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

is
going to have a conception of a social America that we have not had.
This war is a leveling force. When we adopted the draft, under the
leadership of that man over there (Senator Chamberlain), we did a 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 | | | +--------------------------------------------------------+
* * * * *

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