have bought English Enfields 
 enough to put one in the hands of every man. 
 But it was decided thoughtfully, and it was de- 
 cided considerately and conscientiously, and now 
 the result is that every man in this country who 
 is intended to carry a rifle in any of our military 
 camps, has a rifle, and it is a better rifle than 
 he would have had if we had adopted any one of 
 the types existing at the time. 
 
 And this additional thing is true, that although 
 we have transported soldiers to Europe much 
 more rapidly than it was originally imagined we 
 [264]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 either would or could, every soldier who has gone 
 to Europe has had a modern, excellent rifle, and 
 he has had it long enough before going into ac- 
 tion with it to learn how to use it, to practice 
 with it either there or here. The same observa- 
 tion is true of every soldier who will go to Europe. 
 
 May I say now a word about machine guns ? 
 
 The machine gun, of course, is a highly tech- 
 nical weapon. It is in the record of testimony 
 before your committee that up to April of 1917 
 no Lewis gun had been made and tested to dem- 
 onstrate its utility for American ammunition. 
 The machine-gun problem is complicated by two 
 factors, first the question of manufacture, and, 
 second, a difference in theory as to the use of 
 machine guns. 
 
 When this war broke out Great Britain was 
 manufacturing the Vickers-Maxim, a heavy, wa- 
 ter-cooled gun. She wanted a lighter type of 
 gun and adopted as her lighter type the Lewis, 
 manufacturing it on a very large scale in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The French, however, have not used the Lewis, 
 or any corresponding weapon, as a land operating 
 gun in any large numbers, the French theory be- 
 ing that it is better to have a very light gun shot 
 from the hip or the shoulder, like the Chauchat, 
 and a heavy type of gun shot from a tripod or 
 carriage, like the Hotchkiss. So that something 
 depended upon the troops with which we were to 
 fight, the theory of combat which we were to 
 [265]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 adopt, as affecting the type of machine gun we 
 should select. 
 
 There was in existence a board which had been 
 appointed nearly a half year before certainly 
 some months before to test all the machine guns 
 there were, both those which were previously 
 known through use and those which were not, in 
 order that we might select the best types. The 
 existence of that board did not delay for one sec- 
 ond the selection or the procurement of addi- 
 tional machine guns. There was a test made by 
 the Navy, I think, in April, as a result of which 
 it was shown that the Lewis gun had been per- 
 fected to use American ammunition. There was 
 an ordnance officer of the Army present at that 
 test, and on the basis of that test immediate 
 orders were given to the Savage Arms Co. to pro- 
 cure Lewis guns. 
 
 But we learned from Gen. Pershing in Europe 
 that he does not desire Lewis guns for use 
 on land. The regiments of marines which went 
 from this country as a part of our military force 
 were armed with Lewis guns. The guns have 
 been retired from service, and those regiments 
 have been rearmed with Chauchat rifles and 
 Hotchkiss machine guns, just as are our other 
 land forces. 
 
 Under the studies made by the experts of Gen. 
 Pershing's staff and by their direction and ad- 
 vice to us, we are instructed to retain Lewis 
 guns for use in aircraft, and are to press forward 
 [266]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 as rapidly as we can the manufacture of light and 
 heavy Browning guns and Vickers-Maxim guns, 
 for which a very large order was outstanding 
 almost immediately after an appropriation by 
 Congress a year ago to press those forward. So 
 the situation in regard to machine guns at pres- 
 ent is that the kind of weapons which Gen. Per- 
 shing and his staff want is the kind which was 
 developed as the result of that board's inquiry, 
 and the particular weapon which is said to 
 have made so great a success with the British, 
 and doubtless has made a great success with them, 
 is one which is determined by our experts to be 
 appropriate for air service and not desired for 
 land-operating troops. 
 
 In the meantime, in order that the whole story 
 may be told, it is in testimony before your com- 
 mittee that the French Government is able to 
 supply us with Chauchat rifles, or light guns, and 
 Hotchkiss guns, or heavy guns, for the divisions 
 and troops which we can this year send abroad. 
 
 We ordered every Lewis gun we could get, we 
 encouraged the manufacturers to enlarge their 
 facilities. They still have not enlarged these as 
 much as we have urged them to and contracted 
 with them to that end. The supply of their 
 guns is going through in larger numbers, how- 
 ever, and in the meantime the making of the nec- 
 essary machine tools and jigs and dies for the 
 production of light and heavy Brownings, and 
 expediting the production of Vickers-Maxims, is 
 [267]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 going forward. Our army abroad is provided 
 with guns of the type adapted to the mode of 
 warfare which its experts have elected to use, 
 and our supply which is to supplement those guns 
 is of the same type and of the kind desired by 
 them. 
 
 Something has been said about our army in 
 this country not having machine guns here to 
 practice with. They have not had as many as 
 we desired them to have ; and yet I have had from 
 camp commanders many letters, saying that they 
 have not been held back by the absence of these 
 weapons, because the rifle ranges were not ready, 
 and for one reason or another they were not 
 ready to go forward with this practice. Still, I 
 am sure if they had had machine guns at the 
 camps in larger quantities they would have been 
 able to have some machine-gun practice in most 
 of the camps before this. 
 
 I have had a table here, however, from the 
 Acting Chief of Ordnance as to the machine guns 
 which have actually been distributed in the camps 
 in this country. 
 
 "The distribution of machine guns to the na- 
 tional draft camps has been as follows: Thirty 
 Colt machine guns to each camp, 65 Lewis ma- 
 chine guns, 45 Chauchat automatic rifles. Dis- 
 tribution of machine guns to the National Army 
 cantonments 50 Colt guns each, 65 Lewis ma- 
 chine guns, 45 Chauchat rifles to each camp. 
 
 "In addition to those mentioned, 10 Lewis 
 [268]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 guns have been issued to each regular cavalry 
 regiment and 10 Chauchat rifles to each regular 
 infantry regiment. Practically all of the above 
 before the troops were ready for them; that is, 
 about November i." 
 
 Now, frankly, that is not an adequate supply; 
 but it means some machine guns with which the 
 machine gun companies may practice, learning 
 the mechanism and mechanics of these arms. A 
 larger supply will be forthcoming as the result of 
 this quantity manufacturing which has been ar- 
 ranged for. 
 
 One other item deals with cannon. There is 
 a statement on that subject before this commit- 
 tee, the statement made by Gen. Crozier. I men- 
 tion it only because it contains some documents 
 to which I want to refer. 
 
 General Crozier called your attention to the 
 fact that beginning in 1906 and as I recall his 
 statement about it, continuously from 1906 down 
 he has argued with committees with the 
 Fortifications Committee, the Military Affairs 
 Committee as to the length of time it takes to 
 make heavy cannon. 
 
 I have no criticism to make of the response of 
 the Congress to his representations. Congress 
 did what it seemed wise at the time to do, and I 
 have not the least doubt that if I had been a mem- 
 ber of this committee or any committee of Con- 
 gress I would have been just as likely as they 
 [269]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 were to take the view which they took of his 
 recommendations. And yet continuously from 
 1906, the expert of the Army on that question 
 was saying to the Secretary of War and to the 
 Congress and the Secretaries of War have 
 changed both in person and in political affiliation, 
 if that amounts to anything, several times since 
 those original recommendations were made 
 General Crozier was saying to you and to us that 
 it takes a long time to make artillery, that artil- 
 lery is getting to be a weapon of increasing im- 
 portance and was urging that there be ample pro- 
 vision for a more rapid completion of the pro- 
 gram laid down in the Treat Board report. 
 
 General Crozier said in 1912, for instance, or 
 somebody asked him this question: 
 
 "Does it take a long time to manufacture these 
 field guns? 
 
 "A. Yes. 
 
 "Q. How long does it take? 
 
 "A. I do not think we could count on getting 
 a battery delivered in less than a year from the 
 time the order was given. I do not mean to say 
 that it would take a year for each battery, but 
 deliveries would not begin until a year after the 
 order was given. 
 
 "Q. It is very important, then, to have them on 
 hand? 
 
 "A. Yes, it is the slowest manufactured of any 
 of the fighting material we need." 
 
 I shall not recall further the statements of the 
 [270]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 general. They are supported by extracts from his 
 testimony, his reports, and his letters to you and 
 to me and to my predecessors, and they show that 
 Gen. Crozier realized the slowness with which 
 that sort of arm could be produced, and was con- 
 stantly urging that ampler production be made of 
 it. And yet, even Gen. Crozier could not have 
 realized, and it did not lie in anybody's imagina- 
 tion to realize, the importance which artillery has 
 assumed in this war. The wars prior to this have 
 been evolutions of large forces over great areas. 
 This has finally reduced itself to a bitterly con- 
 tested line, with the massing of heavy guns on 
 both sides. Even the French did not realize the 
 new development in this war until after it had 
 begun. 
 
 I have a letter before me from Mr. Tardieu, 
 and perhaps I may be permitted to read it. It 
 is written to Mr. Baruch and not to me. You 
 will find here a few figures and further informa- 
 tion concerning which I told you the other day. 
 When war began France had at her disposal guns 
 of artillery caliber about 89 millimeters, or 3.8 
 inches, and of these only 140 were quick-firing 
 that is, really adapted to modern warfare. Only 
 272 of these guns, with their personnel, were or- 
 ganized in regiments with supply available on the 
 battlefield. The balance were located in fort- 
 resses and fixed emplacements. There was first 
 a period during which the activity of the French 
 war ministry in regard to heavy artillery was 
 [271]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 limited to the equipment and formation into bat- 
 teries of heavy fortress artillery. It was an error, 
 as modern warfare requires quick-firing heavy 
 artillery, but as everybody was convinced of the 
 short duration of the war, it was wrongly thought 
 that it was not necessary to start with the manu- 
 facture of quick-firing, modern ordnance. 
 
 It has been seen since that this policy was 
 wrong, although one ought not to forget that the 
 most important industrial regions of France were 
 occupied by the enemy. The orders placed for 
 heavy, quick-firing ordnance have been sched- 
 uled. . . . 
 
 I shall not read that schedule, but I will read 
 the dates when France gave orders for heavy, 
 quick-firing artillery. France, the very center of 
 the conflict, with her enemy at her throat, with 
 the demonstration that the massing of heavy ar- 
 tillery was ultimately to determine the integrity 
 of the Hindenburg line, gave orders for this type 
 of artillery in September and December, 1914, 
 and January, April, September, October, and De- 
 cember, 1915, and in January, 1916, and the larg- 
 est order she gave on any of those dates, except 
 one, was the latest order given in January, 1916, 
 after the war had progressed substantially a year 
 and a half. 
 
 To return to our own situation : We had a lim- 
 ited amount of artillery. The first step taken by 
 the War Department was to attempt to speed up 
 the artillery which we already had in process of
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 manufacture. Here again, however, we came in 
 conflict or came into contact with two theories 
 of the use of artillery. The French use very 
 large quantities of the 75-millimeter type. Their 
 barrage is made by enormous quantities of 75- 
 millimeter fire. The British had a field howitzer 
 of larger caliber for that effect. 
 
