Are we going to permit a continuing decline in public and private morality or re-establish high ethical standards as the means of regaining a diminishing faith in the integrity of our public and private institutions?
Competitive sports keep alive in us a spirit and vitality. Sports teach the strong to know when they are weak and the brave to face themselves when they are afraid; to be proud and unbowed in defeat, and yet humble and gentle in victory.
Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain with death – the seas bear only commerce – men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight.
However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.
Youth is not entirely a time of life; it is a state of mind. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point?but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
