But what would it profit America if she won the rank of a leader among nations through her strength and wealth? Nothing at all. The great collapse would be only a short distance ahead. Before or later we would succumb to it. Still I believe that America possesses the qualifications for leadership as no other nation in history does--the leadership of that new adjustment which the world must needs experience if life shall ever again become sufferable upon this old earth of ours. Why is it that America has superior qualifications? Has not England the very same qualifications? Are not the English the great commercial nation which embraces the earth with its countless ships? Or France--that liberty-loving nation with its technically wonderfully developed language? Now when everything settles down again, will not these nations be able to assume the leading position in the history of the world just as well as America? No.--And I will attempt to explain why they cannot. America has been created through a mingling of all the peoples of the world, as it were. It is true that some claim all the rogues and scoundrels of the Old World came over here--and some of them undoubtedly did. But it is not they who have built up America and made her great and strong. Nor is it those people of whom it requires twelve to make a dozen--for that species generally dies where it was born. No, they who built America were men and women who possessed the great _daring_ and that _strength of the will_ which were necessary in order to carry them across great stretches of water and land, to make them fell the vast forests and break the prairie soil, and to build their homes in the woods and upon the prairies. These are the people who built America--who made the country great and strong and wealthy. Many have feared that the daring and the strength of will of the fathers had died. The younger generation had too markedly become a _candy, kid-glove, silkstockinged youth_. But yonder on the great battlefield it found an opportunity to show that it still possessed the daring and the strength of will of the fathers. Once General Pershing had to retire his troops one mile. It was reported to headquarters, and the reply came back: "Push your men a little farther back and let them rest!" But by that time General Pershing already was preparing to storm forward again. And so unexpectedly swift and vigorous was the attack that not only was the lost mile regained, but one in addition. It was the daring of the American soldiers that won in this instance. And, speaking generally, it must have been the _daring_ and the _strength of will_ of the American soldier that conquered the _mechanism_ of the German army.