plause]—on the battlefield in France ? But you are now getting a class of men who, for economic reasons, were not within the category of those to whom the ordinary appeals would be effective in time of peace. You are getting a class of men together who very often can afford to be better educated. In a case of that kind, the more you can get of them the better it will be for the Army—the more effective will they be as soldiers, and so, first of all, we have got to arouse in our own young men a sense of wrath against the injustice inflicted by our foe in this war. [Applause.] Afterwards we have to convert anger into action in every young man's breast. [Hear, hear.]
Well, now, the next thing I should like to say is this—and I am only putting purely business considerations before you—the recruiting must be continued in every area under the auspices of men who, in the aggregate, command the confidence of every class of the community. [Applause.] If this war is to be successfully waged by us, it must be a national war. [Hear, hear.] You cannot make war with a third or a fourth, and not even with half or two-thirds of a nation, you must have the whole nation to draw upon. In order to secure that you must have the recruiting of men for the new army under the direction and under the guidance of men who in their particular localities command the confidence of every section, every class, every creed, every faith, and every party. That is vital. I think it is very much better we should clear these things out of the way at the start. ["Hear, hear," and applause.] Now, you must remember this: the ordinary machinery of recruiting is totally inapplicable to the present conditions. [Hear, hear.] You have never had in the whole history of this country anything comparable to it, and I should like to say this to the recruits; some of them are complaining that since they have enlisted they have not had everything spick and span to hand. You must not expect that at first. Nobody could have anticipated—could possibly have anticipated—two months ago that you would have had a rush, not of thousands, not of scores of thousands, but of hundreds of thousands of men, anxious to enlist in the Regular Army of this country to fight. But who would have expected it? Has it ever happened in the history of this country before? I am not sure that it has happened in the history of any other country. To the best of my recollection President Lincoln had to resort to conscription in the end—that is, to the best of my