 There are two distinct theories of the use of 
 artillery on that front. The British prefer 
 theirs, the French prefer theirs. We did not 
 know then the relative merits of either. We had 
 reports from our observers; we had experts' 
 opinions, but now we had reached a place where 
 we had to choose for ourselves not to make a 
 speculative and philosophical judgment as to the 
 relative excellence of two military theories, but 
 to select arms for an army that was going to 
 fight for its life. 
 
 As I shall show in a moment, our attempt to 
 do that was by sending over to France the ablest 
 men we had, to determine the choice on the 
 ground in consultation with men who were mak- 
 ing and using these different types of weapons. 
 In the meantime we allowed no hindrance to be 
 proposed in attempting to speed up the produc- 
 tion of our practical types of weapons. 
 
 But very early, perhaps in June, it was inti- 
 mated to us that the French had so far accelerated 
 their industry, in order to procure their initial 
 supply, that the wastage of their use would not 
 consume or occupy their industrial capacity, and 
 [373]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 that therefore it would be possible for them to 
 supply such troops as we could get to France, 
 within limits, with artillery of their manufacture 
 and of the kind they were using. That question 
 was very actively taken up at once. 
 
 Mr. Tardieu was here. He had for eight 
 months, I think he said in his letter, been con- 
 nected with munitions production in France; he 
 knew the subject. General Crozier and he had 
 many conferences about it, and on the I4th of 
 July, or perhaps the I3th, an agreement was 
 reached whereby the French Government under- 
 took to supply us with quantities of the two prin- 
 cipal pieces used, according to their theory of ar- 
 tillery use, namely, the 75-millimeter field guns 
 and the 1 55-millimeter rapid-fire howitzers. Mr. 
 Tardieu wrote at that time an announcement 
 to the French people of what had been done. It 
 appears in translation in Gen. Crozier's testi- 
 mony. 
 
 Mr. Tardieu said: 
 
 "The negotiations taken up for the first time 
 at the end of May between Monsieur Andre Tar- 
 dieu, the French High Commissioner, the Chief 
 of War Munitions of the High Commission, and 
 Gen. Crozier, Chief of Ordnance, were charac- 
 terized by two ideas. On the one hand the Amer- 
 ican Government wished to adopt the quickest 
 solution in order to realize in the shortest time 
 the complete armament of its forces ; and on the 
 other hand with great foresight they attached 
 [174J
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 particular importance to realizing uniformity of 
 munitions for the American and French Armies, 
 called to fight on the same battlefields." 
 
 I shall not read the statement in full, but the 
 paragraph which I shall now read I think is 
 significant : 
 
 ''The dominant note of the agreement lies in 
 the proof it gives of the unshakable resolution of 
 the American Government to achieve in the short- 
 est time the maximum of military strength, and 
 on the other hand it proves the active and inti- 
 mate cooperation existing between the United 
 States and France." 
 
 I leave out the next statement. 
 
 "The Secretary of War and Gen. Crozier, 
 Chief of Ordnance of the American Government, 
 have giren proof in this case of the broadest 
 spirit of comprehension and decision and have 
 succeeded in a few weeks in securing for the 
 American troops artillery of the first order." 
 
 Now, at the time this statement was made, it 
 was the confident expectation of everybody in 
 this country that the sending of troops in large 
 numbers to France was a thing in the somewhat 
 remote future. That was in July. We were 
 already sending troops, but the sending of armies 
 rapidly had not then been as fully worked out as 
 it has become since. 
 
 There is in the testimony before this committee 
 a telegram from Gen. Bliss. When the so-called 
 House Mission went abroad, Gen. Bliss, Chief of 
 [275]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 Staff, representing the Army, and Admiral Ben- 
 son, representing the Navy, were members. The 
 task of the Mission was to find out by conference 
 with the French and British and Italians, and 
 their military experts, an answer to this question : 
 How can America contribute most to the early 
 winning of this war? 
 
 One of the answers to that question which they 
 brought back, and telegraphed it before they 
 came, was that the more rapid expedition of 
 troops to Europe was an important factor, and 
 they asked at once of their associates in confer- 
 ence, "What about further supplies of artillery 
 and artillery ammunition?" And there, in the 
 high military councils of those two nations, the 
 matter was discussed, and it was agreed that both 
 Great Britain and France had surplus ordnance, 
 surplus ordnance ammunition, and surplus ord- 
 nance ammunition capacity; that Great Britain 
 was in exactly the same state that France was. 
 In order rapidly to equip her great army she had 
 built up quantity production to such an extent 
 that the wastage of war and the necessary aug- 
 mentation of ordnance and ordnance ammunition 
 would not exhaust her capacity, and therefore it 
 was agreed by these international military ex- 
 perts that "the representatives of Great Britain 
 and France" this is a telegram from Gen. Bliss 
 in December "state that their production of ar- 
 tillery, field, medium and heavy, is now estab- 
 lished on so large a scale that they are able to 
 [276]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 equip completely all American divisions as they 
 arrive in France during the year 1918 with the 
 best make of British and French guns and howit- 
 zers. With a view, therefore, to expediting and 
 facilitating the equipment of the American armies 
 in France and, second, to securing the maximum 
 ultimate development of the munitions supply 
 with the minimum strain upon available tonnage, 
 the representatives of Great Britain and France 
 propose that the field, medium, and heavy artil- 
 lery be supplied during 1918 and as long after as 
 may be found convenient from British and French 
 gun factories." 
 
 I have seen, gentlemen, in the newspapers, 
 statements that this taking of ammunition from 
 France is putting her to a greater effort than she 
 ought to undertake. I say to you that Gen. Joffre 
 and his associates who 1 were here; Mr. Tar- 
 dieu, the French High Commissioner ; the British 
 representative, Gen. Bridges, and his associates, 
 when they were here I don't remember whether 
 I spoke with Lord Northcliffe on this subject or 
 not but all of the persons who have come to this 
 country with any knowledge on that subject ; and 
 Gen. Bliss, who went to Europe to study that 
 subject on the ground; all bring me the confident 
 and positive assurance that we are not only not 
 taking from France and Great Britain things 
 which they need, but that we are helping them to 
 maintain their processes ; that we are using facili- 
 ties which they had organized in order to meet 
 [277]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 a need; and that we are making a properly co- 
 ordinated and cooperative effort of a military 
 character with our allies in this war by this 
 procedure. 
 
 Yet we have not stopped there. Looking ahead, 
 we have organized increased capacity in this 
 country. The schedule of deliveries of artillery 
 in this country which is before your commit- 
 tee and which I will be very glad to leave with the 
 committee for examination, I should not like to 
 have appear as a part of this public statement, but 
 the committee may have it. I will read figures 
 which it will not be unwise to read. They show 
 the production of mobile artillery ; they show our 
 prospective procurements from France, and cover 
 the year 1918. At the outset, in the month of 
 January, out of the 75 mm. field pieces, we got 
 620 from France, and there have been turned out 
 of our own factories only 84. In April our own 
 production rises to 231, and the French has 
 dwindled to 73. In succeeding months our num- 
 bers increase until in the month of December, 
 1918, our own production of that piece is fore- 
 casted to be 433 pieces. 
 
 I have here on this table the figures for 3-inch 
 and aircraft guns, 4.7 guns of American manu- 
 facture, 155 mm. howitzers of United States 
 manufacture, beginning with one in January, 
 1918 only nine months after the declaration of 
 war. So far as this matter of the manufacture 
 of the howitzers is concerned, involving so much 
 [278]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 time, by the testimony of all experts, it is rising 
 steadily and rapidly to a maximum of 300 per 
 month in December, 1918. This gun, also, shows 
 original procurement from the French and di- 
 minishing supplies from them with rising produc- 
 tion on our own part. The 8-inch, 9.2 and 9.5 
 howitzers of American manufacture and those 
 procured in England are all shown on this chart. 
 
 I think, gentlemen, that it is fair to say and 
 if there be a possibility that I am wrong about it 
 I should like to have it called to my attention, so 
 that I may make no statement here which is not 
 wholly borne out by the facts that the American 
 army in France now and to be there, large as it 
 now is and larger as it is soon to be, is being pro- 
 vided with artillery of the types the men want for 
 the uses to which they are to put them, as rapidly 
 as they can use the artillery; and that our own 
 stream of manufacture, to supplement our pur- 
 chases abroad, is in process; and deliveries of 
 some pieces are already begun, with, so far as 
 industrial forecast can be relied upon, a rising 
 and steadily increasing stream of American 
 production. 
 
 In addition to what I have said, gentlemen, I 
 will read what is already before you, a statement 
 made by Mr. Tardieu in a letter to General Cro- 
 zier. This was a letter of December 21. 
 
 "Even in such remarkable technical conditions 
 as these, it takes time to realize such a pro- 
 gram, to organize manufactures, and to have 
 [279]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 men to direct them. You will take less time than 
 We did in France, where the output of field guns 
 tvas not adequate to our needs before the end of 
 1916." 
 
 Now, if I may supplement that with one or two 
 other figures from this same report of Gen. 
 Crozier : 
 
 "The British Government in this country 
 placed orders for ammunition and ordnance of all 
 kinds totaling $1,308,000,000, extending from 
 about the middle of August, 1914, to the middle 
 of July, 1917, or over a period of about three 
 years. In comparison with this our own Ord- 
 nance Department has placed orders for 63,000,- 
 ooo shell" I leave the odd figures out "of a 
 total value approximately of a billion dollars, be- 
 tween the middle of May and the middle of De- 
 cember, 1917, or over a period of seven months." 
 
 In comparison with the total munitions and 
 ordnance purchases of the British Government 
 in this country in the period of about three years 
 of $1,308,000,000, the Ordnance Department has 
 placed contracts for a total of $1,500,000,000 in 
 seven months. 
 
 When this war broke out Great Britain was not 
 prepared for it. She immediately began not 
 only to organize her own industries, but to use 
 every facility in a neutral country which she 
 could lay her hands on to produce ordnance and 
 ordnance ammunition. 
 
 She had, as you know, Mr. Stettinius as a rep- 
 [280]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 resentative here, an American representing her, 
 and he has won deservedly a great reputation be- 
 cause of the masterly way in which he rapidly 
 evoked in this country agencies for the creation of 
 ordnance and ordnance ammunition. 
 
 When Great Britain was placing these orders 
 she was placing all she could place. What she 
 wanted was ordnance and ordnance ammunition 
 in large quantities and in a hurry. So it is fair 
 to assume that in addition to her own capacity 
 for manufacture, she was getting from us at the 
 same time at least the major part of what we were 
 deemed capable of producing. 
 
 I do not mean to say that that is a necessary 
 conclusion, but everybody knows the urgency of 
 Great Britain's need, and everybody who kept 
 track of it at the time knows that the factories in 
 this country which had made plows; and facto- 
 ries, which had made cash registers ; and factories 
 which had made adding machines; and factories 
 devoted to all sorts of standard industrial uses of 
 one sort and another ; were gotten together under 
 the spur of that impulse and devoted to the manu- 
 facture of ordnance and ordnance ammunition. 
 
