The Washington herald., 1917-03-22
What Loss Of Morale Does
BY oRIsON SWEET MARDEN.

came into possession of the British
forces. The order said in part:
"The operations at Verdun from
October to December resulted in Sc
rious and regrettable reverses. Inca
pable officers must be ruthlessly re-
moved. The number of prisoners,
which was unusually large for Ger
man troops, some Of whom evidently
surrendered without serious resist
ance or without suffering heavy
losses, shows the morale of some of
the troops engaged was low"
One of the most dangerous things
in the life of man or of an army IS
the loss of morale. And nothing so
quickly affects morale as the thought
of failure.
Our deeds follow the scheme laid
down by our innermost thought as
accurately and as truthfully as the
locomotive follows the path indicated
by the steel rails. When our thoughts
turn towards failure, towards despair,
towards doubt, our acts will corre-
spond with our line of thinking.
The repeated failures of the Ger
man armies at Verdun to pierce the
allies lines turned the thoughts of
the soldiers towards failure, took
away lot of the stamina, the vigor
of initiative, which characterized the
fierceness of their first vigorous on
slaughts in France which swept
everything before them.
The German defeat at Verdun, the
depressing, discouraging influence Of
repeated failure, just as their early
victories illustrate the tremendous
tonic of success.
History is full of examples of the
miracles which have been wrought
under the stimulus and assurance
born of victory. The confidence and
assurance which Napoleon and his
army gained from a series of sue
cesses, their constant victorious
sweeping everything before them
wherever they went, doubled and
trebled their conquering power.
Generals and war strategists we'll
know what a tremendous influence
defeat or victory has upon the minds
of soldiers. They know that news of
crushing defeats in other parts of the
realm would result in a tremendous
loss of power and grit to the men
under their command They know
also that the tonic of the news of a
great victory would put new life, vim
and courage even into repeatedly de-
feated, tagged and disheartened SOL
diers. They know that such a slim
ulus would be equal to large num-
Der of extra troops. Consequently,
whenever possible, news of great de-
feats are carefully kept from the
soldiers, while news of victories, even
slight ones, are heralded all through
the armies.
The psychology of the tonic of
success and of the Encouragement
of failure shows us how immensely
elastic our mental power, our ability,
is, and how largely our executive eff
ficiency depends upon the psychology
of the situation. We see that an en-
couraging, inspiring, outlook, a hope
full mental attitude, quadruples our
ability, while black outlook, de-
pressed, discouraged mental attitude
cuts our ability down tremendously.
Now, knowing this psychological
law, we can to a very large extent
direct our fortunes by the control of
our mental attitude. When we have
failed in an undertaking, or when out
ward conditions are unfavorable we
can, by auto-suggestion, make the in
ward conditions wonderfully helpful
and inspiring, inspiriting.
The scientific fact that the mind
cannot contain at the same moment
opposite thoughts or emotions makes
US absolute masters of our fate. To
live upward or downward, to be a
success or a failure is simply mat
ter of choice. 1t all depends on the
suggestions we assimilate, the kind of
thought we harbor.
We can allow ourselves to be over
whelmed by encouragement, or we
can rise above.it just as we decide.
The strong man will not allow any
failure or misfortune to overwhelm
him. Instead of giving way to dis
couragement, he will say to himself,
Nov It Is right up to me to make
power to keep me down. No mat
good. l can't give way to discourage
ment, and show the white feather,
and keep my self-respect. l am able
to overcome this thing; it has no
ter whether I can see the way out
or not shall trust in God, keep 60
ing. and forge ahead. No matter
what opposes, l shall keep the rud-
Il L