American Experience . MacArthur . MacArthur's Speeches: "The Noblest Development of Mankind" (2024)

MacArthur's tenure as Army Chief of Staff from 1930 to 1935 was surely one ofthe most trying times in his life. Despite his vigorous efforts, the tides ofeconomic depression and isolationism proved overwhelming, and under hisstewardship the American armed forces reached all-time lows in strength. Andas MacArthur repeatedly warned to anyone who would listen, allowing this tohappen while autocratic, expansive regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan weregaining strength was doubly dangerous.

The following speech, delivered less than two months before the end of histenure as Chief, contains what MacArthur biographer Geoffrey Perret calls "theApostle's Creed of MacArthurism, the essence of his militant faith." Addressedto the annual reunion of MacArthur's Rainbow Division in Washington on July 14,1935, the speech makes it perfectly clear that MacArthur could imagine nohigher calling than his own.

“Mr. President and gentlemen of the Rainbow Division, I thank you for the warmthof your greeting. It moves me deeply. It was with you I lived my greatestmoments. It is of you I have my greatest memories.

It was seventeen years ago -- those days of old have vanished, tone and tint;they have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memoryis a land where flowers of wondrous beauty and varied colors spring, watered bytears and coaxed and caressed into fuller bloom by the smiles of yesterday.Refrains no longer rise and fall from that land of used-to-be. We listenvainly, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melodies of days that are gone.Ghosts in olive drab and sky blue and German gray pass before our eyes; voicesthat have stolen away in the echoes from the battlefields no more ring out. Thefaint, far whisper of forgotten songs no longer floats through the air. Youth,strength, aspirations, struggles, triumphs, despairs, wide winds sweeping,beacons flashing across uncharted depths, movements, vividness, radiance,shadows, faint bugles sounding reveille, far drums beating, the long roll, thecrash of guns, the rattle of musketry -- the still white crosses!

And tonight we are met to remember.

The shadows are lengthening. The division's birthdays are multiplying; we aregrowing old together. But the story which we commemorate helps us to grow oldgracefully. That story is known to all of you. It needs no profuse panegyrics.It is the story of the American soldier of the World War. My estimate of himwas formed on the battlefield many years ago and has never changed. I regardedhim then, as I regard him now, as one of the world's greatest figures -- notonly in the era which witnessed his achievements but for all eyes and for alltime. I regarded him as not only one of the greatest military figures but alsoas one of the most stainless; his name and fame are the birthright of everyAmerican citizen.

The world's estimate of him will be founded not upon any one battle or evenseries of battles; indeed, it is not upon the greatest fields of combat or thebloodiest that the recollections of future ages are riveted. The vast theatersof Asiatic conflict are already forgotten today. The slaughtered myriads ofGenghis Khan lie in undistinguished graves. Hardly a pilgrim visits the sceneswhere on the fields of Chalons and Tours the destinies of civilization andChristendom were fixed by the skill of Aetius and the valor of CharlesMartel.

The time indeed may come when the memory of the fields of Champagne andPicardy, of Verdun and the Argonne shall be dimmed by the obscurity ofrevolving years and recollected only as a shadow of ancient days.

But even then the enduring fortitude, the patriotic selfabnegation, and theunsurpassed military genius of the American soldier of the World War will standforth in undimmed luster; in his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, hegave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me or from any otherman; he has written his own history, and written it in red on his enemy'sbreast. But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage underfire, and of his modesty in victory I am filled with an emotion I cannotexpress. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples ofsuccessful and disinterested patriotism. He belongs to posterity as theinstructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and right. Hebelongs to the present -- to us -- by his glory, by his virtues, and by hisachievements.

The memorials of character wrought by him can never be dimmed. He needs nostatues or monuments; he has stamped himself in blazing flames upon the soulsof his countrymen; he has carved his own statue in the hearts of his people; hehas built his own monument in the memory of his compatriots.