 When we came into the field we came, it is 
 true, into a field where some experience had been 
 acquired by American manufacturers in the man- 
 ufacture of ordnance and ordnance supplies, but 
 at the same time we came into a field in part pre- 
 empted and occupied by our allies ; and our prob- 
 lem, so far as the Ordnance Department was con- 
 [281]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 cerned, was not merely to commandeer right and 
 left the facilities in this country for the manufac- 
 ture of ordnance and let the British and the 
 French take care of themselves. They were on 
 the fighting line, and our necessity was to dove- 
 tail our program into theirs in such a way as 
 not to weaken their strength while we were build- 
 ing up our own to come to their assistance ; so that 
 our industrial problem, while obviously aided by 
 the experience which our manufacturers have 
 gained in the manufacture of ordnance and ord- 
 nance supplies, was complicated by the fact that 
 so very much of the very best talent in the coun- 
 try was already devoted to their program and 
 for uses which could not be diverted or suspended. 
 
 I will now take up a comment which appeared 
 in your address, Mr. Chairman, referring to the 
 supply of clothing under the Quartermaster Gen- 
 eral's department. It is perfectly true, and I 
 thought I agreed with you about it when I was 
 before you before, that the supply of clothing was 
 inadequate. If I did not then agree to that fact 
 it was only because it was so obvious that an ex- 
 plicit statement of agreement did not arise out of 
 the form in which the questions and answers 
 were made. 
 
 I said to you, I feel quite sure at that time, 
 that our initial rush needs were substantially pro- 
 vided for and that reserves would rapidly accu- 
 mulate, and I supplied to the committee all I could 
 [282]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 get tabulated statements, with the exact num- 
 ber of garments short in every camp. When you 
 asked me about Camp Sherman and I telegraphed 
 out there and got a message which was reassuring 
 in character, and the next day got a correction 
 which showed not so good a condition, I sent the 
 second message to you before it was cold from 
 the telegraph wire. 
 
 I think you thought, Senator, that I was to 
 blame for that. I wanted the Senator and the 
 committee to have all the information I could get 
 and I sent it without reservation, as I shall do in 
 the future in response to any request that the 
 committee makes. 
 
 I have already said to you that at the outset we 
 had the problem as to whether we should wait 
 until we had an adequate supply of clothing, or 
 whether we should not. 
 
 In large part, I think the responsibility for that 
 decision rests with me personally. The best in- 
 formation I could get then, and the best informa- 
 tion I have now is that it takes somewhere be- 
 tween nine and twelve months to teach men who 
 have not had previous experience, to live in 
 camps, to learn the discipline and life of soldiers, 
 so that they can be safely sent into the kind of 
 warfare now waged. 
 
 I did not then know, nor do I now know, nor 
 
 can I know, how rapidly it may be necessary for 
 
 us to send men to France. I know how rapidly 
 
 we have sent them. I know how many are there. 
 
 [283]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 I know what our present plan is in sending them ; 
 but I do not know but that to-morrow this has 
 not happened I do not know but that to-morrow 
 it might turn out that it would be wise to double 
 the rate at which we are sending troops. There 
 are now in the United States 16 National Guard 
 camps, 1 6 National Army camps, filled with men 
 who are ready to go if it is necessary. I have 
 sacrificed something for that. I have not will- 
 ingly sacrificed the health of anybody. I have 
 not intended to sacrifice the comfort of anybody; 
 but I have intended, if it was humanly possible, 
 to be ready when the call came; and if I were to 
 have delayed the calling out of these troops until 
 the last button was on the last coat, and the call 
 had come in November, or December or January, 
 "Send them and send them fast," and they were 
 still at home waiting for tailors, I would have felt 
 a crushing load of guilt and responsibility which, 
 at least in comparison with what I do feel about 
 having called them out, would have been incom- 
 parably greater. 
 
 And yet I was not callous about it. I asked 
 those agencies with which we were dealing in this 
 matter how fast we could expect these supplies. 
 They gave me the forecast as to the future. They 
 relied upon their estimate of production and I re- 
 lied upon it. Men who were called upon to take 
 contracts for the production of cloth and the 
 making of garments, not unnaturally perhaps, 
 overestimated their capacity for production. Here 
 [284]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 and there were some little labor difficulties not 
 many the response of labor to this situation has 
 been superb in the United States. Here and 
 there were difficulties of transportation and de- 
 lays in getting supplies from one place to another ; 
 accumulating congestions upon the railroads, de- 
 laying manufacture and shipment from one place 
 to another; unprecedented weather conditions in 
 the United States, a winter the like of which none 
 of us has seen since we were children. 
 
 The result was that in many of these camps 
 there were shortages of coats, there were short- 
 ages of overcoats, and perhaps in a minor degree 
 of some other things, and at the very outset a 
 shortage of blankets, which was quickly supplied 
 by going into the civilian market and buying com- 
 forters here and blankets there of a non-uniform 
 type. 
 
 The reports I have now are, and the reports 
 for some time have been, that the quantity of 
 woolen underwear in the camps is adequate, that 
 the supply of heavy cotton khaki is adequate. For 
 some weeks now we have had an adequate supply 
 of overcoats. The supply of coats is approach- 
 ing adequacy, almost without exception I say 
 "almost," because I have not had time to read 
 all the reports but from every camp which I 
 have communicated with in the last few days the 
 report comes to me that where there are any 
 shortages of coats, and that seems to be the prin- 
 cipal item, there is no such shortage as interferes 
 [285]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 either with the safety or comfort of the men; that 
 adequate stocks of heavy woolen underwear and 
 overcoats have protected the men against actual 
 suffering by reason of the temporary deficiency in 
 coats, but even that temporary deficiency is, for 
 the most part, supplied. 
 
 Suppose I had taken the other counsel. There 
 were two extreme alternatives : Either we could 
 go into this war as nations used to go into wars, 
 summon the countryside and assemble them into 
 camps and work out their problems afterwards, 
 which was one suggestion at the time ; or we could 
 wait until the last element of preparation had 
 been made before summoning the men. 
 
 The unwisdom, I think, of either of those 
 courses is obvious. What we tried to do and 
 the responsibility for it I think I must personally 
 accept, because I was conscious of the grounds 
 on which it lay what we tried to do, was to sum- 
 mon the men out as rapidly as they could be taken 
 care of, with the best knowledge we could get of 
 the capacity of the industry of this country. It 
 is not unknown to any member of this commit- 
 tee that when the draft army came to be assem- 
 bled we delayed the calling out of its units 
 sometimes a couple of weeks, sometimes more 
 than that, in order that at each camp no men 
 would be received who could not be taken care of. 
 And the last element of the first 687,000 men 
 selected by draft, the last element of those men 
 intended originally to have come out in November 
 [286]
 
 .WHAT WE PIAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 or December, will not in fact report to the camps 
 until the icjth of February in order that produc- 
 tion and distribution may catch up and be ade- 
 quate for their entertainment and protection when 
 they come. 
 
 The fact is that all of the uniform cloth of the 
 Army of the United States is made of virgin wool. 
 There is no shoddy in any of it. There has been 
 introduced into the cloth used for overcoats and 
 for blankets an admixture of reworked wool, but 
 in the uniform cloth there is no shoddy, there 
 is no reworked wool ; it is all virgin wool. When 
 we went into this war the standard of army 
 quality for uniforms was that it should contain 
 75 per cent wool and 25 per cent cotton. That 
 had been our standard for a long time, but the 
 specification was changed and the army uniform 
 cloth, every yard of it, bought for this war, is 
 virgin wool of the same weight it has always 
 been, with a large increase in its strength in or- 
 der to give it greater wearing qualities, while the 
 use of reworked wool, or scraps, so-called shoddy, 
 is limited to overcoats and blankets. 
 
 On that subject I want to read, if I may, a 
 statement made by the greatest wool expert in 
 America on that subject. My attention was 
 called to it only this morning. It is from the is- 
 sue of Commerce and Finance of January 23, 
 1918, and is written by Mr. William M. Wood, 
 president of the American Woolen Company. 
 Senator Weeks knows that I am not stating it too 
 [287]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 strongly when I say that he is a man of very high 
 authority in the wool world. Mr. Wood says 
 this: 
 
 "The recommendation of the Manufacturers' 
 Committee to the Council of National Defense 
 looking to the utilization of reworked wool is, in 
 my opinion, worthy of consideration and not to be 
 disparaged, as it has been in some quarters. Re- 
 worked wool can be introduced into fabrics which 
 are used for overcoats and blankets so as to im- 
 prove rather than impair their usefulness. 
 
 "It gives a better fitting property to the cloth, 
 makes a warmer, closer, tighter fabric, provided 
 a judicious proportion is used." 
 
 The Manufacturers' Committee, composed of 
 patriotic and practical men, gave the Government 
 its best judgment, based on the knowledge and 
 experience acquired through years of effort in 
 practical manufacturing, in recommending the 
 judicious use of reworked wool. 
 
 I am willing to venture the statement that in 
 the construction of from 90 to 95 per cent of all 
 the overcoatings made in the world, including 
 some of the finest fabrics, there is used a meas- 
 urable quantity of reworked wool, or shoddy; so 
 that the prejudice which appears to exist against 
 the use of this kind of raw material is unfounded 
 and unjust under modern conditions of manu- 
 facture. 
 
 As confirming this, I may mention that all the 
 heavier military cloth in this country for export 
 [288]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 to our Allies under specifications given by their 
 respective governments, contains a large per- 
 centage of reworked wool. 
 
 In this statement I am correcting, too, a mis- 
 taken belief which I shared with you. I had sup- 
 posed that, on the recommendation of this com- 
 mittee of the American Woolen Manufacturers' 
 Committee, a uniform cloth which had originally 
 been virgin wool was reduced to, first, 65 and 35, 
 and then 50-50, proportions of virgin wool and 
 reworked wool. 
 
 Some question has been raised as to whether 
 a heavier weight of cloth ought to have been sup- 
 plied in view of the fact that foreign armies use 
 a heavier weight of cloth. I can add nothing to 
 the testimony in the record on that subject. That 
 testimony, as I understand it, is this, that we have 
 retained the cloth specified for our Army for a 
 long time, so far as weight is concerned ; that by 
 the injection of one hundred per cent of virgin 
 wool we have strengthened it and increased its 
 warmth and wearing capacity, but whether or not 
 a heavier cloth ought to be used is yet to be de- 
 termined. General Pershing was requested to 
 have his experts in Europe investigate that point 
 and report to us on or before the first of February 
 whether he recommended any change in the uni- 
 form cloth. That report has not yet been made 
 by General Pershing and his staff, nor has any 
 suggestion ever come from General Pershing or 
 his staff voluntarily that there should be any 
 [289]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 heavier cloth used in the making of our uniforms. 
 I want to make but one further observation on 
 this general subject of the quartermaster and 
 supply department. I think it is not unfair for 
 me to say that in the matter of provision of food 
 no army ever assembled anywhere was fed as 
 regularly, as well, as nutritiously, as appetizingly 
 as this army. I think you gentlemen of the com- 
 mittee, and surely the men in the War Depart- 
 ment, will agree that while there have been com- 
 plaints about other things, the testimony of this 
 army so far as I know is unanimous that its food 
 has been of the highest quality; that there has 
 been no suggestion of defective quality or in- 
 sufficiency in the quantity; that its preparation 
 has been of the highest character, and generally, 
 the very great problem of food supply for this 
 vast and hastily organized group of men has been 
 met with most extraordinary success. 
 
 There is some question regarding the selection 
 of cantonment sites, as to the health fulness of the 
 sites selected, and it has been suggested that the 
 Surgeon General was not consulted with regard 
 to the selection of sites. 
 
 The War College Division of the General Staff 
 made a study of the mode of training of the 
 Army. The date of that is May 4, and the ques- 
 tions they considered at that time were, first: 
 
 "Shall the Army be assembled in regimental 
 camps or brigade camps or division camps?" 
 [290]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 They finally determined that it should be in di- 
 vision camps. They then drew up a memoran- 
 dum covering several pages, as to the mode of 
 selecting and organizing these camps. The pa- 
 per I have before me is the original, signed by 
 Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn, then president of the Army 
 War College. This report recommended, first, 
 that the department commanders should be 
 charged with the duty of making such selections 
 for the troops to be raised or trained within their 
 respective departments; and, second, that they 
 should appoint boards of officers to investigate 
 and report upon the available camp sites. 
 
 Third, the number of such boards in each de- 
 partment should be left to the discretion of the 
 several department commanders. Each board 
 should be composed of two experienced officers of 
 the line, one of whom should, when practicable, 
 be the division commander concerned, or his rep- 
 resentative; one of the Quartermaster's Depart- 
 ment; one officer of the Medical Corps, and a dis- 
 trict engineer. The requisite number of district 
 engineers selected for their knowledge of local 
 conditions should be placed under the orders of 
 each department commander for detail on these 
 boards. 
 
 The fourth paragraph gives a catalogue of the 
 considerations which should guide the department 
 commander and the boards appointed by him in 
 the selection of these sites. I will read only two 
 or three pertinent ones. They should be of suffi-
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 cient size to accommodate a command without 
 crowding and have an adequate water supply, 
 both for the men and animals to be encamped 
 thereon. They should be immune from floods 
 and inundations. The surroundings should be 
 healthful. There were other desirable features 
 recommended, absence of insect pests as disease 
 carriers, infrequent interruptions to training by 
 inclement weather in all a long and carefully 
 prepared schedule. 
 
 These guides were sent to each department 
 commander. The principal places where these 
 camps were to be selected were the Department 
 of the Southeast, the Central Department, and 
 the Southern Department. There had been just 
 transferred, shortly before that, to the Depart- 
 ment of the Southeast, the senior major general 
 of the army, Gen. Wood, himself a medical officer 
 originally, a man who had originated the train- 
 ing-camp idea and put it into practice at Platts- 
 burg until it was a demonstrated success, a man 
 who, perhaps, more than any other man in the 
 Army by common consent would have been recog- 
 nized as the best equipped man to select camp 
 sites and inaugurate a system of training camps. 
 
 In the Central Department there was Gen. 
 Barry, if I remember correctly, next in order 
 perhaps Gen. Franklin Bell was his senior 
 among the ranking major generals in the Army, a 
 man with experience not only in this country but 
 in our insular possessions, a lifelong soldier, a 
 [292]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 man accustomed to the encampment of soldiers 
 and the environment which ought to surround 
 them. 
 
 In the Southern Department, I forget who was 
 in command. It was of less importance because 
 it had the experience of the Border, and camp 
 sites had practically been selected, so far as that 
 department was concerned. 
 
 These men were directed to select for recom- 
 mendation the department camp sites. I am not 
 referring to anything that is not perfectly known 
 to everybody who lives in Washington, but from 
 the day that it was known that camp sites would 
 be selected, Washington was filled to overflowing 
 with representative bodies of citizens desiring 
 that consideration should be given to this site or 
 to that site, pressing the advantages of particular 
 locations on us as to their accessibility by railroad 
 or otherwise, the character of their climate, the 
 character of their soil. I think I am stating what 
 is known to every one in this room when I say 
 that the universal and unvarying answer was that 
 those camp sites were regarded as of so grave 
 significance, and their proper selection was of so 
 much importance, that the Department was rely- 
 ing on a board which could actually visit and 
 compare on the ground the relative conditions, 
 and I am stating what the record shows when I 
 say that the camp sites actually selected were in 
 every instance recommended by the department 
 commander, his action being based on a board's 
 [293]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 action, the board containing in every instance, so 
 far as my knowledge goes, the senior medical 
 officer of his department. Only in one instance 
 was the question raised as to whether or not a 
 camp site, tentatively selected, was in itself a 
 healthful place. When that question was raised 
 I asked the Surgeon General of the Army to select 
 the most eminent and competent sanitarian in his 
 department and send him to make a personal in- 
 spection of the site. He came back and reported 
 that the site was a sanitary and healthful one, and 
 it was not until that report had been made that 
 the site was finally decided upon. 
 
 The records of the department in addition 
 showed that upon the selection of these sites the 
 Surgeon General's Office was notified of their 
 selection. I am not raising any issue with the 
 Surgeon General. I share the high opinion of 
 his eminent talents and of his great past service 
 and capacity for future service which this com- 
 mittee entertains, and yet I want to have it per- 
 fectly understood that in the selection of these 
 sites his representative was a member of every 
 board, and if any question ever arose with regard 
 to the propriety of a site in process of selection 
 that question was investigated under his direc- 
 tion by my order until there was satisfaction as to 
 the propriety of the selection. 
 
 And now with regard to the building of can- 
 tonments and the air space. The plans for the 
 barracks and hospitals and buildings of these 
 [294]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 camps were referred to the Surgeon General 
 and by him approved. I do not remember 
 what the allotments of floor space they made were 
 but they were approved, and the buildings were in 
 the process of construction when there came a 
 meeting, I think, of the American Medical Asso- 
 ciation, and at that meeting a committee was ap- 
 pointed to consider the sanitary conditions and 
 character of barrack buildings for soldiers. That 
 committee came to Washington and conferred 
 with the Surgeon General, as was entirely help- 
 ful and loyal and proper for it to do. It in- 
 sisted upon a larger allowance, a larger square 
 foot of floor space and cubical contents for each 
 soldier. In deference to their advice, the Sur- 
 geon General requested that a larger allowance 
 be made. At the time that request was made, 
 however, many barrack buildings had been con- 
 structed, the whole system of plans had been 
 made with his previous approval, and the work 
 was going on. I therefore asked Gen. Gorgas 
 to call on me with that committee, and I saw them 
 in my office and discussed the question with them. 
 I do not remember all of the persons who were 
 present but I remember some of them. There 
 was Gen. Gorgas, Dr. Mayo, Dr. Welch of the 
 Johns Hopkins Hospital I do not recall others, 
 but there must have been perhaps half a dozen or 
 eight of them, of great distinction in the medical 
 profession, including Dr. Franklin Martin, of 
 [295]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 Chicago, who was chairman of the medical sec- 
 tion of the Council of National Defense. 
 
 We raised the question of how much floor space 
 the men ought to have, and they suggested that 
 50 feet was the proper allowance. Then it was 
 explained to them that the barracks were in 
 process of construction, and they were asked 
 whether they felt that the matter was so vital that 
 it was wise to stop putting up the buildings we 
 were then erecting and start over again on re- 
 formed glans, and they said, No; they did not 
 think so. They thought the thing for us to do 
 was to take the minimum which they suggested 
 as an ideal toward which we should build, and 
 that we should ask Congress to permit us to spend 
 more money putting additions to these barrack 
 buildings, and ultimately get up to this allowance ; 
 but they did not recommend that we stop building 
 the barracks in order to make the enlargements 
 which they suggested. 
 
 That is more or less unimportant, except as it 
 leads up to another subject. I said then, "Gentle- 
 men, we have now discussed cantonments, perma- 
 nent barracks, more or less permanent wooden 
 barracks. Now let us talk about the camps, be- 
 cause a large part of these soldiers are going to 
 be in canvas tents." 
 
 Somebody said, and it was evidently accepted 
 as the general opinion, that that subject need give 
 us no trouble. They said, "Tents are automatic- 
 ally ventilated ; there will be no trouble from them. 
 [296]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 We wish we believe it would have been wiser or 
 safer that the plans provided for having all the 
 men in tents instead of having them in camps, 
 because the tent is a smaller unit, which brings 
 fewer men together in one place. It is automati- 
 cally ventilated and we think you need not look 
 forward to any of the problems arising from con- 
 gestion in the tent camps." I recalled that to 
 Gen. Gorgas's attention the other day and he re- 
 membered it and said that that was still his 
 opinion. 
 
 Now the fact is that the more serious health 
 difficulties have broken out in the camps that were 
 in tents and the health conditions in the canton- 
 ments, where the gravest concern was felt, have 
 been better than those where it was felt that we 
 had perfect assurance. 
 
 I cite this not merely to show that expert opin- 
 ion may not arrive at the correct solution of a 
 difficult problem, but so that you may have the 
 environment of that problem. Shortly after that 
 conference it turned out that we would have to 
 reorganize all of our divisions, making a larger 
 company by the consolidation of other companies, 
 and making a larger regiment. So it became 
 possible in the various camps to make readjust- 
 ments in the assignments to individual buildings 
 and from the beginning, so far as the canton- 
 ments are concerned, there has not been less than 
 the minimum desired by this committee and Gen. 
 [297]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 Gorgas, of assignable floor space and cubical con- 
 tents. 
 
 For instance, the approved capacity of 500 cu- 
 bic feet as a basis applied to the 16 cantonments 
 produces these results: At Camp Devens, Ayer, 
 Mass., on the basis of 500 cubic feet per man, 
 there is room for 34,476 men. The greatest num- 
 ber ever there was 34,800, about 300 too many. 
 In every other one of the 16 camps the capacity 
 of the 500 cubic feet basis is greater than the 
 maximum number who have ever been there. At 
 Camp Upton, 39,111 capacity, maximum number 
 29,000 (I read only the first figures); Camp 
 Dix, capacity 39,800, maximum number, 20,- 
 800; Camp Meade, capacity 38,500, maximum 
 number 32,000; and so on, clear through the en- 
 tire list, with the solitary exception of Camp De- 
 vens, where the capacity on the basis of 500 cubic 
 feet per man was exceeded, and that only by 
 something over 300 men at one particular time. 
 
 Regarding the number of men to be put in a 
 tent the records of the War Department show 
 that on the isth of October the War College is- 
 sued recommendations as to the manner of han- 
 dling supplies in camps and cantonments, in which 
 the following occurs : 
 
 "Heavy tentage for the National Guard, unless 
 otherwise ordered, and for State organizations 
 which are to be mobilized at State mobilization 
 camps, will be shipped direct to training camps to 
 be there apportioned out according to the needs of 
 [298]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 all the organizations by division or camp com- 
 manders on the basis of one large pyramidal tent 
 to 12 men until the total supply of tentage avail- 
 able is increased, when distribution will be made 
 at the rate of one tent to 9 men." 
 
