r fail. It must show a surplus after all payments
of wages, taxes, and returns to investors. Conscription can call once,
then all is over. Just requirements can be met again and again with
ever-increasing ability.

Justice and the general welfare go hand in hand. Government had to take
over our transportation interests in order to do such justice to them
that they could pay their employees and carry our merchandise. They have
been so restricted lest they do harm that they became unable to do good.
Their surplus was gone, and we New Englanders had to go without coal.
Seeing now more clearly than before the true interests of wage-earner,
investor, and the public, which is the consumer, we shall hereafter be
willing to pay the price and secure the benefits of justice to all these
cooerdinate interests.

We have met the economic problem of the returning service men. They have
been assimilated into our industrial life with little delay and with no
disturbance of existing conditions. The day of adversity has passed. The
American people met and overcame it. The day of prosperity has come. The
great question now is whether the American people can endure their
prosperity. I believe they can. The power to preserve America is in the
same hands to-day that it was when the German army was almost at the
gates of Paris. That power is with the people themselves; not one class,
but all classes; not one occupation, but all occupations; not one
citizen, but all citizens.

During the past five years we have heard many false prophets. Some were
honest, but unwise; some plain slackers; a very few were simply public
enemies. Had their counsels prevailed, America would have been
destroyed. In general they appealed to the lower impulses of the people,
for in their ignorance they believed the most powerful motive of this
Nation was a sodden selfishness. They said the war would never affect
us; we should confine ourselves to making money. They argued for peace
at any price. They opposed selective service. They sought to prevent
sending soldiers to Europe. They advocated peace by negotiation. They
were answered from beginning to end by the loyalty of the American
workingmen and the wisdom of their leaders. That loyalty and that wisdom
will not desert us now. The voices that would have lured us to
destruction were unheeded. All counsels of selfishness were unheeded,
and America responded with a spirit which united our people as never
before to t