WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?[3]
I am going to try to select three or four general fields in which we Americans have had a chance to learn lessons of permanent value as the result of our war experience. Then I shall try to apply these to what seems to me the most typical specimen of the best in American life, a great American University; and finally, I shall try to apply them to the situation which faces you young men and women of the graduating class as you step out to take your places in the world. And in so doing I'm going to look deliberately on the bright side. There are troubles enough in the world to worry and depress us, and we have to face them, but let us face them with a confidence that is justified in the light of the examples of man's endurance, of his courage, of his possibilities of accomplishment, which it has been our privilege to witness within the lifetime of this academic generation.
What have we learned? In the first place, we have learned that as a nation we possess the power to see a big job through, and we possess it because we have the qualities of youth—enthusiasm, learning capacity, energy, elasticity, initiative—the pioneering spirit. We have the shortcomings of youth also—impatience, superficiality, improvidence, cock-sureness—but when the test came we managed to strengthen our virtues and to a large extent to overcome our failings.
The various stocks that have emigrated to our shores have come as successive waves of pioneers, of men to whom new and unfamiliar conditions serve as an incentive rather than a discouragement, and it is the persistence of this pioneering spirit, essentially a youthful spirit, which has had much to do with our success.
What single group made the finest impression in the great war? I think we will agree that it was the American doughboy. As one saw him in France he was absolutely youth incarnate, and he is a cross section of our complex population. If anyone still doubts that all of these stocks, the Teutonic included, have been willing to do their share even at the risk or cost of life, let him read any of the lists of battle casualties or the list of honors for heroic conduct and he will have the best kind of proof. Let us remember in this connection that nearly one-fourth of our drafted men couldn't speak and write English adequately when they entered the Army. In spite of a number of unsightly pieces of slag, which are either floating on the surface or have sunk to the bottom, the great national melting pot has evidently done its work well.
Our heterogeneous immigration, our enormous national resources, which have tempted us to live on capital rather than on interest, our prosperity, have made us neither fat nor flabby. We now know that as a people we don't really care about money or the money game if we are shown some other game better worth playing; that selfishness and luxury drop away as if by magic when they interfere with the keener satisfactions of giving one's self. Even for us stay-at-homes, the Liberty Loan people, Mr. Hoover, the Red Cross and other welfare workers were on hand to show us how to play the better game. I don't need to remind you of the details, nor that in spite of human grumbling and talk of sacrifice, in the bottom of our hearts we all enjoyed the process.
In the second place, we have learned that to see the job through we need all of the nation, men and women, not merely the profession of arms and the mysterious powers of finance—we need all of everyone. We need them not as individuals but as a team, and we have learned that we can develop team play.
Our easiest jobs were the raising of our men and our money; our hardest, the moulding of the whole into an organic unity. Just as our young men by the millions took their place in the line when the bugle blew, older men by the tens of thousands left their private affairs to get along as best they might, and regardless of political affiliations or personal convenience, found place for themselves in the administrative army. And they were ably seconded by the women. Hundreds of men in key positions have gladly borne witness to the share which their secretaries and their other women associates played in bringing about the needed results.
The first days of the war were days of whirling confusion, colored by glowing forecasts. Then followed months of experimentation, by trial and error, of hope deferred by long delays, of well meant but none the less embarrassing internal rivalries, of sudden spurts. Later came the days of last autumn, when the whole great machine was throbbing rhythmically and steadily, with only a minor "knock" here and there—a sure indication to the watchful enemy, who had had more than a taste of what the machine could produce, that the game was up; and finally the eleventh of November and the order to reverse the engines.