 1914, the leading nations of Europe prepared to go to war is over, more than 8 million men will be dead, kings and emperors will fall, countries will disappear from the map, will be forever changed. In America, President Woodrow Wilson urges the nation to be neutral in fact as well as name, impartial in thought as well as action. Why is the president so afraid America will be drawn into Europe's war? What is the great danger to our people? If we fight 1914, America has serious problems, massive problems with an industrial machine that has grown too big and too fast for proper laws to regulate working conditions and to protect the working man, Woodrow Wilson has been elected president on a reform ticket. He says no one can mistake the purpose for which the country now seeks to use the Democratic Party. It seeks a change. The president is concerned with domestic reforms. He wants nothing to interfere with his domestic program. He says it would be an ironic joke if foreign affairs would dominate my administration. But across the Atlantic, in Europe, in a country few Americans can locate on a map, a Serbian assassin's bullet takes the life of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. Austria delivers an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia rejects it and prepares to fight. Russia mobilizes to come to the aid of her ally, Serbia. Germany takes the side of Austria. France and England prepare for war. In America, President Wilson offers to mediate the dispute. America stands ready to help the rest of the world. But no one listens. These words are drowned out by the guns of August. Europe has been preparing for this war for a long time. Now the mighty German war machine, most powerful army the world has ever seen, moves against France. And because France is heavily fortified on the eastern border she shares with Germany, the German army circles to the west, smashing and invading through neutral Belgium. The Kaiser wires Wilson. Belgian neutrality has to be violated on strategic grounds. The German chancellor sneers that the treaty with Belgium is a scrap of paper. Germany's action stuns the world. Americans are outraged, but President Wilson urges the nation to be calm. The war is far away. American lives and property are not at stake. Wilson reasons. My fellow countrymen, the people of the United States are drawn from many nations and chiefly from the nations now at war. Some wish one nation, others another to succeed in this momentous struggle. The United States must be neutral, in fact as well as name. Most Americans agree this is Europe's war and from the time of George Washington we have been warned to stay out of Europe's conflicts. Let's stay out of it. Wilson continues with his domestic program, but Americans are aroused by newspaper stories and pictures of German atrocities in Belgium and as the German army rolls onward, crushing everything in its path, some Americans become afraid. If France is defeated, if England surrenders, if Germany rules the continent, how long will America itself be safe? Will America act to save civilization from collapsing? Now at the Marne River, a miracle takes place. With the help of reinforcements rushed from Paris by taxicab, the combined French and British army slows and stops the German advance. And while Germany has been winning on land, the British rule the seas. The British Navy begins to enforce a blockade that will strangle German trade. It will not be a short war. Already it has affected the American economy. Huge war orders send American factories working overtime. More and more workers are needed, higher wages result. Europe's war is making America prosperous, but is America truly neutral? Germany sees that the vast resources of the American industrial machine, the food, the munitions, the loans, are keeping Germany's enemies fighting in the field. American goods shipped abroad can reach France and England, but not Germany and the central powers. Trade with the Allies doubles and quadruples. Trade with Germany dwindles to almost nothing. Germany must break the blockade. Germany has only one weapon, the submarine. Striking without warning, German submarines begin to sink Allied ships. Wilson warns Germany, if an American is killed or an American ship sunk, the United States will hold the German government accountable and will take any steps necessary. May 1st, 1915, the luxurious British liner, Lusitania, sails from New York, aboard hundreds of Americans. They ignore a notice published next to the announcement of the ship sailing, a warning inserted by the German government. The sailors sailing in the war zone do so at their own risk. May 7th, 1915, the Lusitania is sunk, 128 Americans are lost. Now there is a sense of crisis in Washington. The President wants to hold Germany accountable, but the Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan says, this will lead to war. After three days of almost complete isolation, on May 10th, Wilson says, there is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right. To many Americans, this is a sign of cowardice. Theodore Roosevelt, the man whom Wilson has defeated for the presidency, says, we are passing through a thick stream of yellow in our national light. While Roosevelt is denouncing Wilson's milk and water policies, the President is preparing such a stiff note to Germany that his peace-loving Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, resigns. If Germany rejects the note, America is at war. But the German Kaiser backs down and agrees to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare. Woodrow Wilson has won a major diplomatic victory. 