 That recommendation, our records show, had 
 the concurrence of the Surgeon General. That is 
 from the War College minutes! Later, when the 
 Surgeon General was making his inspection of 
 the various camps, the number of men per tent 
 was reduced from 9 to 5, as indicated in the ac- 
 tion taken on December i, in the case of Camp 
 Sevier. Similar action was taken on the recom- 
 mendation of the Surgeon General at the other 
 camps visited by him. 
 
 What actually happened, gentlemen, was that 
 we gathered in from the country young men who 
 had not been brought before into contact with 
 community living. They were young men from 
 the sparsely settled parts of the country. They 
 were attacked by measles, of which one of the 
 ordinary consequences apparently in adults is 
 pneumonia. Now I am not a physician ; I would 
 simply be repeating what other people say to me 
 if I undertook to detail any opinions on the sub- 
 ject of pneumonia or measles, and I do not want 
 to minimize the fact that in all human likelihood 
 the prevalence of pneumonia in some places and 
 of bronchial colds which lead to pneumonia, per- 
 haps even the spread of measles, were caused by 
 too many men being in a tent at one time, and 
 [299]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 facilitated by the shortage of clothes of the kind 
 that I have previously described. And yet Gen. 
 Gorgas told me, as I have no doubt he told your 
 committee, that the worst epidemic of pneumonia 
 he ever had to deal with was at the Panama Ca- 
 nal, where there was not any question of shortage 
 of clothes or change of climate. 
 
 But I do extract from this record this is, I 
 think, evidenced by it that our original expecta- 
 tion was that the men in the tents would be safe ; 
 that practically the only thing we had to consider 
 there was the convenience of the men in getting 
 about in their tents ; and as soon as it was discov- 
 ered that the boys by tying up tight the flaps 
 of the tents and excluding the outside air were 
 circumventing that outside ventilation, which had 
 been counted upon so surely to protect them from 
 the evil effects of congested conditions, just as 
 soon as that was discovered by the Surgeon Gen- 
 eral, instantly it was suggested that the rate of 
 occupation of these tents should be much lower, 
 additional tentage came in as rapidly as it could 
 be sent in by express, and those conditions were 
 improved. 
 
 There was a shortage of blankets. The mills 
 of the country could not produce them rapidly 
 enough, and in some places Camp Devens, for 
 instance a very large number of quilts was 
 bought in the near-by stores and cities to supple- 
 ment the supply of blankets until a full supply 
 was possible ; and it may well be if the boys had 
 [300]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 had blankets enough to cover themselves com- 
 pletely they would not have made the tents so 
 nearly airtight. The point I want to make, if I 
 may make it with propriety, is this : That the place 
 where we least expected trouble, is the place where 
 it came, not the place where I expected it nor 
 where it was expected by the greatest and most 
 competent medical experts of America, coming 
 all the way from New York or wherever else their 
 meeting was, to confer with the Surgeon General. 
 
 The Surgeon General at the outset asked about 
 hospital facilities at the National Guard camps, 
 and it was then thought that since the men would 
 be in those camps a shorter time than the men in 
 the cantonments, and as the cantonments would 
 be used by succeeding groups of men to be 
 trained, there was not so much need for mak- 
 ing permanent hospital facilities at the National 
 Guard camps as at the cantonments. 
 
 That view, however, was changed, the Sur- 
 geon General's recommendation for hospitals at 
 the National Guard camps was approved and the 
 same kind and size of hospital, the same character 
 of facility, was then directed to be put up at the 
 National Guard camps, and is either erected or is 
 being erected at all of them. Gen. Gorgas said 
 to me that he himself approved the idea of erect- 
 ing these National Guard hospitals without per- 
 manent installation of flowing water, without 
 permanent sewerage facilities, because at the out- 
 set it was believed that they were to be more tem- 
 [801]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 porary, but when it was discovered that they were 
 to be more permanent, then he recommended that 
 it be altered to a permanent installation of plumb- 
 ing and water supply, and this change was then 
 ordered. 
 
 There were scattered through all of these camps 
 the regimental hospitals which under normal cir- 
 cumstances would be regarded as adequate to take 
 care of minor illnesses of the men, places to which 
 they could retire with a cold or a slight injury, or 
 something of that kind. This provision of base 
 hospitals was for the more severe cases. Of 
 course the fact is that we were overtaken by epi- 
 demic conditions before the base hospitals were 
 ready in the National Guard camps, and it was 
 necessary to evacuate some of those hospitals and 
 take the patients to other places. When the Sur- 
 geon General made his investigation and discov- 
 ered that situation, just as soon as adverse health 
 conditions arose at Camp Wheeler and in those 
 other southern camps, his recommendation for 
 the transfer of patients was instantly approved 
 and carried into effect, and every recommenda- 
 tion he made was complied with. 
 
 It was at that time, after his return from this 
 inspection, that Gen. Gorgas suggested to me in 
 conversation the wisdom of having a detention 
 hospital where new men coming to the camp could 
 be placed for observation for the normal period 
 of incubation of the common contagious diseases, 
 so that there would not be in the future the chance 
 [302]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 of newly drafted men or newly raised levies 
 bringing in from the outside contagious diseases 
 and spreading them through an assembled force. 
 I have been dealing with what has seemed to 
 me to be the details of delay. I hope I have not 
 seemed to deny their existence. I have tried to 
 add to your information by showing you exactly 
 what they are so far as I can learn them. I do not 
 want to add any color of prophecy as to when 
 they will be completely removed. I think you 
 know, as a matter of fact, from the experts 
 at the heads of these departments, just what the 
 outlook is with regard to each particular thing, 
 and so I turn aside to the plan of the war. 
 
 I have understood that Senator Chamberlain 
 felt that there was not a plan for this war. I do 
 not know how far the members of the committee 
 feel that ; I do not know how far the country feels 
 that; but I want, if I can, to show to you that 
 there is a plan ; that it is the only plan under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 It will be remembered that this war broke out 
 in August, 1914. We went into it in April, 1917, 
 so that for two and one-half years, or more than 
 two and one-half years, the, war had been going 
 on. It was not as though war had broken out 
 between the United States and some country, each 
 of them prior to that time having been at peace 
 with the other and with everybody else, so that 
 an immediate plan could be made in the United 
 [303]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 States for conducting war against its adversary. 
 We were coming into a war which had been 
 going on for two and one-half years, in which the 
 greatest military experts, all the inventive genius, 
 all the industrial capacity of those greatest 
 countries in the world had for two and one-half 
 years been endeavoring to solve the problem of 
 what kind of war it was to be and where it was 
 to be waged. 
 
 It was not for us to decide where our 
 theater of war should be. The theater of war 
 was France. It was not for us to decide our line 
 of communications. Our line of communications 
 was across 3,000 miles of ocean, one end of it in- 
 fested with submarines. It was not for us to 
 decide whether we would have the maneuvering 
 of large bodies of troops in the open. There lay 
 the antagonists on opposite sides of no-man's land 
 in the trenches at a death grapple with one an- 
 other. Our antagonist was on the other side of 
 that line, and our problem was and is to get over 
 there and get him. 
 
 It was not the problem of doing it our way and 
 letting everybody else take care of himself. In 
 the first place, we were going to fight in France, 
 not on our own soil, and not on our adversary's 
 soil, and therefore at the very beginning it was 
 obvious that the thing we had to do was not to 
 map out an ideal plan of campaign, not to have 
 the War College, with its speculative studies of 
 Napoleon and everybody else, map out the best 
 [304]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 way theoretically to get at some other country, 
 but it was the problem of studying the then exist- 
 ing situation and bringing the financial, the in- 
 dustrial, and the military strength of the United 
 States into cooperation with that of Great Britain 
 and France in the most immediate and effective 
 way. 
 
 That problem could not be decided here. I 
 fancy in this audience there are men who have 
 been in the trenches. The altogether unprece- 
 dented character of this war is the thing 
 which every returning visitor tells us can not be 
 described in words, can not be put down in re- 
 ports ; it is a thing so different from anything else 
 that ever went on in the world, so vast in its deso- 
 lation, so extraordinary in its uniqueness, that it 
 must be seen and studied on the ground in order 
 to be comprehended at all. 
 
 It can readily be seen that we might have per- 
 fected an army over here, carried it across the 
 ocean and found it wholly unadapted to its task; 
 it might well have been that the army that we 
 sent over was just the one thing that our Allies 
 did not need, and that some other thing which we 
 might have supplied would have been the thing 
 essential to their success. 
 
 So that from the very beginning it was not a 
 question of abstract speculation here, but a ques- 
 tion of study there to find out where our shoulder 
 could be put to the wheel. 
 
 Our Allies realized that. And so Great Britain 
 [305]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 sent over to us Mr. Balfour and Gen. Bridges and 
 a staff of experts. They came over here and you 
 saw Mr. Balfour in the Houses of Congress and 
 at the White House and in public meetings at one 
 place and another, but the group of experts whom 
 they brought over with them you did not see much 
 of; for they distributed themselves through 
 the War Department, and their ordnance experts 
 sat down with Gen. Crozier, their supply experts 
 with Gen. Sharpe and his assistants, their strate- 
 gists sat down with the Army War College, and 
 all over this city there were these confidential 
 groups exchanging information; telling how the 
 thing was over there ; what we could do, what they 
 advised us to do; what experience they had had 
 in developing this, that, and the other implement 
 or supply; how certain plans which one might 
 naturally have evolved out of the past experience 
 of the world had been tried and found not to 
 work at all. 
 
 They were exchanging information, giving us 
 all that they thought was helpful. And then 
 came Joffre, with his wonderful reputation and 
 his great and charming personality, and he made 
 a great figure here and we welcomed him. It 
 was a tremendous inspiration to see the hero of 
 the Marne; but with him came his unobserved 
 staff of fifteen or twenty or twenty-five young 
 men, the most brilliant men in the French Army 
 strategists, mechanical experts, experts in 
 arms, experts in supplies, experts in industry and 
 [306]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 manufacture, and they told us not merely the for- 
 mal and military problems, but they brought over 
 with them men who were in the war from the be- 
 ginning; in their reorganization of their indus- 
 tries; in their mobilization of their industrial 
 plants ; and we sat down with them in little groups 
 until finally we collated and collected and ex- 
 tracted all the information which they could give 
 us from their respective countries. And every 
 country which has been brought in the war has 
 sent us that sort of a staff of experts, and it has 
 been necessary to compare notes, and upon that 
 basis to form such an idea as might be formed of 
 what we should do over there. 
 
 But that was not enough. They could describe 
 to us and bring the specifications and drawings 
 for a piece of artillery, but they could not tell us 
 why the British theory of the use of artillery was 
 preferred by the British to that of the French. 
 They could not picture to us a barrage of heavy 
 howitzers, as compared to a barrage of 75 mm. 
 guns. They could not picture to us the associa- 
 tion of aircraft, balloons and mobile aircraft 
 with artillery uses. They could tell us about it, 
 but even while they told us, the story grew old. 
 The one thing they told us from the very begin- 
 ning to the end was that this war, of all oth- 
 ers, was not a static thing; that our adver- 
 sary was a versatile and agile adversary; that 
 every day he revamped and changed his weapons 
 of attack and his methods of defense; that the 
 [307]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 stories they were telling us were true when they 
 left England and France, but an entirely different 
 thing was probably taking place there now; and 
 they told us of large supplies of weapons of one 
 kind and another which they had developed in 
 France and England and which, even before they 
 got them manufactured in sufficient quantity to 
 take them from the industrial plants to the front, 
 were superseded by new ideas and had to be 
 thrown into the scrap heap. 
 
