No U.S. Secretary of War in 75 years has faced such a situation as Henry Lewis Stimson faced last week. He had 1,500,000 soldiers under arms and many of them wanted to go home at a time when he was sure that they were desperately needed.
When the House of Representatives by a one-vote margin told draftees and guardsmen that they would have to serve 18 months longer than they expected, dissatisfaction in the ranks was bound to reach its worst. In that crisis Henry Stimson proved he lacked neither energy nor courage.
The night after the service-extension bill was passed he went on the air to broadcast a message to the Army:
"I realize that this [the extension bill] means sacrifice on your part. . . . The world is today facing a situation which is more dangerous to its general peace than any situation which has existed during all the years of recorded history. . . . Today these three Axis nations, Germany, Japan and Italy, openly announce their intention of going further with their conquest of the world. . . . Our own hemisphere, thinly populated, rich beyond all other continents in natural resources, is an inevitable ultimate target for these marauder nations."
Man of Logic. If these reasonable words did not bring soldiers to toss their hats in air and give a rousing cheer, no one had cause to be surprised. For the quality of Henry Stimson is to persuade rather than to rouse. His lack of success at rabble-rousing was demonstrated 31 years ago, in 1910, when Theodore Roosevelt, just returned from Africa, picked Henry Stimson, the crack U.S. Attorney in New York City, to run for Governor of New York. Banking heavily on Henry Stimson's record as buster of the sugar trust, successful prosecutor of the famed market manipulator, Charles W. Morse, T. R. called on New York to rally behind young "Harry" Stimson. He might as well have referred publicly to Charles Evans Hughes as "Spike." On the stump high-collared Henry Stimson spoke as he did in the courtroom. His argument was well-reasoned, factual, clear. When the time came to tear into Tammany mugs he politely "begged to differ with them." The result was inevitable: a Democratic landslide.
The incidental effect of that landslide was significant. It launched the political career of a young Harvardman who was to learn how to appeal to crowds: in it Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won a seat in the State Legislature.
Today if the rank & file of the Army is to be roused to a patriotic fervor. Franklin Roosevelt rather than Henry Stimson will have to do the rousing. But good morale is composed of many things besides fervor, and in all these things Henry Stimson is effectively busy.
Work Done. Besides the conviction that danger to the U.S. is real, one thing that will help to restore Army morale is more equipment. Another thing is better officers. Henry Stimson is making progress on both fronts. The equipment is being built, incompetent officers are being weeded out. And the consensus of high Army officers is that, as administrator and director of the greatest peacetime expansion of the Army, Henry Stimson has been a cracking good Secretary of War.