FOREWORD
victory is simply a point in time. The Germans signed the armistice and began to go pell-mell toward the Rhine; they turned over a certain number of ships and railroad-cars and big guns, etc., and if that were to end the war, the end of it would be no end whatever. The question which still remains as a part of winning the war is gathering up the results of that war and extracting the real fruits. Of course, we should all be happy over the military victory, but the things in the victory that will make for our happiness and for the happiness of our children twenty years from now, and our grandchildren forty years from now, are the real winnings of the war; these are the things that will count most both for our enduring happiness and the profit of our children and grandchildren, the things that will make most for the truth and the freedom and liberty of mankind always; and these are the things that are to be won out of this war, not by our way of fighting, but by what we fought for, and what other people believe we fought for.
So, it was of the greatest importance that America in this war should be represented not merely as a strong man fully armed, but as a strong man fully armed and believing in the cause for which he was fighting. It was necessary to have somebody who understood why we were at war, and in saying that I speak not of a man who could comprehend merely the difficult international problems with regard to it, but the spirit that made us go into this war, and the things we were fighting for. Wars are sometimes fought for land, sometimes for dynastic aspiration, and sometimes for ideas and ideals. We were fighting for ideas and ideals, and somebody who realized that, and knew it, had to say it and keep on saying it until it was believed. That was a part of the function of the Committee on Public Information. Its body was in Washington, but its hands reached out into the capitals of neutral countries
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