---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Woodrow Wilson
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 21
number: 3
published: 1918-01
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Woodrow Wilson, “To the Soldiers of the National Army,” *Improvement Era* 21, no. 3 (January 1918): 213."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2103unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera2103unse
start_page: 213
end_page: 213
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-01)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2103unse
  publication_year: 1918
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# To the Soldiers of the National Army

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To the Soldiers of the National Army

You are undertaking a great duty. The heart of the whole

country is with you. Everything that you do will be watched

with the deepest solicitude not only by those who are near and

dear to you, but by the whole Nation besides. For this great

war draws us all together, makes us all comrades and brothers,

as all true Americans felt themselves to be when we first made

good our national independence. The eyes of all the world will

be upon you, because you are in some special sense the soldiers

of freedom.

Let it be your pride, therefore, to show all men everywhere

not only what good soldiers you are, but also what good men

you are, keeping yourselves fit and straight in everything, and

pure and clean through and through. Let us set for ourselves a

standard so high that it will be a glory to live up to it, and then

let us live up to it and add a new laurel to the crown of America.

My affectionate confidence goes with you in every battle and

every test. God keep and guide you!

The White House, Washington Woodrow Wilson.