In nearly every case, one side or the other, or both sides, yielded certain points and agreed not to dispute over others, at least for the period of the war.  The national government did much to bring this about by the creation of labor adjustment boards to hear complaints from either side and to settle disputes.  If our national community life is to develop in a wholesome way, complete cooperation between workmen and employers must be secured and made permanent on the basis of interests that are common to both.

THE EFFECT OF A COMMON PURPOSE

Such facts as these show how easy it is, in a huge, complex community like our nation, for conflicts to arise among different sections and groups of the population; and how difficult it is always to see the common interests that exist.  But they also show how such conflicts tend to disappear when a situation arises which forces us to think of the common interests instead of the differences.  All else was forgotten in the common purpose to “win the war.”  No sacrifice was too great on the part of any individual in order that this national purpose might be served.  Everywhere throughout the country, in cities and in remote rural districts, service flags in the windows testified that the homes of the land were offering members that the nation and its ideals might live.  Men, women, and even children contributed their work and their savings and denied themselves customary comforts to help win the war.  The entire nation was working together for A common purpose.

OUR NATIONAL PURPOSE

We have said that this common purpose was to “win the war.”  But there were purposes that lie much deeper than this, without which it would not have been worth while to enter the war at all.  As we saw in Chapter I, our nation is founded on a belief in the right of every one to life and physical well-being; to be secure in one’s rightful possessions; to freedom of thought—­education, free speech, a free press; to freedom of religion; to happiness in pleasant surroundings and a wholesome social life; and, above all, to a voice in the government which exists to protect these rights.  It was to secure a larger freedom to enjoy these rights, “for ourselves first and for all others in their time,” that our nation was solidly united against the enemy that threatened it from without.  But it was with this same purpose that the War of Independence was fought, that our Constitution was adopted, that slavery was abolished, that millions of people from foreign lands have come to our shores.  It is this common purpose that makes the great mass of foreigners in our country Americans, ready to fight for America, if necessary even against the land of their birth.  It is this for which the American flag stands at all times, whether in peace or in war.