 They said to us, "This is a moving picture ; it is 
 something that nobody can paint, and give you an 
 idea of. It is not a static thing." 
 
 Therefore, it became necessary for us to have 
 eyes there in constant and immediate communica- 
 tion with us, and we sent over to France Gen. 
 Pershing, and we sent with him not merely a di- 
 vision of troops to that I shall refer in a mo- 
 ment but we sent with him, perhaps I can say 
 safely, the major part of the trained, expert per- 
 sonnel of the Army. You know the size of the 
 official corps of the Regular Army in this country 
 when the war broke out. It was a pitiful hand- 
 ful of trained men, and yet it was necessary to 
 divide them up and send over to France officers 
 of the highest quality so that they could be at 
 the front and observe in the workshops and in the 
 factories and in the war offices, and in the armies, 
 where consultations would take place immedi- 
 ately back of the front so that they could see 
 the thing with their own eyes, and send us back 
 [308]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 by cable every day the details of the changing 
 character of this war. 
 
 Gen. Pershing's staff of experts and officers 
 over there runs into the thousands, and they are 
 busy every minute. Every day that the sun rises 
 I get cablegrams from Gen. Pershing from ten to 
 sixteen and twenty pages long, filled with measure- 
 ments and formulas and changes of a millimeter 
 in size, great long specifications of changes in de- 
 tails of things which were agreed upon last week 
 and changed this week, and need to be changed 
 again next week, so that what we are doing at this 
 end is attempting by using the eyes of the army 
 there, to keep up to what they want us to do. 
 
 Already you will find in your further examina- 
 tion into some of the bureau work of the Depart- 
 ment, and the work of some of the divisions, that 
 schedules which were agreed upon, weapons 
 which were selected, and which we had started to 
 manufacture, have been so far discarded that 
 people have forgotten the names of them, almost, 
 and new things have been substituted in their 
 place, and those forgotten and still others put in 
 their places. 
 
 So that if one gets the idea that this is the sort 
 of war we used to have, or if he gets the idea that 
 this is a static thing, it is an entirely erroneous 
 idea. When you remember that we had to di- 
 vide this little handful of officers that we had 
 and send so large a part of them to France, and 
 when you think of those who remained at home, 
 [309]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 you will realize, I am sure, that those who re- 
 mained here had and still have a double duty, for 
 either aspect of which they are insufficient in 
 numbers; they had to go forward with manu- 
 factures, work out industry and industrial rela- 
 tions; they had to see about supplies of raw ma- 
 terials and manufacture finished products, and 
 make from day to day alterations and changes 
 that had to be made; and they had to be inge- 
 nious with suggestions, to see whether they could 
 devise on this side something which had not been 
 thought of over there. They had to be hospitable 
 to suggestions which came from the other side; 
 they had to confer with the foreign officers who 
 were here and were constantly being changed, so 
 that men fresh from the front could be here to 
 advise with us ; and in addition to that every one 
 of them had to be a university professor, going 
 out into the life of the community and selecting 
 men who had mechanical experience and knowl- 
 edge and training, though not on military lines, 
 and adding to his original equipment the scien- 
 tific training, that finishing touch which made 
 him available for use as a military scientist. 
 
 As a consequence, this little group which stayed 
 here has built the great special departments of 
 the Army. The Ordnance Department, starting, 
 I think, with 93 or 96 officers, has now, as I recall 
 the figures, something like 3,000 officers. They 
 have had to be trained ; they have had to be spe- 
 cialized, and that has had to go on contempo- 
 [310]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 raneously with this tremendous response to the 
 changing conditions on the other side. 
 
 In the meantime, when we started into this war 
 I think it was commonly thought throughout the 
 country that our contribution at the outset might 
 well be financial and industrial. The industries 
 of this country, the appropriate industries, and 
 many converted industries, were largely devoted 
 to the manufacture of war materials for our 
 Allies. 
 
 As I suggested this morning, when we went 
 into that market we found it largely occupied, so 
 that our problem was not going to a factory, let 
 me say a shoe factory, and saying, "Make shoes 
 for us," but it was going to a factory which never 
 made shoes because all the shoe factories were 
 busy making shoes for people from whom we 
 could not take them and saying, "Learn how to 
 make shoes in order that you may make them 
 for us." 
 
 Now, of course, that is not true of shoes, but it 
 is true of machine guns, it is true of other arms, 
 it is true of ammunition, it is true of forging ca- 
 pacity, which was the greatest shortage. We 
 could neither disturb the program of allied manu- 
 facture in this country, nor cut off the supplies of 
 raw material to our Allies, nor could we disturb 
 the industry of this country to such an extent that 
 agricultural and commercial and industrial 
 products upon which they depended for the suc- 
 [311]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 cess of their military operations would be inter- 
 fered with. 
 
 At the outset the idea was wide-spread that we 
 would be primarily of financial and industrial as- 
 sistance to our Allies during the year 1918. Let 
 me read from the Metropolitan Magazine for 
 August a suggestion which will show what the 
 current expectation of the country was. Its edi- 
 tor was protesting against what he believed to be 
 the intention of the Government at that time. 
 
 "Since it is our war, we want to put everything 
 into it so as to finish it in the shortest possible 
 time, so that the world may be restored. To our 
 mind the whole plan of the War Department has 
 been flavored with a desire to hold off until the 
 Allies finish the war for us." 
 
 You see, the editor was dealing with what he 
 supposed to be the intention of the War Depart- 
 ment at that time, that we were holding off, so 
 far as actual military operations were concerned, 
 and letting the Allies do the fighting. 
 
 What he says we should have done, and I ask 
 your particular attention to it, is this : 
 
 "We should have strained every energy to have 
 gotten from 50,000 to 100,000 men to France this 
 year." 
 
 That is, the year 1917. I tell no secret, but it 
 is perfectly well known to everybody in this 
 group, that we have far exceeded what in August, 
 1917, was regarded as a program so ideal that 
 the editor of this magazine refers to it as a thing 
 [312]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 which we ought to have strained every nerve in 
 a vain but hopeless effort to accomplish. 
 
 And then the editor goes on : 
 
 "And by next year, 1918, we could have had 
 500,000 men to send over, or any part of 500,000 
 men which we could ship." 
 
 Now, instead of having 50,000 or 100,000 men 
 in France in 1917, we have many more men than 
 that in France, and instead of having a half a 
 million men whom we could ship to France if we 
 could find any way to do it in 1918, we will have 
 more than one-half million men in France early 
 in 1918, and if the transportation facilities are 
 available to us, and the prospect is not unpromis- 
 ing, we will have one and one-half million who in 
 1918 can be shipped to France. 
 
 Why did we decide to send some troops to 
 France in 1917 ? It is no secret. When Marshal 
 Joffre came to this country from France, when 
 the British mission came, they told us of a situa- 
 tion which we had not up to that time fully ap- 
 preciated. Just before that time there had been 
 conducted in France an unsuccessful major offen- 
 sive. The French people had suffered, oh, suf- 
 fered in a way that not only our language 
 is not adapted to describe, but our imagination 
 can not conceive. The war is in their country. 
 This wolf has not only been at their door, but he 
 has been gnawing for two years and a half at 
 their vitals, and when this unsuccessful offensive 
 in France had gone on there was a spirit not of 
 [313]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 surrender, but of fate, about the French people. 
 This mighty military engine which they had 
 seen prepared to overcome them for forty years 
 was at them, and their attitude was that no mat- 
 ter whether or not every Frenchman died in his 
 tracks, as they were willing to do, it was an 
 irresistible thing, and so they said to us, "Frankly, 
 it will cheer us ; it will cheer our people if you send 
 over some of your troops." 
 
 We did send some troops. 
 
 At that time we had a choice. We could have 
 sent over, as Great Britain did, our Regular 
 Army, and with a very short preparation have put 
 it into action and suffered exactly what Great 
 Britain suffered with her contemptible little army, 
 as it was called by her adversaries. Our army 
 would have given as good an account of itself as 
 the British Army did, but it would have been 
 destroyed like the British Army, and there would 
 have been no nucleus around which to build this 
 new army that was to come over a little later. So 
 it was deemed wiser to send over a regular divi- 
 sion, but not to send over our whole Regular 
 Army at that time. 
 
 Then what happened was that that regular di- 
 vision went over and the people of France kissed 
 the hems of their garments as they marched up 
 the streets of Paris. The old veterans, wounded in 
 this war, legless or armless, stumping along on 
 crutches, perhaps, went up the streets of 
 Paris with their arms around the necks of Ameri- 
 [314]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 can soldiers. Not a single man in that division 
 was unaccompanied by a veteran. America had 
 gone to France, and the French people rose with 
 a sense of gratitude and hopefulness that had 
 never been in them before. 
 
 Of course they welcomed the British, but their 
 need was not so great when the British went. Of 
 course they welcomed the British, but there were 
 ties between them and us which had not existed 
 between them and the British, and so when our 
 troops went, there was an instant and spontane- 
 ous rise in the morale of the French, and an 
 equally instant and spontaneous insistence that 
 these soldiers from America should continue to 
 come in an unbroken stream. 
 
 And so we made the election. We decided not 
 to send the Regular Army as a whole, but to send 
 regular divisions and National Guard divisions, 
 selected according to the state of their prepara- 
 tion, and keep back here some part of our trained 
 force in order that it might inoculate with its 
 spirit and its discipline these raw levies which we 
 are training. One after another these divisions 
 have gone until in France there is a fighting 
 army, an army trained in the essentials and in the 
 beginnings of military discipline and practice, 
 and trained, seasoned fighters in this kind of war 
 are now on the actual battlefields. 
 
 Early in this war, when Joffre and Balfour 
 were here, they said to us, "It may take you some 
 time to get over to us a great fighting army, but 
 [315]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 you are a great industrial country. Our man 
 power is fully engaged in our industries and in 
 our military enterprises, so send over artisans, 
 special engineering regiments, and troops of a 
 technical character." Although it was not con- 
 templated at the outset, and only a phrase in the 
 emergency military legislation shows that the 
 thing was thought of as a possibility, yet in a very 
 short time we had organized engineering regi- 
 ments of railroad men and sent them over there 
 and were rebuilding, behind the lines of the Brit- 
 ish and French, railroads which were being car- 
 ried forward with their advance, reconstructing 
 their broken engines and cars and tracks. Those 
 regiments were of such quality that at the Cam- 
 brai assault, carried on by Gen. Byng, when 
 the Germans made their counter attack, our engi- 
 neer regiments threw down their picks and spades 
 and carried rifles into the battle and distinguished 
 themselves by gallant action in the battle itself. 
 Very early in this war Great Britain and 
 France, through Balfour and Joffre, said to us, 
 "Send us nurses and doctors." Why, we were 
 scarcely in the war before American units, or- 
 ganized in advance and anticipation by the Red 
 Cross, were taken over into the service of the 
 United States through the Surgeon General's 
 Office, and were on the battlefield. There are tens 
 of thousands of men in England and in France 
 now who bless the mission of mercy upon which 
 the first Americans appeared on the West Front. 
 [316]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 Our surgeons have set up hospitals immedi- 
 ately behind the lines. They have been made 
 military in every sense of the word. They have 
 not been especially fortunate in escaping attack 
 from the air, and our early losses in this war 
 were losses of Red Cross nurses, doctors, order- 
 lies, attendants in hospitals and ambulance 
 drivers, who were sent over to assist our 
 Allies in these necessary services, thus not only 
 rendering assistance, but acquiring skill and 
 knowledge of the circumstances and surround- 
 ings, so that when our own troops came in large 
 numbers they could render like services to them. 
 
