It is international justice that we
seek, not domestic safety merely.
"So far as our domestic affairs are concerned the problem of our return
to peace is a problem of economic and industrial readjustment. That
problem is less serious for us than it may turn out to be for the
nations which have suffered the disarrangements and the losses of war
longer than we. Our people, moreover, do not wait to be coached and led.
They know their own business, are quick and resourceful at every
readjustment, definite in purpose and self-reliant in action. Any
leading strings we might seek to put them in would speedily become
hopelessly tangled because they would pay no attention to them and go
their own way. All that we can do as their legislative and executive
servants is to mediate the process of change here, there and elsewhere
as we may. I have heard much counsel as to the plans that should be
formed and personally conducted to a happy consummation, but from no
quarter have I seen any general scheme of reconstruction emerge which I
thought it likely we could force our spirited businessmen and
self-reliant laborers to accept with due pliancy and obedience.
"While the war lasted we set up many agencies by which to direct the
industries of the country in the services it was necessary for them to
render, by which to make sure of an abundant supply of the materials
needed, by which to check undertakings that could for the time be
dispensed with and stimulate those that were most serviceable in war, by
which to gain for the purchasing departments of the government a certain
control over the prices of essential articles and materials, by which to
restrain trade with alien enemies, make the most of the available
shipping and systematize financial transactions, both public and
private, so that there would be no unnecessary conflict or confusion--by
which, in short, to put every material energy of the country in harness
to draw the common load and make of us one team in accomplishment of a
great task.
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