The military code which he perpetuates has come down to us from even before theage of knighthood and chivalry. It embraces the highest moral laws and willstand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift ofmankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraintsare from the things that are wrong. Its observance will uplift everyone whocomes under its influence. The soldier, above all other men, is required toperform the highest act of religious teaching -- sacrifice. In battle and inthe face of danger and death he discloses those divine attributes which hisMaker gave when He created man in his own image. No physical courage and nobrute instincts can take the place of the divine annunciation and spiritualuplift which will alone sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war maybe, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for hiscountry is the noblest development of mankind.

On such an occasion as this my thoughts go back to those men who went with usto their last charge. In memory's eye I can see them now -- forming, grimly forthe attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind andrain of the foxhole, driving home to their objective and to the judgment seatof God. I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory oftheir death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their heartsand on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory.

Never again for them staggering columns, bending under soggy packs, on many aweary march from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn. Never again will they trudgeankle-deep through the mud on shell-shocked roads. Never again will they stopcursing their luck long enough to whistle through chapped lips a few bars assome clear voice raised the lilt of "Madelon." Never again ghostly trenches,with their maze of tunnels, drifts, pits, dugouts -- never again, gentlemenunafraid.

They have gone beyond the mists that blind us here and become part of thatbeautiful thing we call the Spirit of the Unknown Soldier. In chambered templesof silence the dust of their dauntless valor sleeps, waiting. Waiting in thechancery of Heaven the final reckoning of Judgment Day: "Only those are fit tolive who are not afraid to die."

Our country is rich and resourceful, populous and progressive, courageous tothe full extent of propriety. It insists upon respect for its rights, andlikewise gives full recognition to the rights of all others. It stands forpeace, honesty, fairness, and friendship in its intercourse with foreignnations.

It has become a strong, influential, and leading factor in world affairs. It isdestined to be even greater if our people are sufficiently wise to improvetheir manifold opportunities. If we are industrious, economical, absolutelyfair in our treatment of each other, strictly loyal to our government we, thepeople, may expect to be prosperous and to remain secure in the enjoyment ofall those benefits which this privileged land affords.

But so long as humanity is more or less governed by motives not in accord withthe spirit of Christianity our country may be involved by those who believethey are more powerful. Whatever the ostensible reason advanced may be -- envy,cupidity, fancied wrong, or other unworthy impulse may direct them.

Every nation that has what is valuable is obligated to be prepared to defendagainst brutal attack or unjust effort to seize and appropriate. Even though aman be not inclined to guard his own interests, common decency requires him tofurnish reasonable oversight and care to others who are weak and helpless. As arule, they who preach by word or deed "peace at any price" are not possessed ofanything worth having, and are oblivious to the interest of others includingtheir own dependents.

The Lord Almighty, merciful and all-wise, does not absolutely protect those whounreasonably fail to contribute to their own safety, but He does help thosewho, to the limit of their understanding and ability, help themselves. This,my friends, is fundamental theology.

On looking back through the history of English-speaking people, it will befound in every instance that the most sacred principles of free government havebeen acquired, protected, and perpetuated through the embodied, armed strengthof the peoples concerned. From Magna Charta to the present day there is littlein our institutions worth having or worth perpetuating that has not beenachieved for us by armed men. Trade, wealth, literature, and refinement cannotdefend a state -- pacific habits do not insure peace nor immunity from nationalinsult and national aggression.

Every nation that would preserve its tranquility, its riches, its independence,and its self-respect must keep alive its martial ardor and be at all timesprepared to defend itself.

The United States is a pre-eminently Christian and conservative nation. It isfar less militaristic than most nations. It is not especially open to thecharge of imperialism. Yet one would fancy that Americans were the mostbrutally blood-thirsty people in the world to judge by the frantic efforts thatare being made to disarm them both physically and morally. The public opinionof the United States is being submerged by a deluge of organizations whoseactivities to prevent war would be understandable were they distributed in somedegree among the armed nations of Europe and Asia. The effect of all thisunabashed and unsound propaganda is not so much to convert America to a holyhorror of war as it is to confuse the public mind and lead to muddled thinkingin international affairs.

A few intelligent groups who are vainly trying to present the true facts to theworld are overwhelmed by the sentimentalist, the emotionalist, the alarmist,who merely befog the real issue, which is not the biological necessity of warbut the biological character of war.

