This is a young nation. It began with the great gods of Life, Liberty,
and the Pursuit of Happiness. And it fought a good fight in the War of
Independence for Freedom and Equality. Then came the lesser gods of
material success. They broke the nation apart. But it survived. Since
the Civil War we have grown rich and fat, flaccid and spineless. We are
like a great, careless boy with a rich father; our crops and material
resources symbolize the rich father who is able to pay for all his son's
foolishness. And so the youth has never stopped to think. But underneath
that careless exterior there are muscle and character. For what is the
history of Youth? If the youth is to become a real man he cannot be
curbed to the extent of forgetting courage in an excess of caution. And
the rush of our youth to the service showed this.


THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH

An Englishman once writing of the tendency of the elders to blot out all
the fire of youth with restrictive legislation, said, "It is a fearful
responsibility to be young, and none can bear it like their elders." How
can a youth whose blood is warm within sit like his grandsire carved in
alabaster? He cannot and he will not, and that is the salvation of the
race. It is the old story of the stag in the herd. He will see no other
usurp his rights until he is too old to have any.

Let me tell you something of the history of these attempts by the elders
to curb the everlasting spirit of youth. At one time they would have
eliminated all the sports. But we didn't let croquet become the national
game! You ask what this nation of ours will become, and in reply I ask
you what will you make of your boys?