1916, bloody stalemate begin for trench warfare, separated by only a few yards of no man's land. He's never cease. Men go out of their minds. It was the noise, the never-ending noise. Verdun becomes the bloodiest battle in all history. Almost a million casualties. Fighting back and forth on the Somme, England and Germany lose another million men. Meeting the mounting casualists, Woodrow Wilson is horrified by the brutality of modern war. States lead the American people into this war, and they will forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life. The only sure way America can stay out of this war is to find some way to end it. Wilson sends his aide, Colonel House, on peace missions to Europe. Pleads for a peace without victory. But both sides have lost too many men. Both sides are bitter. Victory is what each demands. Meanwhile, in America, a presidential election is drawing near. Wilson says, if my reelection as president depends upon my getting into war, I don't want to be president. The Democratic Party campaigns on the slogan, he kept us out of war. They emphasize that Wilson is the peace candidate. They say that Charles Evans Hughes, loudly backed by Theodore Roosevelt, is the war candidate. But secretly, Woodrow Wilson has serious doubts. The rush of events is taking control from his hands. Any insignificant German lieutenant committing an atrocity can plunge this nation into war. American opinion is divided. Men like Theodore Roosevelt, members of the Army League, and the Navy League are for America to get into the war immediately. Women pacifists march with signs, real patriots, deep cool. Cities of German Americans have sentimental ties to the motherland, contribute to the German cause. November, 1916. The presidential election is so close, Woodrow Wilson goes to bed thinking he has been defeated. He awakens to find he's been reelected by a narrow margin. Most Americans want peace, but a substantial number are against Wilson's policies. What shall he tell the people? I know you are depending upon me to keep this nation out of war. So far I have done so. But you have laid another duty on me. You have bidden me to see to it that nothing stains the honor of the United States. And that is a matter not within my control. That depends on what others do. In Washington, the president has once again called for peace. But in Berlin, a decision has already been made. Germany is being strangled by this blockade. Her people are going hungry. If the war goes on much longer, Germany will lose. It no longer matters whether America comes into the war. The German High Command believes America cannot arm in time to make any difference. February 1, 1917. Germany announces all out unrestricted submarine warfare. And while more and more American ships are being sunk, while Woodrow Wilson still holds back from war, and only arms American merchant ships to defend themselves, there comes another thunderbolt. The British Secret Service has intercepted a telegram. The German Foreign Secretary Zimmermann has sent to Mexico. We offer Mexico an alliance. Make war together. Make peace together. For her aid, Mexico is to receive in return, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Theodore Roosevelt says, there is no question of declaring war on Germany. Germany has declared war on us. Wilson tells a reporter, for nights I have been lying awake, going over the whole situation. I have tried every way I know to avoid war. What else can I do? Is there anything else I can do? But being the kind of man he is, man of high ideals and missionary purpose, Woodrow Wilson cannot simply go to war out of revenge. If America is to pay the high cost in the blood of its young men, the war must have a new and inspiring purpose. On April 2, 1917, the president goes before Congress and says, it is a fearful thing to lead this great people into war, but the right is more precious than peace. It is to be a war to end war, a war to make the world safe for democracy. It is to be a crusade for the world founded on decency, honor and law. All things German become suspect. Sauerkraut is renamed Liberty Cabbage. Some high schools stop teaching German. The president has promised force. Force to the uttermost, force without stint or limit. Under the leadership of Bernard M. Baruch, the war industries board supervises American industry and production. Herbert Hoover is appointed food administrator. William Gibbs McAdoo becomes director general of the nation's railroads. Felix Frankfurter heads up the war labor board to mediate labor disputes. Under Edward N. Hurley, the United States shipping board acquires large fleets to transport and supply the American expeditionary forces. Domestic reforms, new labor laws are no longer important. Men, women and children work overtime to turn out munitions. The nation's war effort will cost $33 billion, of which two-thirds are raised through the sale of Liberty Bonds and one-third raised through increased income and corporate taxes. Through volunteers and the draft, the armed forces expand from 200,000 men to 4,800,000 by the