We are hunting hornets all over the farm and letting the nest alone. None of us know how to go to the nest and crush it; and yet I despair of hunting for hornets all over the sea when I know where the nest is and know that the nest is breeding hornets as fast as I can find them. I am willing for my part, and I know you are willing because I know the stuff you are made of—I am willing to sacrifice half the navy Great Britain and we together have to crush out that nest, because if we crush it the war is won. I have come here to say that I do not care where it comes from, I do not care whether it comes from the youngest officer or the oldest, but I want the officers of this navy to have the distinction of saying how this war is going to be won. The Secretary of the Navy and I have just been talking over plans for putting the planning machinery of the Navy at the disposal of the brains of the Navy and not stopping to ask what rank those brains have, because, as I have said before and want to repeat, so far as experience in this kind of war is concerned we are all of the same rank. I am not saying that I do not expect the admirals to tell us what to do, but I am saying that I want the youngest and most modest youngster in the service to tell us what we ought to do if he knows what it is. Now I am willing to make any sacrifice for that. I mean any sacrifice of time or anything else. I am ready to put myself at the disposal of any officer in the Navy who thinks he knows how to run this war. I will not undertake to tell you whether he does or not, because I know that I do not, but I will undertake to put him in communication with those who can find out whether his idea will work or not. I have the authority to do that and I will do it with the greatest pleasure.
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We have got to throw tradition to the wind. Now, as I have said, gentlemen, I take it for granted that nothing that I say here will be repeated and therefore I am going to say this: Every time we have suggested anything to the British Admiralty the reply has come back that virtually amounted to this, that it had never been done that way, and I felt like saying: "Well, nothing was ever done so systematically as nothing is being done now." Therefore I should like to see something unusual happen, something that was never done before; and inasmuch as the things that are being done to you were never done before, don't you think it is worth while to try something that was never done before against those who are doing them to you. There is no other way to win, and the whole principle of this war is the kind of thing that ought to hearten and stimulate America. America has always boasted that she could find men to do anything. She is the prize amateur nation of the world. Germany is the prize professional nation of the world. Now when it comes to doing new things and doing them well, I will back the amateur against the professional every time, because the professional does it out of the book and the amateur does it with his eyes open upon a new world and with a new set of circumstances. He knows so little about it that he is fool enough to try to do the right thing. The men that do not know the danger are the rashest men, and I have several times ventured to make this suggestion to the men about me in both arms of the service. Please leave out of your vocabulary altogether the word "prudent." Do not stop to think about what is prudent for a moment. Do the thing that is audacious to the utmost point of risk and daring, because that is exactly the thing that the other side does not understand, and you will win by the audacity of method when you cannot win by circumspection and prudence. I think that there are willing ears to hear this in the American Navy and the American Army because that is the kind of folk we are. We get tired of the old ways and covet the new ones.
So, gentlemen, besides coming down here to give you my personal greeting and to say how absolutely I rely on you and believe in you, I have come down here to say also that I depend on you, depend on you for brains as well as training and courage and discipline.
When Marshal Joffre visited the President in the spring of 1917, he was surprised, as he afterward said to Secretary Daniels, "to find that President Wilson had such a perfect mastery of the military situation. He had expected to meet a scholar, a statesman, and an idealist; he had not expected to meet a practical strategist fully conversant with all the military movements.
"In answer to my question as to whether it would be feasible to send in advance of his army the general who was to command American troops in France, the President said at once that it could be arranged."
The President and Marshal Joffre considered together a number of technical military problems. General Joffre gave the President his expert opinion as to what should be done in every instance and was surprised at the promptness with which in each case the President said: "It shall be done."
A little incident at the White House at the luncheon given by the President to the members of the Democratic National Committee throws light upon the fighting qualities of the man. He asked Mr. Angus W. McLean, a warm and devoted friend from North Carolina, who was seated near him at the table, what the Scots down in North Carolina were saying about the war. Mr. McLean replied he could best answer the question by repeating what a friend of the President's father and an ardent admirer of the President had said about the President's attitude a few days previous. "I am afraid our President is not a true Scot, he doesn't show the fighting spirit characteristic of the Scots." The President promptly replied: "You tell our Scotch friend, McLean, that he does not accurately interpret the real Scottish character. If he did, he would understand my attitude. The Scotsman is slow to begin to fight but when once he begins he never knows when to quit."
Two capital policies which contributed enormously to the winning of the war received their impulse from Woodrow Wilson—the unification of command of the Allied armies on the western front and the attack of submarines at their base in the North Sea. On November 18, 1918, Colonel House let it be known in London that he had received a cable from President Wilson stating emphatically that the United States Government considered unity of plan and control between the Allies and the United States to be essential in order to win the war and achieve a just and lasting peace.
It was Woodrow Wilson, a civilian, who advised, urged, and insisted that a mine barrage be laid across the North Sea to check German submarine activities at their source. Naval experts pronounced the plan impossible: it would take too long to lay the barrage, and, when laid, it would not hold. A great storm would sweep it away. But the President insisted that the thing could be done, and that nothing else could check the submarine devastation amounting by July, 1917, to 600,000 tons a month of destroyed shipping. The President's audacity and persistence prevailed, and it is not too much to say that his plan ended the submarine menace.