§ 890]

DEMOCRACY TRIUMPHANT

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under officers who had been trained earlier in the year in new officers' training camps; and some 300,000 were already in France, receiving the finishing touches to their training just behind the trenches. When the armistice came, a year later, we had three million men under arms, of whom more than two million were doing splendid work in France. It is hard to say whether the Kaiser or we ourselves were the more astounded at the swift making of an American army.

But if the Allies were to hold out even while this army was so swiftly formed, it was imperative that we furnish at once immense supplies of food, munitions, shipping to transport these things, and money. The task before our government was more than even to select and train three million soldiers: it was to organize one hundred million people for team work, so as to utilize every resource, with intelligence and harmony, in war production and in raising war revenue.

890. The Committee on Public Information was a new thing in history. President Wilson created it that it might "sell the war" to the American people. If a democracy was to turn from all its ordinary ways of living in order to fight zealously, it must be posted thoroughly on the danger that threatened and on the best ways to overcome it. Within a few months, at small expense, this Committee circulated in every village in America more than a hundred pamphlets, brief, readable, forceful, written by leading American scholars, and distributed in millions of copies. Along with posters and placards, designed by our foremost illustrators and distributed also by this committee, these publications did marvelous work in spreading information and in arousing the nation's will, demonstrating that in war itself the pen is mightier than the sword. The same Committee originated also the admirable organization of FourMinute Men (some 5,000 volunteer speakers to explain the causes and needs of the war in their respective communities to audiences gathered at the movies and other entertainments); and it made the plan effective by sending to all the local

centers at frequent intervals information and suggestions for speeches.

891. This was one of many boards of which only a few may be mentioned here. A Shipping Board was soon building ships on a scale and with rapidity beyond all precedent - not without some blunders and much extravagance, but fast enough to beat the submarine. The War Labor Board maintained the necessary harmony between capital and labor in war industries, and also did much to advance permanently the condition of the workers by encouraging "shop committees " to share in the management of industry. The Food Commission, headed by Herbert Hoover, induced the American people cheerfully to limit consumption and to “save the waste." In 1917 a poor crop had given us, by the usual computation, only 20 million bushels of wheat for export; but by doing without and by using substitutes, we did export 141 million bushels or about as much for each man, woman, and child, in England, France, and Italy, as we kept for each one at home.

In like manner, a National Economy Board induced manufacturers of clothing to put forth fewer and simpler styles, saving at least a fifth of the usual materials. The mines would have proved wholly unable to meet the war demand for coal except for the regulation of its use through a Fuel Administrator. People learned to heat offices and homes only to 65° instead of to 72°; and in 1918 for many weeks, at government request, churches were closed, and stores and other industries shut down on certain days of the week. A little later, to save the petrol needed for auto-trucks and airplanes in France, "gasless " Sunday took its place alongside the earlier " wheatless," meatless," and "heatless" days of each week.

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1 When Germany had ravaged Belgium, Mr. Hoover (until then wholly unknown to the public) organized and operated the marvelously efficient American Relief Commission to feed the starving Belgian nation- - until America's entrance into the war compelled him and his American co-workers to leave German territory.

§ 893]

THE GREAT WAR BOARDS

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892. Along with saving, went work to increase production. Farmers extended their acreage for needed crops, securing the necessary advances for seed and machinery from local or State agencies; and the lack of farm labor was supplied in part by volunteer schoolboys and, especially on fruit farms, by college girls. A huge food supply, too, was produced in cities on war gardens," from grounds formerly devoted to beauty or pleasure. Other volunteer activities supplemented the work of the National Boards the unpaid Examining Boards of busy physicians to secure physical fitness for the recruits; the volunteer village school-teachers working nights and Sundays to classify results from the draft questionnaires; the Red Cross organizations reaching down to every rural schoolhouse.

In all the activities, women had a leading part. Indeed behind each man who took up a rifle stood a woman to take up the task he had laid down. Besides their activity in many kinds of office and business work formerly pertaining to men, women ran motor busses, street cars, and elevators, and were largely employed in munition factories.

893. The United States formed no alliance with England or France or Italy; but it recognized that they and we were "associated" as co-workers, and that we must give them all possible aid. Besides providing food, war supplies, and shipping, we loaned money freely to the Allies. Very significant was the method of raising this money for these loans and for our own war expenses. The direct taxes (about four billion dollars a year in 1917 and 1918) came at least half from (1) a graduated income tax bearing heavily upon large incomes, (2) inheritance taxes of like character, (3) excess profits taxes, and (4) luxury taxes.1 The rest of the money for all this war expenditure was borrowed from the American people, mainly in a series of

1 A serious attempt was made to arrange taxes so that the cost of the war should not fall mainly on the working classes. Thoughtful men knew of course that when the war, with its enthusiasms, should have passed into history, the wealthy classes would use their tremendous influence to shift the burden, as they have since been trying to do.

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liberty bond issues. These bonds were sold in small denominations, down to fifty dollars, and were taken largely by people of small means at a time, too, when much more profitable investments were open.

894. To prevent the European demand from raising prices unduly, and to check speculation and hoarding, the government took important steps in fixing "fair prices" and in attempting to regulate profits. But Congress was unwilling to give the President's boards enough power in this direction. The price of wheat flour was fixed. It was absolutely necessary that our country should send large amounts to Europe, for our soldiers and for the hungry Allied populations. Accordingly the government urged our own people to use substitutes, like rye flour and oatmeal. And then food speculators took shameful advantage of the country's patriotic willingness to obey this recommendation by raising the prices of these cheaper flours exorbitantly. This was merely one instance of a disgraceful "profiteering" which created new "war millionaires" by thousands.

In our commercial civilization, a shame like this is too common in all countries in all wars. Despite the blot, America's record of patriotic harmony and magnificent achievement is a proud one, one that may give our people well-grounded confidence that America will solve successfully also the problems of the new day that followed the war.

CHAPTER LXX

SINCE THE WAR

895. EVEN when the war closed, American interests continued closely interwoven with European conditions. But those conditions will be touched upon in this chapter only so far as absolutely necessary. (For a fuller treatment, the student may go to West's Modern Progress, ch. lxx.)

The armistice failed to usher in peace for Europe. Out of the old Austrian and Turkish empires and from the European fringe of Russia, fourteen new states had formed themselves all in a state of war with their former masters and more or less at war among themselves. Within nearly every country, too, was political anarchy and industrial depression. These were among the conditions with which the Peace Congress had to deal when it met at Versailles, January 18, 1919.

The Peace Congress was made up of delegations from the twenty-three Allied governments with five more from England's colonies - Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and India. Each country's delegation had one vote. Countries that had been neutral were invited to send representatives to be called in upon special matters that might concern them. Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Russia were allowed no representation.

896. President Wilson headed the American delegation; Lloyd George and Orlando, the English and Italian premiers, represented their countries; and Clemenceau, the head of the French delegation, was naturally chosen president of the assembly. These leaders made up the "Big Four," and part of the time this inner circle became the "Big Five" by the inclusion of the Japanese representative.