It may cause our civilization to fall unless we act quickly to counteract it, unless we realize that human character is more important than efficiency, that education consists of more than the mere accumulation of knowledge. But the other great danger is more easily recognized, because it has occurred again and again through history. It is the ember of war, fanned by every new military weapon, flaming today as it has never flamed before. Western nations are again at war, a war likely to be more prostrating than any in the past, a war in which the White race is bound to lose, and the others bound to gain, a war which may easily lead our civilization through more Dark Ages if it survives at all. In this war, aviation is as important a factor as it has been a cause - a cause due to its effect on the balance of strength between nations, a factor because of the destruction and death it hurls on earth and sea.
Air power is new to all our countries.
If only there were some way to measure the changing character of men, some yardstick to reapportion influence among the nations, some way to demonstrate in peace the strength of arms in war. But with all of its dimensions, its clocks, and weights, and figures, science fails us when we ask a measure for the rights of men. Those intangible qualities of character, such as courage, faith, and skill, evade all systems, slip through the bars of every cage. They can be recognized, but not measured. They lie more in a glance between two men than in any formula or mathematics.