end of the war. The nation sings the new hit song. Ironically, for a war to save the world for democracy, the Americans will send a Jim Crow army overseas. At first, the nation is so unprepared to make war, the soldiers have to train with wooden guns. Meanwhile Americans train with wooden guns. On the battlefields, the Allied armies are wheeling. On the high seas, German submarines are sinking ships at the rate of almost a million tons a month. When America sent an army overseas in time to turn the tide, June 13, 1917. General Purging lands in France at the head of the first American division, the site of the fresh American troops. The realization that the Yanks are coming by the tens of thousands stiffens Allied morale. Realizing the threat from America, Germany goes all out. In a series of hammer blows, the Russian army is routed on the eastern front. Russia collapses and soothes for a separate peace. It's take place in Russian cities. Germany is now able to send all her troops in the east to the western front. Now the Americans go into action. At Sellerwood, at Chateau Thierry, they prove they can fight. Simultaneously in America, Woodrow Wilson fights a war with words. January 1918, Wilson announces 14 points for a better world. The 14th point calls for a League of Nations to perform to preserve world peace. Trudely, he drives a wedge between the Kaiser and the German people. America has no conflict with the German people. Germany launches an offensive and is stopped by the Allied armies with the help of fresh American troops. Now for the first time, the Americans go on the offensive. I'm a lieutenant. Right. The Americans have annihilated two of our companies. They fight like devils. Born out now from four long years of war, realizing it can no longer win, the German will to fight collapses and breaks out in German cities. The Kaiser flees for safety to Holland on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. In November 1918, for the first time in four years, a stillness falls on the battlefield. Men go mad with joy. They are alive. They have survived more than 8 million, have not. American losses total 48,000, while the nation returns to peace. Woodrow Wilson realizes his battle is only beginning. For the first time in history, an American president goes to Europe during his term in office. Woodrow Wilson sails to fight for his 14 points. The president is confident he can handle the Europeans. But men like Clemenceau of France and Lloyd George of England burn with a hatred of the Germans. Soon Clemenceau and Wilson are no longer on speaking terms. Talk to Wilson. How can I talk to a fellow who sings himself the first man for 2,000 years, who knows anything about peace on earth? Wilson imagines he is the second Messiah. Out of the wreckage of the old Europe, the men who make the Treaty of Versailles create a new map. New nations are born. Decisions and national boundaries are made so hurriedly. Mistakes are bound to be made. Wilson is discouraged, but he has salvaged his 14th point. Now he returns to America to get Congress to ratify his great idea. But the president has been away six months. He has lost contact and control of the country. And Wilson's enemies are furious because the president had not invited a single Republican to help make the important decisions in Europe. In Washington, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and old foe of Wilson's ties up the motion to join the League of Nations in endless debate. The president takes his case directly to the people. He travels thousands of miles, makes speech after speech, in city after city, telling what the League means to the world. Wilson is weary and discouraged. But despite failing health, he refuses to give up his great crusade. On September 26, 1919, he suffers a paralytic stroke. Back in the White House, Mrs. Wilson tries to protect her sick husband. She refuses admission to visitors. She makes important decisions. Men begin to whisper, A woman is running the country. The sick man is stubborn. He feels that if America refuses to join the League, the whole war will be fought for nothing. Opponents of the League bring witness after witness against the peace treaty. Men remember and quote George Washington's advice to stay out of Europe's wars. The League of Nations is defeated. In 1920, the country elects a president who promises a return to normalcy. Only with a passage of time and the threat of a greater conflict with thoughtful people ask themselves, had we helped win the first world war? Only to throw away the peace. The restless decade, the roaring twenties, the era of wonderful nonsense. But was it something more? A time of growing conflict between those who could accept change and those who would not. Between those whose minds were open to modern ideas and those who clung to fundamental beliefs. Between those who could accept the complexity of the 20th century and tried to cope with it and those who rejected the new and tried to return to an America that was past. And in the struggle, America frequently became a battleground. American soldiers begin the journey home. For America did they leave? What sort of America will they find? What sort of America do they want? They left in America led by President Woodrow Wilson spurred on by noble words to a great crusade to make the world safe for democracy. They had been