5SO State Papers and Addresses

and the work is being done almost entirely by young men and women who have
been specially trained in colleges in the field of public opinion and related
spheres.

How important this type of work can be would hardly seem to need ex-
planation. Can you think of anything that would be of greater significance
to the leaders of our own Government than to know day by day the trend of
public opinion in Berlin and throughout Germany, as well as in Japan and Italy?

As a sample of what can be learned from this means, it is known now that
the present situation with Japan was forecast most definitely by a drastic
change in the tone of the Japanese home broadcasts in the middle of October.
Where previous to that time they had been somewhat neutral in character as to
Britain, Russia and Germany, from that period on they began definitely to favor
the German viewpoint, and to handle with suspicion and doubt all reports from
Britain, Russia and finally from the United States.

The present crisis, viewed from whatever angle you will, resolves itself
into a crisis for what we choose to call the democratic way of life. Unless the
crisis is passed safely, this way of life is doomed to extinction.

This democratic way of life, —and I do not mean merely a form of Govern-
ment—will depend for its existence on the quality of leadership that is capable
of development among the masses in America. It will require a high grade of
leadership to save the democratic way.

Leadership, so important today, requires that the men who are to lead be
strong in three ways: bodily strong or healthy, —intellectually strong or in-
formed—and strong of character, with courage and determination.

Real education will provide this three-fold strength; for education is the
harmonious development of all of the powers of a man, —his body through
physical education, his mind through the content courses, and his will through
the discipline that comes from application and study.

Education, then, has as its role in the present crisis, the preparing of men
of balanced ability to take their places as leaders in the growing crisis of
democracy. These leaders will be needed in every walk of life, not merely in
the army. The danger to the democratic way of life is greater in the less
obvious fields than the field of military combat. We need truly educated men
in schools, in government, in literature and art, in every walk of life. This is
the task of the school.

What it will take really to bring home to our people the situation in which
they now are placed, no one can say. Possibly the regulations concerning com-
modity distribution, the first of which will be in full effect next Monday, and
which ultimately may mean the permanent garaging of 80 to 90% of our auto-
mobiles, may help.

Rationing of other war essentials or scarce commodities, such as auto-
mobiles, woolens or sugar, may convince some others. Perhaps it may take, as
the West Coast Army leader suggested, a bombing attack near home.

Whatever is required, if it must come, may it come soon! Every day that
we lack this essential urge for complete national effort, every day that we fail
to produce to the ultimate limit of our industrial capacities, every day that the