October 1, 1918
The men who paid with their bodies for their souls' desire
(Theodore Roosevelt)
In a great war for the right the one great debt owed by the nation is that to the men who go to the front and pay with their bodies for the faith that is in them. At the front there are of course of necessity a few men who, from the nature of the case, are not in positions of great danger - as regards the staff and the high command, the burden of crushing responsibility borne by such men outweighs clanger. But as a rule the men who do the great work for the nation are the men who, for a money payment infinitely less than what they would earn in civil life, face terrible risk and endure indescribable hardship and fatigue and misery at the front These men include the air fighters, who run the greatest risk of all; and the fighting foot-sluggers, the infantry, - the "doughboys," - and the marines, and the machine-gun men, who take the terrible punishment when the tremendous thrusts are made; and the engineers and the men in the tanks and the men with the field-guns and the heavier guns, and the men who manage the gas - the work of all of whom is absolutely indispensable and who do it in hourly peril of their lives; and the doctors and stretcher-bearers who suffer the same dangers as the men to whom they bring succor; and the men who bring up the munition-trains - in short, all who under fire join in the exhausting and perilous labor which brings victory. These are the real heroes. These are the men who do the one great and indispensable task which entitles them forever to be honored by all true Americans.
The rest of us behind the lines are merely supplementing their work. I have no patience with the well-meaning, silly persons who now and then announce that "saving will win the war" or that "money will win the war" or that "food will win the war." Let these good persons speak the truth and say that Liberty Bonds and Thrift Savings Stamps and the production of food and munitions and the practice of economy and the work done through organizations like the Red Cross will all help to win the war and are indispensable. But the war will be won by the fighting men at the front! Every other activity in this nation is merely auxiliary to theirs.
From General Pershing down the men of our army overseas have won for themselves deathless fame and have reflected the highest honor upon this nation. I know personally of division, brigade, and regimental commanders who, in addition to high valor, have shown an efficiency which puts them on a level with the very best men of their rank in any service in the world - I do not mention their names, merely because to do so would probably do an injustice to others equally good about whom I do not know. As for the battalion and company and platoon officers and non-commissioned officers and rank and file, I do not think it is untruthful or exaggerated to say that on the whole when our troops have finished their training they stand a little above the average of any other army in the world to-day. The seven or eight American divisions who did the murderous fighting in July and August during Foch's great counter-offensive established a record such as only the few very finest troops of any other army could equal, and which could not be surpassed. Probably in our own history nothing has ever quite come up to it, save in certain actions during the Civil War. The endurance, the valor, the efficiency, the fighting edge of these men could not be surpassed. Their losses correspond to their achievements. In the infantry regiment in which two of my sons served, the colonel, the lieutenant-colonel, the three majors, and almost all the captains and lieutenants were killed or wounded; and the loss was proportionally almost as great among the enlisted men.) In addition to these divisions there were two or three times as any other divisions, across the seas or about to cross the seas, who were composed of as fine fighting material, and who by this time are probably as efficient, but who had not at that period been sufficiently trained to do the heaviest assault work. But they have been trained now; Pershing's army began its great thrust, as a separate army, about a year and a half after we entered the war.
The noted French sociologist Gustave Le Bon writes me:
'My compatriots have discovered an America of which they had no idea. In addition to the heroism of her soldiers she has revealed aptitudes for scientific method and organization, the fruits of her education, which have awakened our admiration. Harbors, railroads, factories rise as if by magic. Every one asks how such men were trained and instructed.'
Our men include Americans from every section of the country and from every walk of life. The son of the railroad president and the son of the brakeman, the college graduate and the man who left a plough-tail at the end of the furrow, or threw down his pick and shovel or his ax and saw, all stand on the same plane, and do the same work and face and meet the same dangers. The son of the wealthy man who has been reared softly, and the son of the man who has every day eaten his bread in the sweat of his brow, look death in the eyes with the same stern courage and do their hard grinding work with the same grim efficiency. In the intervals of work they are light-hearted and they enjoy themselves greatly, snatching the pleasures with an added zest, because peril is so very near. Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, men of old native American stock, and men whose parents were born abroad or who themselves were born abroad - no distinction whatever can be made among them as they do their allotted tasks.
The moods in which they have accomplished these tasks vary as widely as the tasks themselves. But the work is well done, whether inspired by matter-of-fact acceptance of the fact that the United States is at war and that therefore it is up to the men of fighting age to do the fighting men's job; or by the exalted idealism of the young Galahad whose eyes are open to the shining visions shrouded from duller sight - and the young Galahads of this great war when they have found the grail have too often filled it with their own hearts' blood.
