This new position should not be misunderstood. It does not mean any
diminution of our national spirit. It rather means that it should be
intensified. The most outstanding feature of the war has been the
assertion of the national spirit. Each nationality is contending for the
right to have its own government, and in that is meeting with the
sanction of the free peoples of the earth. We are discussing a league of
nations. Such a league, if formed, is not for the purpose, must not be
for the purpose, of diminishing the spirit or influence of our Nation,
but to make that spirit and influence more real and more effective.
Believing in our Nation thoroughly and unreservedly, confident that the
evidence of the past and present justifies that belief, it is our one
desire to make America more American. There is no greater service that
we can render the oppressed of the earth than to maintain inviolate the
freedom of our own citizens.

Under our National Government the States are the sheet-anchors of our
institutions. On them falls the task of administering local affairs and
of supporting the National Government in peace and war. The success with
which Massachusetts has met her local problems, the efficiency with
which she has placed her resources of men and materials at the disposal
of the Nation, has been unsurpassed. The efficient organization of the
Commonwealth, which has proved itself in time of stress, must be
maintained undiminished. On the States will largely fall the task of
putting into effect the lessons of the war that are to make America more
truly American.

One of our first duties is military training. The opportunity hereafter
for the youth of the Nation to receive instruction in the science of
national defence should be universal. The great problem which our
present experience has brought is the development of man power. This