Address by Honorable Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior at Conference of Regional Chairmen | Page 5

thing that was of the deepest and most far-reaching consequence. We did a thing that put the millionaire's boy and the lawyer's boy and the Cabinet official's boy alongside of the bootblack and the farmer and the street-car driver. It was the most essentially democratic thing that this country has ever done, and the spirit of the draft is going to continue after this war. Those boys are always going to look upon each other as brothers in arms, sympathetic toward each other.
Yesterday Mrs. Lane established a little hospital for convalescent soldiers, and as she was gathering up the 10 men she was taking into the hospital, one of the men from out West said: "Won't you take my chum? We left Colorado and went out to California together and took up a piece of land. When the war came on we went into the war together, and we fought together in France, and when we were making the charge together I saw him fall, struck by a bullet. I ran to pick him up and I got mine." Now, those two fellows are going to be tied together for life, and that is the relationship that will exist between all those men.
We men who are in politics to-day have seen our day. They are going to take charge of the politics of the United States. They are going to take charge of the social problems. They are going to insist upon industrial as well as social equality. We know that this does not necessarily mean that the Nation must be run by them because they were soldiers, not unless they have the quality that gives them foresight and good sense. But now we should prepare for them. We must realize that these men are all comrades, that they are going to work together, and we ought to spread this feeling throughout the entire country. The fighting men themselves ought to get the feeling that we who have been left behind are also in the service of the country, trying to do something large for the making of this Nation along real lines.
You know that there is a big man and a little man in each one of us; and the little man had his day. He was the selfish, egotistic, narrow, money-making fellow. Just as soon as this country went into the war the big man came out. The big man inside of us was challenged and he arose at once and responded. And so we found railroad presidents, and bankers, the automobile men, and the business men of the country coming down to Washington and saying we want our opportunity to help. It was not selfish; it was noble. And that spirit if carried out will make this country a new land in which these boys who come back will find they have been cared for; that helpfulness has come to take the place of indifference and cooperation to supplement individual initiative.
* * * * *
+--------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Typographical error corrected in text: | | Page 5: solider replaced with soldier | | | +--------------------------------------------------------+
* * * * *

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Address by Honorable Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior at Conference of Regional Chairmen of the Highway Transport Committee Council of National Defence, by US Government
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADDRESS BY FRANKLIN K. LANE ***
***** This file should be named 19759.txt or 19759.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/7/5/19759/
Produced by Jason Isbell, Bruce Albrecht, Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of