CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 33 



He may have a freedom to speak and to worship and to exercise his 

 judgment over the affairs of the Nation. And yet he is the most neg- 

 lected of our resources because he does not know how rich he is, 

 how rich beyond all other men he is. Not rich in money I do 

 not speak of that but rich in the endowment of powers and possi- 

 bilities no other man ever was given. 



Twenty-five per cent of the 1,600,000 men between 21 and 31 years 

 of age who were first drafted into our Army could not read nor write 

 our language, and tens of thousands could not speak it nor under- 

 stand it. To them the daily paper telling what Von Hindenberg was 

 doing was a blur. To them the appeals of Hoover came by word of 

 mouth, if at all. To them the messages of their commander in chief 

 were as so much blank paper. To them the word of mother or sweet- 

 heart came filtering in through other eyes that had to read their 

 letters. 



Now this is wrong. There is something lacking in the sense of a 

 society that would permit it in a land of public schools that assumes 

 leadership in the world. 



Here is raw material truly, of the most important kind and the 

 greatest possibility for good as well as for ill. 



Save ! Save ! Save ! This has been the mandate for the past two 

 years. It is a word with which this report is replete. But we have 

 been talking of food and land and oil while the boys and young men 

 that are about us who carry the fortune of the democracy in their 

 hands are without a primary knowledge of our institutions, our his- 

 tory, our wars and what we have fought for, our men and what they 

 have stood for, our country and what its place in the world is. 



The marvelous force of public opinion and the rare absorbing 

 quality of the American mind never was shown more clearly than 

 by the fact that out of these men came a loyalty and a stern devotion 

 to America when the day of test came. Had Germany known what 

 we know now, it would have been beyond her to believe that America 

 could draft an army to adventure into war in Europe. There should 

 not be a man who was in our Army or our Navy who has the ambi- 

 tion for an education who should not be given that opportunity in- 

 deed, induced to take it not merely out of appreciation but out of the 

 greater value to the Nation that he would be if the tools of life were 

 put into his hand. There is no word to say upon this theme of 

 Americanization that has not been said, and Congress, it is now 

 hoped, will believe those figures which, when presented nearly two 

 years ago, were flouted as untrue. The Nation is humiliated at its 

 own indifference, and action must be the result. 



To save and to develop, I have said, were equally the expression / 

 of a true conservation. What is true as to material things is true y 