Some have been driven by a sense of duty to do the best there was in them in a task for which they have no natural desire. Others eagerly welcome the chance to sweep straight as a falcon at the quarry which may be death; and these may come back with broken wings; or they may never come back, and word may be brought to the women who weep that they must walk henceforth in the shadow. But all alike have done their duty and more than their duty. And the first instalment of payment on this debt should be paid by the government to the wives and children and dependent mothers left by the man who goes to the front. The wife who cheers him when he goes, and the children whom he leaves behind when he goes, should be amply provided for as a matter of mere justice. I believe that the state should in some way endow motherhood anyhow; but there can be no question of our duty toward the mother of the children whose father has left her and them to go to war.
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There has been in the past in this country far too much of that gross materialism which in the end, eats like an acid into all the finer qualities of our souls.
The war came - our gross ideals were shattered and the scales fell from our eyes, and we saw things as they really were. Suddenly in the awful presence of death we grew to understand the true values of life. We realized that only those men were fit to live who were not afraid to die; that although death was a terrible thing, yet that there were other things that were more terrible, other things that made life not worth living. An the finest of our young men, all those high of soul, responded eagerly to the call to arms.
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Let us introduce into the work of peace something of the spirit that they have introduced into the work of war. When these men come home, or at least when those of them who escape death come home, I believe that they will demand, and I know that they ought to demand, a juster type of life, socially and industrially, in this country.
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Most of our captains of finance are doing with all their energy necessary governmental work without any financial reward for themselves. I honor these men, I honor their sons who have gone to the war. But I have scant patience with the other men who treat the war merely as a chance for profit; and I have least patience with the rich men who keep their sons at home. I will not excuse the poor man from going to war; but I would mate it obligatory on the man who has much. As for the profiteer, if I could get at him I would like to put him to digging the front trenches.
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I believe that when this war is over we should prepare for our self-defense against other nations, and I believe that we should prepare for our own inner development. And in order to meet both needs, I believe in the principle of universal service. Of this military service is but a part. It is a vital part, and under no circumstances can we neglect it. But it is only a part. Universal suffrage can be justified only by universal service, service in peace and service in war. The man who will not render this service has no right to the vote. If he won't fight for the country in war and do his duty by the country in peace, we ought not to permit him to vote in the country. The conscientious objector who won't serve as a soldier or won't pay his taxes has no place in a republic like ours, and should be expelled from it, for no man who won't pull his weight in the boat has a right in the boat. The Society of Friends have come forward in this war just as gallantly as they came forward in the Civil War, and all true believers in peace will do well to follow their example.
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During the first year of the war we would have been absolutely helpless, and during the first year and a half almost helpless, against our antagonists if we had not been protected by the armies and navies of our allies. In other words, while we were hardening our unprepared and helpless strength, and making it ready, we were saved from the strength and fury of our enemy only by the strength and valor of our allies. We now have universal military service. If four years ago we had had universal military training, so that the service would have been immediately efficient when called for, the war would have been over within ninety days from the time we entered it, and infinite bloodshed and treasure would have been spared. Next time we may not have allies to protect us!
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I am not advocating Prussian militarism. I am advocating the kind of democratic preparedness which Switzerland has developed to her own great advantage socially and economically, and with the result of keeping war out of her borders. Let us profit by our own experience of the last year. Our training-camps have been universities of applied Americanism. For every young man between the ages of eighteen and twenty to have six months in such a camp, which would include, of course, some field service, would be of incalculable benefit to him, and of like benefit to the nation. It would teach him self-reliance, self-respect, mutuality of respect between himself and others, the power to command and the power to obey; it would teach him habits of cleanliness and order and the power of co-operation, and above all, devotion to the flag, the ideal of country. It would make him a soldier immediately fit for defensive work, and readily to be turned into a soldier fit for offensive work if, as in the present war, offense prove the only method of real defense. Every such man, after his experience in the camp, would tend to be a better citizen and would tend to do his own work for himself and his family better and with more efficient result. His experience would help him in material matters and at the same time would teach him to put certain great spiritual ideals in the foremost place.
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The teaching in the schools should be only in English; in this country there is room for but one flag and for but one language.
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A peculiarly important branch of it at the present time ought to be the training of the disabled and the crippled returning soldiers, so that they may become, not objects of charity, but self-supporting citizens. We should develop the water-powers under the government, keeping ownership in the public, and preventing the pollution of interstate streams. We should be at one to take thought for the soldiers when they return; to develop national employment agencies for the redistribution of men after the war. We should enter on a course of taxation, purchase, and development of land so as to give to the returned soldier who is fit for it the chance to do the most vital of all works, to till the soil on the farm which he himself owns.
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We must prepare our shipping for times of peace, and prepare to deal with the foreign-markets situation.
Fonte:
http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/treditorials.html
Mais:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxwrrqPyqsnIVXRRQ09BUzRpclk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixi3fwGvLsw
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/07/31/world-war-not-so-great-war.html
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-troubling-legacy-of-world-war-i
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/centennial_of_a_disaster.html