plunged into the most bitter and bloody war in the history of man. A war that cost hundreds of billions of dollars. And left over 8 million dead. Now they return to an America changed forever by the experiences of war. The country rejects world leadership and refusing membership in the League of Nations. It attempts instead to go its own way. The nation is granting women the right to vote. America goes dry and embraces a new puritanism under prohibition and the Volstead Act. It is an America in which some have gotten very rich from the war. But most have not. Working men are caught in the wartime inflation and the rising cost of living. A rash of strikes occur after the war. Strikes of steel workers seeking a reduction in the 12 hour day they work in the mill. A general strike throughout the entire city of Seattle. In the city of Boston police find they can no longer support their families on a $21 a week salary. They strike for higher wages and petition to join a union. With the police on strike the city is defenseless. Hoodlums have a field day. Wide spread looting takes place. Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts says there's no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anytime, anywhere. Coolidge brings in the National Guard. The strikers are fired. Almost a complete new police force is hired. In three days the strike is broken. But these strikes and this agitation at home is connected in the public mind with the revolution taking place in Russia. And threatening other countries of Europe. Is America itself in danger of a communist revolution? Small communist parties have been started in America. Their members are few. But Americans remember that a handful of dedicated Bolsheviks have overthrown the government of Russia. Fear leads to repression. Repression leads to greater violence. Bombs are found in packages mailed to John D. Rockefeller and other rich men. A massive bomb explodes inside a wagon on Wall Street. 30 people are killed and 100 hurt. The bomb has such force it not only rips up the street but wrecks the officers of J.P. Morgan and Company. No one knows who made the bomb. But to many Americans this can only be the work of radicals. Attorney General Palmer rounds up known radicals. And even those innocently attending radical meetings. More than 5,000 people are arrested. Government tries to deport some of them. College graduates call for the dismissal of professors suspected of radicalism. School teachers are forced to sign oaths of allegiance. Hysteria reaches a new high. Thus in 1919, only a year after the armistice, America is no longer confident of saving the world for democracy but afraid that the nation will be overturned by a handful of extremists. Americans are frightened by scare headlines and the growing wave of disorders sweeping the country. And if the police can't defend the public, other organizations will take the law into their hands. There is a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan which now begins to gain supporters even in the north. Mask figures parade openly on the main streets of northern towns and even in the nation's capital. Race riots break out in Washington, Chicago and other cities. And with the Klan comes a rising wave of anti-needro, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic prejudice. In the climate of the times, foreigners and foreign ideas are suspect. There is a fear that hundreds of thousands of starving Europeans and Asians will immigrate to the United States to escape the suffering of the Great War. Harsh new immigration laws are being enacted to exclude Asians and reduce the number of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. The new policy rests upon the policy of Anglo-Saxon supremacy. After two decades of constant change, the country wants a rest. What it wants is best summed up by a Republican Senator from Ohio, Warren Harding. America's present need is not for heroics but healing, not revolution but restoration, not nostrums but normalcy. Back to normalcy. Printed in newspapers, the phrase sweeps the country. The Senator from Ohio becomes the Republican candidate for president. And on March 4th, 1921, with an ailing Woodrow Wilson at his side, Warren Harding drives down Pennsylvania Avenue to become the new president. Seldom have two men been more different. Wilson, the visionary, the idealist, the man of great speeches and great crusades. Harding, the man who has no plan, no purpose, no mission, whose greatest desire is to be liked. Warren Harding takes the oath of office. The progressive era is over. America enters the age of normalcy. But what is normalcy? The word itself did not then exist. Is it modern industrial America with its huge steel mills and great dynamos moving confidently into the future? Or is it rural America? The America of comfortable, sleepy small towns, clinging to past values. The president himself describes the American small town where he grew up and says, What is the greatest thing in life, my countrymen? Happiness. And there is more happiness in the American village than in any place on the face of the earth. But the small town that Harding remembers is changing. The horse and buggy is vanishing, replaced by the automobile. Henry Ford's Model T sells for less than $500, within the budget of most Americans, and is the prized possession of some families who can afford no other luxury. Ask why her family owned a car but not a bathtub. A farmer's wife replies, You can't go to town in a bathtub. Other women agree. We'd rather do without clothes that give up the car. I'll go without food before I see us give up the car. Will Rogers says, Good luck, Mr. Ford. It'll take a hundred years to tell whether you've helped us or heard us. But you certainly didn't leave us like you found us. New towns springing up along America's highways, enjoy the beauty of the city. For a new prosperity, the automobile is changing the manners and morals of young America. Young people now travel halfway across the state to attend a sporting event or dance, and on the way back they can park on chaperone, traveling through life faster than their parents, listening to the new invention, the radio, bringing new ideas, a new culture, seeing motion pictures glorifying defiance and rebellion. Young people are in a ferment. Parents find themselves confronted by children who want to live faster, enjoy more, experience more deeply than their elders. It is a time of rising prosperity, a declining idealism. Like his most important writers, like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, feel so cut off from their roots, their society, their country. They choose to live abroad. Bertrand Stein says of them, You are all a lost generation. Writers who stay at home feel alienated too. Sinclair Lewis and H. L. Minkin express a growing dissatisfaction with the lack of direction and purpose in American life. In a changing America, President Harding finds his job immensely more difficult than he imagined. He complains to a friend, John, I can't make a thing out of this tax problem. I listen to one side and they seem right, and then I talk to the other side and they seem just as right. God, what a job. Unable to understand the problems that confront him, Harding ages in office, suffers a stroke and dies. A small town man who only wanted to be well liked, he is genuinely mourned. But only a few months after his death, scandals in his administration are revealed. His Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, is convicted of having leased important naval oil reserves to men who gave him huge bribes. Yet the country is prosperous and many people do not want this prosperity questioned or to see the confidence of the American people disturbed. The senators who reveal the Harding scandals are denounced. The job of the new president is to maintain prosperity and not rock the boat. Vice President Calvin Coolidge, who broke the Boston police strike in 1919, becomes president and says, this is a business country. It wants a business government. The man who builds a factory builds a temple. The man who works there worships there. It is felt that in this booming America, anybody who applies himself can become rich. The number of millionaires doubles. The automobile is stimulating other industries. Tires, paint, glass, nickel, steel, petroleum, and road building. Expanding use of electricity is creating labor saving devices for the housewife, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators. Housewives have more time to spend and many of their husbands are earning more. Yet while the country continues to be prosperous, there are weaknesses in the economy. Much of the prosperity is based on easy credit and installment buying. More and more Americans are mortgaging tomorrow for what they want today. People gambling on the stock market risk their savings, hoping they can get rich quick. Meanwhile, the American farmer is suffering. Spurred on by wartime needs for huge crops, many farmers had borrowed money and taken mortgages to buy marginal land. Now there is no longer a demand for all the food that can be raised. More and more farms are being foreclosed. The president says, the farmers never have made money anyhow. And troubles at home are reflected by dangerous signals abroad. Defeated Germany has a runaway inflation. In Germany, the mark becomes so worthless, it is used to paper walls or the light stoves. Riots start. These disturbances facilitate the rise of radicals and help the cause of an Austrian corporal named Adolf Hitler, who wants to overthrow the Versailles Treaty and restore Germany to her former power. In Italy, a fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, has already taken control of the country. Meanwhile, at home, the split between those who accept modern America and those who want to return to the past widens. In 1925, the issue of the old fundamentalism versus the new science makes headlines because of a trial that takes place in a small town in Tennessee. Tennessee is one of several states that has passed a law declaring it illegal to teach the theory of evolution. A young teacher named Scopes determines to test the law. He teaches his biology class the theory of evolution. To the newspapers of America, this becomes the monkey trial. An attorney from Chicago, Clarence Darrow, comes to defend the science teacher. William Jennings Bryan, who rejects science and preaches a literal interpretation of the Bible, proudly agrees to help the prosecution. The courtroom is so hot, the judge sometimes moves the proceedings out of doors. In a curious carnival atmosphere, the trial reaches a climax. Clarence Darrow puts William Jennings Bryan on the stand. Do you agree with most scientists that the world is millions of years old? I agree with my Bible. The world was created in 4004 BC. Do you say you do not believe that there were any civilizations on this earth that reach back beyond 5,000 years? I am not satisfied by any evidence I have seen. The trial underlines the split in America, but settles nothing. For another 40 years, it continues to be illegal to teach the theory of evolution in some states. While the Scopes trial has been going on, another case that will drag on for almost seven years reflects America's suspicion of foreigners, anarchists, and agitators. In Dedum, Massachusetts, two Italian immigrants, Niccolò Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, are on trial for their lives. The prosecution contends they are guilty of robbery and the murder of a factory paymaster. The defense says the men are innocent and are victims of the red scare that followed the war. To many intellectuals, this case becomes a symbol of unreasoning prejudice against people who are different. They work to free the immigrants, raise funds that continue appeals on the verdict for seven years. After the men are executed in 1927, they quote Vanzetti, if it not been for this thing, I might have died a failure. Now we are not a failure, never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by an accident. The country is prosperous. America has 40% of the world's wealth. And there is a continuing search for new sensations, new thrills, like flagpole cities, sports heroes, like Babe Ruth. In 1927, the country finds the perfect hero in Charles Lindbergh. First man to fly the ocean alone in a single engine plane, Lindy glorifies the new science of aviation that is making the world smaller and bringing men closer together. But at the same time, he personifies the old American values. He is a trail blazer, a pioneer in the tradition of Daniel Boone and the men who opened up the West. The continuing clash between the new and the old, the conflict between the big cities and rural America reaches its climax in the presidential election of 1928. The Republicans nominate Herbert Hoover, born of old stock American parentage in a small town in Iowa, a self-made millionaire who is critical of Europe and a firm believer in rugged individualism. For the first time, the Democrats nominate a Catholic, Al Smith, born on the lower East side of Manhattan, a man who speaks in a raucous New York accent. Smith of Irish descent is not only the leader of the immigrant-based Democratic Party, but he is suspected of believing in racial equality. Unlike Hoover, he is for repeal of prohibition. Made a national law in 1920, prohibition has proved unenforceable. In an America that has 18,700 miles of border and coastline, there are fewer than 3,000 agents. Congressman Fiorella LaGuardia says that to enforce prohibition, the city of New York alone would need 250,000 police and another 200,000 to police the policemen. The most respectable citizens frequent illegal speakeasies. There is a growing breakdown of respect for the law. The leading bootlegger and gangster of the day says, I call myself a businessman. I make money by supplying a need. If I break the law, my customers are just as guilty as I am. Ironically, Capone is never convicted of the murders he and his gang commit. When he finally goes to jail, it is for not paying his income tax. Prohibition and prosperity are the key issues in 1928. Hoover is for continuing the noble experiment, and he promises a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage. Smith carries the 12 largest cities in the nation. To rural America, he seems a symbol of a wicked city. Small town, rural, Protestant, dry America is overwhelmingly for Hoover. He even carries some of the normally solid democratic states in the South. As he takes office, Herbert Hoover says, I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright with hope. Already, there are signs of danger ahead. Stocks are dangerously high, inflated beyond their true worth. Thursday, October 24th, 1929. The market is flooded by a sudden wave of selling orders. Stock prices drop. Millions of shares change hands. The result, a seller's panic. Friday and Saturday, things look a little better. But on Monday, when the market opens, there is another wave of selling. And on Black Tuesday, October 29th, the bottom drops out. Almost overnight, the value of stocks drops more than 50 billion dollars. And with the bursting of the big bubble, some speculators commit suicide. Little investors have their savings wiped out. The shockwave from the crash rolls on and on. Many businesses are forced to close. National income drops to less than half. One out of every four farms is sold for taxes. By the end of 1930, there are four and one half million unemployed. By 1932, there will be 13 million out of work that have begun with America rejecting world leadership. It was a time when the country became hysterical about foreigners, suspicious of anybody who was different. A time when many Americans tried to return to a world that no longer existed. It was a time when the country was prosperous. Much of the prosperity was based on easy credit and installment buying with the crash. And the years of depression that followed came a new move. The country did not yet have the answers to the problems it faced. But it knew it had to face them.