rgot, but he'll remember with advantages
what feats he did that day!"

What we all thank God for with deepest gratitude is that our men went
in force into the line of battle just at the critical moment when the
whole fate of the world seemed to hang in the balance and threw their
fresh strength into the ranks of freedom in time to turn the whole tide
and sweep of the fateful struggle--turn it once for all, so that
thenceforth it was back, back, back for their enemies, always back,
never again forward! After that it was only a scant four months before
the commanders of the Central Empires knew themselves beaten; and now
their very empires are in liquidation!

And through it all, how fine the spirit of the nation was. What unity
of purpose, what untiring zeal! What elevation of purpose ran through
all its splendid display of strength and untiring accomplishment. I
have said that those of us who stayed at home to do the work of
organization and supply will always wish that we had been with the men
whom we sustained by our labor; but we can never be ashamed. It has
been an inspiring thing to be here in the midst of fine men who had
turned aside from every private interest of their own and devoted the
whole of their trained capacity to the tasks that supplied the sinews
of the whole great undertaking! The patriotism, the unselfishness, the
thorough-going devotion and distinguished capacity that marked their
toilsome labors day after day, month after month, have made them fit
mates and comrades of the men in the trenches and on the sea. And not
the men here in Washington only. They have but directed the vast
achievement. Throughout innumerable factories, upon innumerable farms,
in the depths of coal mines and iron mines and copper mines, wherever
the stuffs of industry were to be obtained and prepared, in the
shipyards, on the railways, at the docks, on the sea, in every labor
that was needed to sustain the battlelines, men have vied with each
other to do their part and do it well. They can look any man-at-arms
in the face and say, "We also strove to win and gave the best that was
in us to make our fleets and armies sure of their triumph!"

And what shall we say of the women--of their instant intelligence,
quickening every task that they touched; their capacity for
organization and cooeperation, which gave their action discipline and
enacted the effectiveness of everything they attempted; their aptitude
at tasks