our defense
impregnable, our triumph assured. Then we should have little or no
disorganization of our economic, industrial, and commercial systems
at home, no staggering war debts, no swollen fortunes to flout the
sacrifices of our soldiers, no excuse for sedition, no pitiable
slackerism, no outrage of treason. Envy and jealousy would have no soil
for their menacing development, and revolution would be without the
passion which engenders it.

A regret for the mistakes of yesterday must not, however, blind us to
the tasks of today. War never left such an aftermath. There has been
staggering loss of life and measureless wastage of materials. Nations
are still groping for return to stable ways. Discouraging indebtedness
confronts us like all the war-torn nations, and these obligations must
be provided for. No civilization can survive repudiation.

We can reduce the abnormal expenditures, and we will. We can strike at
war taxation, and we must. We must face the grim necessity, with full
knowledge that the task is to be solved, and we must proceed with a full
realization that no statute enacted by man can repeal the inexorable
laws of nature. Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of
government, and at the same time do for it too little. We contemplate
the immediate task of putting our public household in order. We need a
rigid and yet sane economy, combined with fiscal justice, and it must
be attended by individual prudence and thrift, which are so essential to
this trying hour and reassuring for the future.

The business world reflects the disturbance of war's reaction. Herein
flows the lifeblood of material existence. The economic mechanism is
intricate and its parts interdependent, and has suffered the shocks
and jars incident to abnormal demands, credit inflations, and price
upheavals. The normal balances have been impaired, the channels of
distribution have been clogged, the relations of labor and management
have been strained. We must seek the readjustment with care and courage.
Our people must give and take. Prices must reflect the receding fever
of war activities. Perhaps we never shall know the old levels of
wages again, because war invariably readjusts compensations, and the
necessaries of life will show their inseparable relationship, but we
must strive for normalcy to reach stability. All the penalties will not
be light, nor evenly distributed. There is no way of making them
so. There is no instan