Then I came from Newport News to Washington, on my way home, and we entered that great city by night.  The Capitol dome was flooded with light.  As I looked at it I said to myself:  “To-day from this city emanates the light of the world.  The eyes of the whole of humanity are turned toward this city.  That lighted dome is symbol of all this.”

As I looked out of the train window as we entered Washington from Richmond, Virginia, I thought:  “Surely not the shipbuilding but the ideals that go out from the Capitol are the most important ’Services of Supplies.’”

The next morning I was in Pittsburgh.  As my train pulled into that great city, all along the Ohio River I saw great armies of laboring men going and coming from work.  As one tide of humanity flowed out of the mills across the bridges, another flowed in, and I said:  “Surely not the shipbuilders, nor the ideal-makers at Washington, but this great army of laboring men in America forms the most important part of ’The Services of Supplies’!”

Then I came to New York.  In turn I spoke before two significant groups of men and women.  One was a group of women meeting each day to make Red Cross bandages, and knowing the scarcity of such in France, and knowing how at times nurses have had to tear up their skirts to bandage wounds of dying boys, I said:  “Surely this is it!”

Then I spoke before the artists of New York, with Mr. Charles Dana Gibson heading them, and as I had seen their stirring posters everywhere arousing the nation to action, and knew what an important part the artists and writers in France had played in “The Services of Supplies,” I said:  “Surely these are the most important!”

But I have found at last that none of these are the most important of all.  There is another section to “The Services of Supplies,” and that is more important than the mechanic behind the pilot, more important than the man who assembles the motor trucks and the ambulances in France, more important than the ship-builders, more important than the lawmakers themselves, more important even than the President, more important than that great army of laborers which I saw in Pittsburgh, more important than the artists and the Red Cross workers, and that supreme and important part of the great “Services of Supplies” is the father and mother, the wife, the child, the home, the church, the great mass of the common thinking, feeling, suffering, praying, hoping people of America.  If these fail, all fails.  If these lose faith and courage and hope, all lose faith and courage and hope.  If these grow faint-hearted, all before them lose heart.  These are they who furnish the real sinews of war.  These are they who must furnish the morale, the love, the letters, the prayers, the support to both government and soldier.  Yes, the common folks over here at home, I have seen clearly, are the most important part of the great division of the army that we call “The Services of Supplies.”  May we never fail the boy in France.