Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-12-10

ming to make war upon it's neighbors
and so seize the continent for itself
what more would have been done to
make our resources available for such
an adventure This is, perhaps, the
hardest test to which the problem OF
our internal development could be put
Yet the answer must be that very little
more could have been done or would
have been done by a people necessa rily
doing so much.
| But this war is not to be won by the
measuring Of resources, for if wars
were to be so won China possibly
would be our only rival. The extent
u which a people can cooperate
marks the point of civilization they
have reached. Now, the greatest out
s+a nding fact of the past year, as clear
/ ~ shown in the work of this DEPART
ment alone, is that under the chrystal-
! lying influence of common danger
and under the inspiring impulse Of a
common purpose,
Men are already thinking of the
greater America that they believe to be
coming when the war is done. We are
IN this war as the trustees of social
and political ideals, most of them un-
FORMED, even embryonic. and these we
hope TO realize through the strength OF
the nation. Our nationalism, intense
yirile. and Of the fighting kind. is a
part Of the machinery through which
we are working to make all men our
debtors. Our national purpose is to
transmute days of dreary work into
Happier lives-for ourselves first and
Tor all others in their time This is
the large view, the idealistic view, if
you please, of Americas mission. 1t is
! the subconscious philosophy of all of
our history--our wars, our public
School system. our conservation
schemes, our enterprise.
This greater America is not to be
/ the filmy product of a nations fancy
the day dream Of a monumental ma
! tional ego. 1t is to be as substantial
as hard thought and hard work can
make it, thing of good roads, ships
we'll organized industry, regulated riy-
ers put to use. and schools and schools
and schools, and laboratories and more
laboratories, War has taught Eng
idnd and France much. one thing per-
! hapS above all others, how all impor-
! tant i'll this day is the man who has the
new kind of savoir faire If we are tic
meet the full rivalry of the world, we
must rest chance for success upon our
ability to produce men who in char
acter, in trained capacities. and in
radioactive imagination will outmatch
those whom they are to meet.
| This new America, as tho old. will
/ contribute to the world raw products
with most generous hand. But the ul-
! innate resource of the Nation is not
| that which lies within the ground but
! that which vibrates in mans brain
Therefore out of the struggle and tor
ture that we shall pass through. and
the reverses and triumph that we shall
! meet. there should evolve the concep-
! ton of America as the center of the
worlds thought, an America that will
give that leadership and direction tC
the scientific. literary, and socia1
thought Of the world that we pride
| ourselves we have recently given to its
poHucal thought Our status in this
war gives us place of moral as
cendancy from which if we are grea,
enough to be humble we can become
real masters of men, conquerors of the
invisible kingdom Of mans mind"