The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1903-05-27

know, every one of us who has ever
you could give any weapon. or any uni
form, and train him as much as you
wanted to, and after it was all over he
wasn't worth anything because he didn't
have the stuff in him. And if the stuff
isn't in him you can't get it out of him
isn't that so?
at is the man behind the gun that
counts in battle. The battle is finally
Notwithstanding accidents and special
exceptions the war is finally won by the
side which has as its average soldier the
knows how to obey and how to act when
he hasn't a chance to get ORDERS the
man who has it in him to wrest victory
out of defeat, and who has it in him to
accept each obstacle simply as a spur to
fresh and greater effort. If we have that
type we will win if we have not got that
type we will lose.
$50 it is in citizenship. All that the
wisest law can do, all that the best adj
ministration of the law can do is to give
each man the chance u~der favorable
conditions to do the best he can for him
sci. Bad laws. corrupt and evil admin
istration of the laws can spoil that
chance readily enough. But after we
have gotten all that can be given by the
best laws, we then come down to the
fact that the main thing-perseveranc
resolution and hardihood-a capacity to
dare and to endure-a capacity of self
command and self reliance-a capacity
to carry to the end whatever he has
started out to do. That these qualities
must be the decisive factors in success in
civil life exactly as they are the decisive
factors in military life. There isn't any
royal road to success in life anywhere.
Not as soldier and not as a private cit
izen.
"You all saw in the great war, just as
we did, my comrades over there, men who
were very anxious to be heroes if they
didn't have to go through the prelimi-
nary trouble. Do you not recollect? l
recollect in my own regiment there was
young fellow who joined us, red hot
with enthusiasm he wanted to mount
horse and brandish a sword and fight
Spaniards. After three days he came to
me and said: Colonel, l have come
down here to fight for my country, and
l have been treated like a serf. They
have put me to burying a dead horse.
At that moment his captain came up.
His captain was a large, unsympathetic
man from New Mexico. His captain ex-
planned that he should 60 right on and
bury that dead horse and that we would
when the chance came.
CAS- a rule the man that made good
soldier was the man that did his duty
as it came up the man who dug kitchen
sinks when it was time to dig them /;
who policed the camp, who did what
ever work there was that he was set to
do. That man was usually the type of
man upon whom you could depend
when the crisis of the fight came to stay
put
$50 it is in citizenship. There isn't
any royal road to success in government
or in private life. We need to exercise
not genius, not brilliancy, but the hum
drum work-a-day qualities that wear
best in actual life now and have worn
best since history began.
"We need strong bodies, and even
more than that we need strong minds !;
and more than either body or mind
we need character; character into
which many elements enter, but three
especially. Honesty first, courage and
hardihood next, and finally the saving
grace of common sense and believe in
your future; l believe in the future
of this entire country, because l believe
that the average American of today, as
his father had before him, and as his
sons, his children will have after him, has
just those three qualities-the quality of
decency, the quality of courage and the
quality of sane and healthy common
sense. Good bye, and good luck"