The springs of human conflict cannot be eradicated through institutions butonly through the reform of the individual human being. And that is a task whichhas baffled the highest theologians for 2,000 years and more.

I often wonder how the future historian in the calmness of his study willanalyze the civilization of the century recently closed. It was ushered in bythe end of the Napoleonic Wars which devastated half of Europe. Then followedthe Mexican War, and the American Civil War, the Crimean War, theAustro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Boer War, the Opium Wars ofEngland and China, the Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War, andfinally, the World War -- which, for ferocity and magnitude of losses, isunequaled in the history of humanity.

If he compares this record of human slaughter with the thirteenth century, whencivilization was just emerging from the Dark Ages, when literature had itsDante; art, its Michelangelo and Gothic architecture; education, theestablishment of the famous colleges and technical schools of Europe; medicine,the organization of hospital systems; politics and the foundation ofAnglo-Saxon liberty, the Magna Charta -- the verdict cannot be that wars havebeen on the wane.

In the last 3,400 years only 268 -- less than 1 in 13 -- have been free fromwars. No wonder that Plato, the wisest of all men, once exclaimed, "Only thedead have seen the end of war!" Every reasonable man knows that war is crueland destructive. Yet, our civilization is such that a very little of the feverof war is sufficient to melt its veneer of kindliness. We all dream of the daywhen human conduct will be governed by the Decalogue and the Sermon on theMount. But as yet it is only a dream. No one desires peace as much as thesoldier, for he must pay the greatest penalty in war. Our Army is maintainedsolely for the preservation of peace -- or for the restoration of peace afterit has been lost by statesmen or by others.

Dionysius, the ancient thinker, twenty centuries ago uttered these words: Itis a law of nature, common to all mankind, which time shall neither annul nordestroy, that those that have greater strength and power shall bear rule overthose who have less." Unpleasant as the may be to hear, disagreeable as theymay be to contemplate the history of the world bears ample testimony to theirtruth and wisdom. When looking over the past, or when looking over the world inits present form, there is but one trend of events to be discerned -- aconstant change of tribes, clans, nations; the stronger ones replacing theothers, the more vigorous ones pushing aside, absorbing covering with oblivionthe weak and the worn-out.

From the dawn of history to the present day it has always been the militantaggressor taking the place of the unprepared. Where are the empires of old?Where is Egypt, once a state on a high plane of civilization, where a form ofsocialism prevailed and where the distribution of wealth was regulated? Herhigh organization did not protect her. Where are the empires of the East andthe empires of the West which once were the shrines of wealth wisdom, andculture? Where are Babylon, Persia, Carthage. Rome, Byzantium? They all fell,never to rise again, annihilated at the hands of a more warlike and aggressivepeople: their cultures memories, their cities ruins.

Where are Peru and old Mexico? A handful of bold and crafty invaders, destroyedthem, and with them their institutions, their independence their nationality,and their civilization.

And saddest of all, the downfall of Christian Byzantium. When Constantinoplefell, that center of learning, pleasure, and wealth -- and all the weakness andcorruption that goes with it -- a pall fell over Asia and southeastern Europewhich has never been lifted. Wars have been fought these nearly five centuriesthat have had for at least one of their goals the bringing back under the Crossof that part of the world lost to a wild horde of a few thousand adventurers onhorseback whom hunger and the unkind climate of their steppes forced to seekmore fertile regions.

The thousand years of existence of the Byzantine Empire, its size, itsreligion, the wealth of its capital city were but added incentives andinducements to an impecunious conqueror. For wealth is no protection againstaggression. It is no more an augury of military and defensive strength in anation than it is an indication of health in an individual. Success in wardepends upon men, not money. No nation has ever been subdued for lack of it.Indeed, nothing is more insolent or provocative or more apt to lead to a breachof the peace than undefended riches among armed men.

And each nation swept away was submerged by force of arms. Once each was strongand militant. Each rose by military prowess. Each fell through degeneracy ofmilitary capacity because of unpreparedness. The battlefield was the bed uponwhich they were born into this world, and the battlefield became the couch onwhich their worn-out bodies finally expired. Let us be prepared, lest we, too,perish.

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