 But that was not enough. It was suggested 
 that further groups of mechanics might be 
 needed. Nay, we began to see that we were 
 going to be over there in large force, and the 
 question that then had to be answered was, How 
 will we maintain an army in France? Special 
 studies had to be made of that problem, and this is 
 what they showed: 
 
 They showed that the railroads and the facili- 
 ties of France had during this war been kept in 
 an excellent condition, far better than any one 
 supposed possible under war conditions. But 
 they also showed that those railroads were used 
 to the maximum in taking care of the needs of 
 the French and the British themselves, and that 
 when our army became a great army it would be 
 necessary for us to build back of our own line an 
 independent line of communication. 
 [317]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 In other words, France was a white sheet of 
 paper so far as we were concerned, and on that 
 we had not only to write an army, but we had to 
 write the means of maintaining that army. 
 From the first time when a careful and scientific 
 study of the opportunities of France to help us 
 was made, until this hour, we have been build- 
 ing in France facilities, instruments, agencies 
 just as many as we have here in the United 
 States and more. For instance, the French had 
 naturally reserved the best ports in France for 
 their own supply. The Channel ports had been 
 reserved for the British. When we came in it was 
 necessary for us to have independent ports of 
 entry in order that there might not be confusion 
 and admixture of our supplies going through 
 these ports of disembarkation with those of other 
 nations. We were given several ports. As you 
 perhaps recall, the ports of France are tidal ports, 
 with tidal basins, ports with deep water at high 
 tides but with insufficient water for landing at the 
 docks when the tide is out. 
 
 As a consequence, the construction of docks 
 and wharves in the tidal basins of ports of that 
 kind is very much more difficult than where you 
 have a deep sea harbor and all you need to do is to 
 erect a pile wharf. We have had to build docks ; 
 we have had to fabricate in this country and send 
 over dock-handling machinery; we have had to 
 send from this country even the piles to build the 
 docks. We have had to have gauntry cranes 
 [318]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 manufactured in this country and sent over to be 
 erected on those docks ; we have had to erect over 
 there warehouses at the ports of disembarkation 
 in order that these vast accumulations of stores 
 and supplies which go over can be properly housed 
 and cared for until they can be distributed into 
 the interior. 
 
 We have had to take over, and are in process 
 of rebuilding and amplifying, a railroad 600 miles 
 long in order to carry our products from our ports 
 of disembarkation to our general bases of opera- 
 tion. And all of that, gentlemen, has had to be 
 done in this country and the things shipped over 
 there nails, cross ties, spikes, fish plates, engines, 
 cars, buildings. We have had to build ordnance 
 depots and repair shops and great magazines of 
 supply in the interior. All of that problem has 
 been carried forward step by step, the plans for 
 a single ordnance repair shop, which I saw some 
 time ago, covering acres and acres of ground. 
 These buildings are designed over here, the iron- 
 work fabricated over here, disassembled, put in 
 ships, and carried abroad to be reassembled over 
 there. 
 
 We have had to build barracks over there for 
 our soldiers, and in the meantime to billet them 
 about in the French villages. Building barracks 
 over there and building them here are very dif- 
 ferent things, gentlemen. 
 
 When we summoned the lumber industry of 
 this country to produce the lumber to build our 
 [319]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 cantonments here it came in a great and steady 
 stream from all over the country. But when we 
 talk about building barracks in France it means 
 this : It means organizing as we have organized 
 regiments of foresters; and sending them over 
 into the forests of France which they have as- 
 signed to us for our use ; cutting down the trees ; 
 setting up sawmills ; making the lumber of vari- 
 ous sizes ; transporting it to the places where it is 
 to be used; and then finally putting it in place. 
 In France we have had to go back to the planting 
 of the corn in order that we might some time reap 
 a harvest. Our operations began in the forests 
 of France, not in the lumber yards as they did in 
 this country. 
 
 That great staff under Gen. Pershing's direc- 
 tion, containing so many men from the American 
 Army, is further enriched by our captains of in- 
 dustry and masters of technical performance. 
 The railroad and dock buildings, for example, are 
 under a former vice president and perhaps still a 
 vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Gen. 
 William Wallace Atterbury. Such are the men 
 who are carrying forward these operations, which 
 are quite as extensive as any carried on over here, 
 and of far greater difficulty, because they involve 
 ordering material by cable as to sizes and speci- 
 fications, having it fabricated here, and sent 
 across through these infested 3,000 miles of 
 ocean, and then set up over there. 
 
 In addition to that, it has been necessary for 
 [320]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 us to build hospitals on the other side, for that is 
 where the major need for hospitals may well be. 
 It has been necessary for the Surgeon General's 
 staff to meet a twofold demand ; to select supplies 
 and procure materials, to send over staffs of 
 trained persons to supervise the construction of 
 these hospitals and to man them and equip them. 
 
 All of that has gone on contemporaneously 
 with the work which has been done in 
 this country. 
 
 In order that another element may be added to 
 the kaleidoscopic character which this war neces- 
 sarily has, let me recall to your attention a thing 
 which you already know. This war had a more 
 or less set character until the Russian situation 
 changed, as it has changed, in the last few 
 months. When we had gotten more or less used 
 to the situation created by the uncertainty as to 
 Russia, there came the great Italian defeat, which 
 in many ways called for even greater changes 
 in our plans. 
 
 So that what might have been a perfectly ac- 
 ceptable plan as to major operations prior to the 
 change in the Russian situation, or prior to the 
 change in the Italian situation, had to be restudied 
 instantly. For that reason, among others, there 
 is now organized, as you know, in France, pur- 
 suant to the suggestion of Mr. Lloyd George, 
 the Rapallo Conference, or Supreme War Coun- 
 cil, and the United States is represented on 
 [321]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 that by the Chief of Staff of the American Army. 
 The major international arrangements in re- 
 gard to military questions are worked out there, 
 while Gen. Pershing and his staff of experts are 
 working out these other questions. 
 
 That is a faint picture of what has been going 
 on over there, gentlemen. On this side much also 
 has had to be done. I ask you to remember 
 among the achievements on this side, the building 
 of this army, not of 50,000 or 100,000 or 500,000, 
 but of substantially a million and one-half men. 
 
 And now let me be frank with you, and let your 
 judgment be frank with me about this. Has any 
 army in history, ever, since the beginning of 
 time, been so raised and cared for as this army 
 has? Can the picture be duplicated? We have 
 raised the Regular Army and the National Guard 
 to war strength and supplemented them by the 
 operation of a draft. There are Senators in this 
 room who said to me with grief when we pro- 
 posed that form of raising soldiers, "Mr. Secre- 
 tary, it can't be done. It is too sudden to address 
 to the American people that mode of selecting 
 soldiers." And yet, has any great enterprise 
 within the knowledge of any man in this room 
 ever been carried out with more unfailing justice, 
 with more intelligent explanation and commenda- 
 tion to the good sense of patriotism of the Ameri- 
 can people, and has any great and revolutionary 
 change in our mode of practice ever been ac-
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 cepted so splendidly as the operation of the selec- 
 tive service system? 
 
 We have got these young men in camp, 
 they are surrounded from the day they left home 
 until the day they come back to it, if in God's 
 providence they can come back, with more agen- 
 cies for their protection and comfort and health 
 and happiness, physical, spiritual, and mental, 
 than ever before surrounded any army that ever 
 went out on a field. 
 
 They are classified by a system under which 
 men who have mechanical instincts and training 
 will be given mechanical opportunities in the 
 army. The "round" man is not put into the 
 "square" place. The Y. M. C. A., to which the 
 American people have subscribed liberally; the 
 Knights of Columbus, the Young Women's 
 Christian Association, the Training Camp Activi- 
 ties Committee, the Training Camp Athletic Com- 
 mittee, the Red Cross, have all been brought in to 
 live with the soldiers. By virtue of activities 
 started in the War Department the communities 
 which surround the camps have been won away 
 from the notion which used to prevail of a 
 certain alienation between a civilian and soldier 
 group, and the soldier boys in these camps have 
 been adopted into the homes and hearts of the 
 people among whom they live. No such rela- 
 tion has ever existed between an army and a 
 civilian population as exists with regard to ours. 
 [323]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 With your aid, by the establishment of zones, 
 by the establishment of patrol systems of one kind 
 and another, the Army has been able practically 
 to stamp out intemperance and vice among the 
 soldiers. By the training in the training camps 
 of these young officers, men of experience and 
 fine feeling, we have gotten into this great army 
 the idea that it can be a strong and effective 
 military body and still be free from things which 
 have hitherto weakened and sapped the vitality 
 and virility of armies. 
 
 I have gone from camp to camp among these 
 cantonments, and my first question to the camp 
 commander almost invariably has been, "What 
 about your disciplinary problem?" 
 
 Old men in the Army, men whose lives have 
 been spent in it from their boyhood, and who 
 have been all over the continental United States 
 and through its insular possessions wherever our 
 armies have been, who know the life of the sol- 
 dier and the camp and the post, all say with one 
 accord and no exception, that they have never 
 seen anything like this ; that the disciplinary prob- 
 lems of the Army are reduced to a negligible 
 quantity. As a result, instead of the melancholy 
 and pathetic parade through the Secretary of 
 War's office of court-martial after court-martial 
 upon men who have yielded to temptation under 
 these unfamiliar circumstances, which used to ob- 
 tain, I have only an infrequent case now and then. 
 
 When Lord Northcliffe returned to England 
 [324]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 he was invited by Lloyd George, as I recall it, to 
 accept a position in his cabinet. He wrote a let- 
 ter which was printed in the papers, and in that 
 he made this casual reference to the United 
 States. He spoke of his visit here, and spoke of 
 our war preparations in this fashion: 
 
 "War preparations are proceeding in the virile 
 atmosphere of the United States and Canada with 
 a fervor and enthusiasm little understood on this 
 side of the Atlantic." 
 
