“Air power is new to all our countries. It brings advantages to some and weakens others; it calls for readjustment everywhere.”

Aviation, Geography, and Race (1939)
Context: Air power is new to all our countries. It brings advantages to some and weakens others; it calls for readjustment everywhere.
If only there were some way to measure the changing character of men, some yardstick to reapportion influence among the nations, some way to demonstrate in peace the strength of arms in war. But with all of its dimensions, its clocks, and weights, and figures, science fails us when we ask a measure for the rights of men. They cannot be judged by numbers, by distance, weight, or time; or by counting heads without a thought of what may lie within. Those intangible qualities of character, such as courage, faith, and skill, evade all systems, slip through the bars of every cage. They can be recognized, but not measured.