of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 539

For twenty years after the close of the War of 1914-1918, it was customary
in some circles to refer to that conflict as the Great War. In the light of inter-
national developments since 1939, however, that -term has fallen increasingly
into disuse. There is a growing suspicion throughout the world that before
the present armed struggle shall have ended, it will have so dwarfed by com-
parison all previous conflicts that even the tremendous events of the four years
from 1914 to 1918 will constitute, if not a small, at least only a moderately
sized war.

Yet I would not suggest that the present international struggle should be
called the Great War. Even though it should continue and spread until battles
as extensive" and desperate as those which have lately taken place between the
Germans and the Russians were its common features—even though it should
finally engulf all the continents of the world in armed conflict—even though it
should persist until all nations on earth "were obliged to range themselves on
one or the other side—even then I should still maintain that this war could not
properly be called the Great War.

It should not be called the Great War for the reason that there is another
and greater war beside which any struggles of guns and planes, of seventy-ton
tanks and motorized columns, of battle cruisers and submarines, of dive-bomber*1
and bayonets, are mere skirmishes for position.

This greatest war, this most crucial of all human conflicts, is the struggle
for the control of men's minds. It is a struggle which is always going on, but
it becomes more intense and difficult in times of great stress that a democratic
people needs most desperately to win this greatest war. For that reason, it
appears to me extremely desirable that we who wish to act with purest patriot-
ism in our Country's hour of peril, should try to understand the tactics and the
strategy of the never-ceasing war for the control of men's attitudes and ideals.

The issues in this struggle are very complex on the surface, yet deep under-
neath that surface run two main currents in opposite directions. One is the
current which bears men in the direction of surrendering control of their
thoughts and their ideals to some other man, a great Chief of some kind,
whether he be called Dace, Feu her, or supreme dictator—or to a relatively small
group of men with supposed special powers of thought and feeling, whether
they be called the leaders of the Party, official mouth pieces of the Emperor,
or some other awe-inspiring title. •

The other current bears men. in the opposite direction of retaining the
control they now have over their own thoughts and ideals and of trying to
widen, strengthen, and perfect that control.

This is the central battle of the Greatest War, and from it all other battles,
including those fought with high explosives and weapons of steel, are derived.
For if men surrender the control of their thoughts and their attitudes to a Chief
of any kind, they are on the road to a dictatorship or they are already there.
If they retain control of their own thoughts and feelings, they are on the road
to democracy. This is the basic reason why dictatorships and democracies clash
in the international field, and it is also the reason for many clashes between
groups representing those two points of view within one Nation.