 He was then in England. I happen to have a 
 copy of a confidential instruction issued by the 
 German Government in June, 1917, to the Ger- 
 man press as to what course they should take in 
 dealing with American matters, and this says : 
 
 "While the news about American war prepara- 
 tion, such as the organizing and outfitting of an 
 Army of 1,000,000 men strong to reinforce the 
 French-English front, is looked upon in that form 
 as bluff, the spreading of which may unfavor- 
 ably affect the opinion of the German people, yet 
 the fact must not be overlooked, on the other 
 hand, that the United States with the support of 
 its capacity for material and industrial manage- 
 ment is arming itself for war with great energy 
 and tenacity." 
 
 Your investigations, gentlemen, have much still 
 to cover ; but, when it is all told, Mr. Chairman, it 
 will be a story which I am sure your committee 
 will be glad to report to the Senate of the United 
 States as being a tremendous response to a tre-
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 mendous responsibility. When you have com- 
 pleted this investigation, I know that the Ameri- 
 can people will feel, as I think they have a right 
 to feel, that we are in this war to win it ; that we 
 are in it to hit and to hit hard ; that we are in it to 
 coordinate our strength with that of our asso- 
 ciates; that the problem is not one of individual 
 star playing but team play with these veterans 
 under actual battle conditions ; that more has been 
 done, perhaps, than the country expected, more 
 than the wisest in the country thought it was 
 possible to do. 
 
 In so far as I am personally concerned, I know 
 what is ahead of us. I know what the American 
 feeling about this war is. Everybody is impa- 
 tient for us to do as much as we can. There will be 
 no division of counsel ; there will be all the criti- 
 cism there ought to be upon shortcomings and 
 failures ; there will be, so far as the War Depart- 
 ment is concerned, a continuing effort at self- 
 improvement and a hospitality toward every sug- 
 gestion for improvement that can come from the 
 outside. But the net result is going to be that a 
 united and confident American people, believing 
 in themselves and in their institutions, are going 
 to demand, and that at no late day on European 
 battle fields, in the face of veterans with whom 
 they are proud to associate, a demonstration that, 
 veterans though these men be, they can not excel 
 us in achievement. And when the victory is won 
 over there, the credit which will come to Amer- 
 [326]
 
 WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO MAKE WAR 
 
 ican enterprise and to American determination 
 and to American courage will be an honor to us, 
 as the tenacity of purpose and splendid achieve- 
 ments of the British and French have already 
 shed luster on the names of those great nations. 
 
 [327]
 
 WITH THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION- 
 ARY FORCES IN FRANCE 
 
 To THE ENGINEERS, 
 MARCH 14, 1918. 
 
 'T^HESE days have been worth my trip across 
 J. the Atlantic in the information and encour- 
 agement which they have given me. I have seen 
 only the effort in two ports, only the receiving 
 depots of the great war plant which we are con- 
 structing. But I have seen enough to convince 
 me that we now have an organization which will 
 meet the problem with its increasing volume of 
 demand, of coupling up the ports of embarkation 
 at home with the ports of debarkation in France. 
 I find that the written reports have given me 
 an inadequate idea of the difficulties which the 
 enemy said we could not overcome, and which 
 we are overcoming. After her long and stout- 
 hearted defense, France could spare us little 
 material or labor for our purposes, except by 
 ill-advised diversions from her own organization. 
 She could only offer us land on which to raise 
 our structures and the right of way for our com- 
 munications. 
 
 I should like to pay a tribute to you men who 
 [328]
 
 EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE 
 
 began last summer and fall to bring into being 
 the blueprints of a great conception, which is 
 now advanced enough to yield conviction of suc- 
 cess to any observer; and a tribute to our engi- 
 neers and experts from civil life in all branches 
 who serve with the officers of the regular engi- 
 neers in command of an increasing army of 
 workers, all doing their part. 
 
 You come from a pioneering people and you 
 have brought to France a pioneering energy. 
 You have turned marshes into docks, facing 
 waterways which you will dredge; sent out a 
 spur of railway track; and built warehouses and 
 the necessary supplementary plants for a system 
 which will dispatch along the lines of communi- 
 cation to the front food, clothes, guns, ammuni- 
 tion, and all the enormous amount of complicated 
 war material which the resources of our country 
 can supply, to be transported by ships which we 
 are building. 
 
 We owe it to your devotion and efficiency that 
 the troops in action shall not lack the means of 
 striking blows. I only wish that every American 
 could see this work as I saw it. I ceased to be 
 an official while I thrilled as a citizen with pride 
 and satisfaction over the ever-increasing force 
 which we shall bring to the aid of the Allied 
 armies in France. 
 
 [329]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 To THE OFFICERS OF THE GENERAL STAFF, 
 MARCH 18, 1918. 
 
 It was with a view to following the route of 
 our troops and material along the lines of com- 
 munication to the front that I began my tour 
 with the ports of debarkation. To-day I have 
 been through the busy offices of the General Staff 
 and the administrative departments at head- 
 quarters. I have met the men who from this 
 nerve center direct the organization which they 
 have created. 
 
 I appreciate how you would prefer to leave 
 your desks for the front line, where you could 
 see the direct result of your efforts against the 
 enemy. But you at least are in France, and 
 thereby are the envy of those who are held at 
 their desks in the same kind of work at home. 
 Many of you are former students at Fort 
 Leavenworth and the War College. Action has 
 taken the place of study. The problems which 
 you have to solve are no longer those of theory 
 in the movement of imaginary forces, but of fact, 
 in control of the supply and equipment of large 
 bodies of troops in the greatest military under- 
 taking of our history. 
 
 The black band around the sleeve which is the 
 emblem of the General Staff has become the sym- 
 bol of great responsibility to the people at home 
 and to the man in the trenches, responsibility for 
 accomplishing the maximum of efficiency in di- 
 [330]
 
 EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE 
 
 reeling the resources at your command with the 
 minimum cost of life, energy and material. Your 
 ambition to excel in your profession and your 
 studious application in the time of peace, when 
 we had a small army, have earned the gratitude 
 of your country at a time when the most valuable 
 asset we have is the well-trained soldier in the 
 prime of his manhood who has kept his mind and 
 body fit for this emergency. 
 
 General Pershing has had the vision, the 
 authority, the high organizing ability and the 
 broad conception to make the most of your talent 
 and industry in the results which have been so 
 reassuring to me as Secretary of War. Your 
 modesty, your willingness to learn from the tra- 
 ditions and technical experience of the Allied 
 armies, is in keeping with your soldierly realiza- 
 tion that war is skill against skill, force against 
 force, and that you are forming an army to fight 
 against a most powerful, skillful foe, who allows 
 nothing to divert him from the main essential. 
 
 Your plans have been commensurate with your 
 tasks, your spirit has been in keeping with the 
 inheritance which you have from Grant, Jackson, 
 Lee and Sherman. While you have been building 
 your structure you have had to act as instructors 
 for our untrained forces, and signs are not want- 
 ing of your success in adapting our national char- 
 acter and zeal to the end of victory. 
 
 I have been at one of your artillery schools, 
 where young reserve officers are preparing to 
 [331]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 support our troops with their gunfire. I have 
 seen your staff school, where another group of 
 reserve officers, including a former Secretary of 
 War, whom I envy, is being trained to assist in 
 your staff work when we shall number our corps 
 in France as we now number our divisions. 
 
 Some of the pioneers in forming our organiza- 
 tions in France are now out with the troops, and 
 officers with the troops are being brought in for 
 staff work as a part of your system of all-around 
 preparation. I might say that promotion awaits 
 those who have proven themselves fit to lead in 
 the stern test to come. However, I know you 
 are not thinking of promotion, but only, in a spirit 
 of soldierly service, how to give the best that is 
 in you to the cause. 
 
 To THE RAINBOW DIVISION, 
 MARCH 20, 1918. 
 
 While it was in training at home I saw a good 
 deal of the Rainbow Division. Then, one day, 
 it was gone to France, where it disappeared 
 behind that curtain of military secrecy which 
 must be drawn unless we choose to sacrifice the 
 lives of our men for the sake of publicity. The 
 enemy's elaborate intelligence system seeks at 
 any cost to learn the strength, the preparedness, 
 and the character of our troops. If we were to 
 announce the identity of each unit that comes to 
 France, then we would fully inform him of the 
 [332]
 
 EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE 
 
 number and the nature of our forces. Published 
 details about any division are most useful to 
 expert military intelligence officers in determin- 
 ing the state of the division's training and the 
 probable assignment of the division to any 
 section. Our own intelligence service assures 
 us that the complete knowledge of our army in 
 France which some assume to exist does not 
 exist. At least, we make our adversary work for 
 his information and spare no pains to keep him 
 as confused as possible. 
 
 But now it is safe to mention certain divisions 
 which were first to arrive in France and have 
 already been in the line. This includes the 
 Rainbow Division, famous because it is repre- 
 sentative of all parts of the United States. As 
 a military unit, however, it is to be judged only 
 by its efficiency against the enemy, regardless of 
 its origin. At the same time, this division 
 should find in its nation-wide character an inspir- 
 ation to esprit de corps and to general excellence. 
 It should be conscious of its mission as a symbol 
 of national unity. 
 
 The men of Ohio I know as Ohioans, and I 
 am proud that they have been worthy of Ohio. 
 A citizen of another State represented in this 
 division will find himself equally at home in some 
 other group of this division, and the gauge of 
 this State's pride will be the discipline of that 
 group as soldiers, its conduct as men, its courage 
 and skill in the trenches. 
 
 [333]
 
 FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM 
 
 You may learn more than war in France; you 
 may learn lessons in patriotism from France, 
 whose unity and courage have been a bulwark 
 against that sinister force whose character you 
 are learning in the trenches. The Frenchman is, 
 first of all, a Frenchman, which stimulates rather 
 than weakens his pride in Brittany if he is a 
 Breton, or in Lorraine if he is a Lorrainer ; and 
 his loyalty and affection for his own town or vil- 
 lage, and his home. In very truth, he fights for 
 his family and his home when he fights for 
 France and civilization against the principle of 
 the ruthless conquest of peoples by other races 
 and culture. 
 
 You, too, will fight best and serve best by being 
 first of all Americans, with no diminution of 
 your loyalty to your State and your community. 
 Though you have come three or four or five 
 thousand miles to the battleground of France, 
 you are each fighting for your home, for your 
 family, for all that you value as men, and for 
 future generations in this conflict, whose influ- 
 ence no part of the world can resist and whose 
 result is the concern of every human being in 
 the world. With us at home the development of 
 a new national unity seems a vague process com- 
 pared to the concrete process you are undergoing. 
 You are uniting East, West, North, and South 
 in action. We aim to support you with all our 
 resources to make sure that you do not fight in 
 vain. 
 
 [334]
 
 EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE 
 
 I thought you marched well and drilled well 
 when I last saw you, but what I have seen of you 
 to-day gives me a new standard of comparison. 
 The mark of the thorough system of our army in 
 France is upon you. I feel you have all grown 
 to greater manhood, and that the steel of your 
 spirit now has the fighting edge. To your rela- 
 tives scattered over the States I send the message 
 that you are well led, and that you want for none 
 of the supplies and for no attention which safe- 
 guards your health. Your own communities 
 and the nation as a whole may be proud of your 
 good conduct and clean living, which go with 
 clean, hard fighting, and with the principles for 
 which you fight 
 
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