Date: January or February, 1918
Location: Boston, MA
(Original document available here)
This is no time to make partisan speeches. Even at a Republican Club meeting like this it is not best to make partisan speeches and I do not intend to do so, but there is one thing that we must all remember and try to see accomplished. In order to win the War, and we shall win it, it is necessary that all the man power, all the money and all the production, and especially all the brain power in the country, be actively enlisted on the side of the Government. It is not possible to enlist all the brain power of the country so long as practically half the people are set on one side, and from that side few, or none, are drawn into the service of the country, although that is the half of the people which has shown that it has within its members most of the trained executive ability of the country.
Lately I have been reading again about Abraham Lincoln. I can seem to see Lincoln sitting at a switch of some Illinois railroad waiting for the next freight train to go by that he might get a seat in the caboose and be carried to the town where he was next to debate with Douglas, and as he sat at the switch I can imagine that he sees the special train of his rival, Douglas, go by, under the special management of George B. McClellan.
A little later Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. No man had done more to keep him out of that place than George B. McClellan, but as soon as the War broke out Lincoln forgot that McClellan was his opponent and gave him the command of the Army of the Potomac, because at that time he seemed to be the best man for the place.
The spirit that dictated that action on Lincoln’s part is the spirit that must prevail in this country if we are to win.
Citation: Vermont Historical Society
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of Isaac Oberman, who prepared this document for digital publication.