The Career of Leonard Wood

Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. Obvious spelling errors have been corrected but inventive spelling is left unchanged. Apparently conflicting spelling is not resolved, as in Gouraud and Gourand .
LEONARD WOOD
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1920
Copyright 1919 by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America
TO GENERAL LEONARD WOOD By Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Your vision keen, unerring when the blind, Who could not see, turned, groping, from the light. Your sentient knowledge of the wise and right Have won to-day the freedom of mankind. Honor to whom the honor be assigned! Mightier in exile than the men whose might Is of the sword alone, and not of sight. You march beside the victor host aligned. Had not your spirit soared, our ardent youth Had faltered leaderless; their eager feet Attuned to effort for the valiant truth Through your command rushed swiftly to compete To hold on high the torch of Liberty-- Great-visioned Soul, yours is the victory! November 11, 1918 From Service and Sacrifice: Poems Copyright. 1915. 1916. 1917. 1918. 1919. by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the publishers.
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In these days immediately following the Great War it is well upon beginning anything--even a modest biographical sketch--to consider a few elementals and distinguish them from the changing unessentials, to keep a sound basis of sense and not be led into hysteria, to look carefully again at the beams of our house and not be deceived into thinking that the plaster and the wall paper are the supports of the building.
Let us consider a few of these elementals that apply to the subject in hand as well as to the rest of the universe--elemental truths which do not change, which no Great War can alter in the least, which serve as guides at all times and will help at every doubtful point. They range themselves somewhat as follows: