Command of the Air

Our geographical position, our size, our resources, our wealth, our astonishing national growth, the watchfulness of Providence which has accompanied more than one of our national crises, all indicate that our r6le in the world's future, that our part in world influence, is to be of the first importance. Just as in the war with Spain, events external to us and beyond our control forced us from our position of isolation into that of a world power with possessions and interests circling the globe, so today events external to us, and entirely beyond our control, are shaping for us a position and an influence greater than ever before. To touch upon only one of the directions in which that world influence will act, I will note our position as the most influential member of that American Federation which is surely coming, a federation of peaceful, prosperous, autonomous states, impregnable in their union, occupying the entire western hemisphere, seated upon two continents, reaching from pole to pole. In that coming world influence, the one great dominant thing which will overshadow all else will be air superiority and power. Twenty-four hundred years ago Themistocles, Athenian statesman, soldier, and creator of Athenian naval policy, asserted the principle that "He who commands the sea commands all." With the naval victory of Salamis, which changed the history of the world, he drove home the truth of his principle, and sent it down the centuries to be a living axiom of national power and influence today. 192