Woodrow Wilson to George W. Goethals

Your letter of July twentieth does you great honour. It is conceived in a fine spirit of public duty, such as I have learned to expect of you. This is, as you say, a case where the service of the public is the only thing to be considered. Personal feelings and personal preferences must be resolutely put aside and we must do the thing that is most serviceable.
It is with that thought in mind that I feel constrained to say that I think that you have interpreted your duty rightly.
No impartial determination of the questions at issue can now set the ship-building programme promptly and effectively on its way to completion and success. It is best that we take the self-forgetting course you suggest and begin again with a fresh sheet of paper, — begin, not the shipbuilding, but the further administration of the programme. The shipbuilding is, happily, in large part begun and can now readily be pushed to completion, if the air be cleared of the debates that have unfortunately darkened it.
With deep appreciation, therefore, of your generous attitude and with genuine admiration of what you have been able in a short time to accomplish, I accept your resignation, and feel that in doing so I am acting upon your own best judgment as well as my own. I hope that you will feel the same undoubting confidence that I feel that the people of the country, for whom you have rendered great services, will judge you justly and generously in this as in other things, and that all personal misunderstandings and misjudgments that may have been created will pass in a short time entirely away.

With warm regard,
Cordially and sincerely Yours,

Woodrow Wilson

Major General Goerge W. Goethals.