What do you think is the most lasting impression that those boys down at
Vera Cruz are going to leave? They have had to use some force--I pray
God it may not be necessary for them to use any more--but do you think
that the way they fought is going to be the most lasting impression?
Have men not fought ever since the world began? Is there anything new in
using force? The new things in the world are the things that are
divorced from force. The things that show the moral compulsions of the
human conscience, those are the things by which we have been building up
civilization, not by force. And the lasting impression that those boys
are going to leave is this, that they exercise self-control; that they
are ready and diligent to make the place where they went fitter to live
in than they found it; that they regarded other people's rights; that
they did not strut and bluster, but went quietly, like self-respecting
gentlemen, about their legitimate work. And the people of Vera Cruz, who
feared the Americans and despised the Americans, are going to get a very
different taste in their mouths about the whole thing when the boys of
the Navy and the Army come away. Is that not something to be proud of,
that you know how to use force like men of conscience and like
gentlemen, serving your fellow-men and not trying to overcome them? Like
that gallant gentleman who has so long borne the heats and perplexities
and distresses of the situation in Vera Cruz--Admiral Fletcher. I
mention him, because his service there has been longer and so much of
the early perplexities fell upon him. I have been in almost daily
communication with Admiral Fletcher, and I have tested his temper. I
have tested his discretion. I know that he is a man with a touch of
statesmanship about him, and he has grown bigger in my eye each day as I
have read his dispatches, for he has sought always to serve the thing he
was trying to do in the temper that we all recognize and love to believe
is typically American.