US Presidency
1925

That uniform, when he presided over the committees on military preparation, could hardly have been construed as meaning anything other than that its wearer realized what was ahead and was willing to force some part of that realization on others. I suppose if we were to pick any two men out of that gathering, to be set down as something other than politicians, Washington and sturdy old John Adams would be well toward the top in the polling. Though they approached the matter from utterly different angles, they were both led by the sagacity of great politicians to the same conclusion. To both, the crisis was essentially national. A nation must be created to deal with it. The army before Boston must be taken over by the Congress as a national army. There must be a Commander in Chief, supreme in the military field. All this we look back upon as illumined statesmanship. But statesmanship is nothing more than good, sound politics, tested and proved.