pponent first, he will crush you. It is the
discipline of a nation ruled by its General Staff, assuming war as the
normal condition of peoples, and attempting with remorseless logic to
extend its operations to the destruction of freedom everywhere. It can
only be met by the discipline of a people who use their own government
for worthy ends, who preserve individuality and mobility in society and
respect the rights of others, who follow the dictates of humanity and
fair play, the principles of give and take. The Prussian discipline is
the discipline of Thor, the War God, against the discipline of the White
Christ.

Pioneer democracy has had to learn lessons by experience: the lesson
that government on principles of free democracy can accomplish many
things which the men of the middle of the nineteenth century did not
realize were even possible. They have had to sacrifice something of
their passion for individual unrestraint; they have had to learn that
the specially trained man, the man fitted for his calling by education
and experience, whether in the field of science or of industry, has a
place in government; that the rule of the people is effective and
enduring only as it incorporates the trained specialist into the
organization of that government, whether as umpire between contending
interests or as the efficient instrument in the hands of democracy.

Organized democracy after the era of free land has learned that popular
government to be successful must not only be legitimately the choice of
the whole people; that the offices of that government must not only be
open to all, but that in the fierce struggle of nations in the field of
economic competition and in the field of war, the salvation and
perpetuity of the republic depend upon recognition of the fact that
specialization of the organs of the government, the choice of the fit
and the capable for office, is quite as important as the extension of
popular control. When we lost our free lands and our isolation from the
Old World, we lost our immunity from the results of mistakes, of waste,
of inefficiency, and of inexperience in our government.

But in the present day we are also learning another lesson which was
better known to the pioneers than to their immediate successors. We are
learning that the distinction arising from devotion to the interests of
the commonwealth is a higher distinction than mere success in economic
competition. America is now awarding lau