Above All, Do Not Talk Yourself Out

On The One Hand, Society Needs A Common Faith And Vigorous Institutions With The Power To Coerce; And On The Other, The Individual As A Human Soul Or As The Bearer Of A New And Possibly Saving Heresy, Must Be Free. It Is Difficult Enough To Reconcile These Two Needs, But The Problem Holds Another Hazard: The Need Of Action Under The Pressure Of Time.

The Nation In Arms Is Virtually A Communist State: The People Must Be Paid Wages And Fed And Protected And Regimented Behind The Lines As Much As On The Front. Minds Must Be Kept Loyal And At The Right Pitch Of Hate, So That Successive Drafts Of Fighters Are Accepted Without Murmurings. Letters And Newspapers Must Be Censored While The Propaganda Mill Grinds On. As For Decisions Of Strategy And Overall Command, They Must Please Many Masters: Dissenters In The Cabinet, The Heads Of The Allied States And Public Opinion. Hence Failures Must Be Disguised Or Concealed.

Teaching Is Not A Lost Art, But The Regard For It Is A Lost Tradition.

Among The Words That Can Be All Things To All Men, The Word "race" Has A Fair Claim To Being The Most Common, Most Ambiguous And Most Explosive. No One Today Would Deny That It Is One Of The Great Catchwords About Which Ink And Blood Are Spilled In Reckless Quantities. Yet No Agreement Seems To Exist About What Race Means.

If Civilization Has Risen From The Stone Age, It Can Rise Again From The Wastepaper Age.