period of the war. Telegraph and express companies also passed into government hands.

Saving coal The mines were not ready on short notice to supply coal as and gasoline fast as war needs called for it. Hard coal for ship and railroads and for many war industries we had to have. Accordingly the government regulated its private use. People learned to save fuel, to heat their houses and offices only to 65° instead of to 70° or 72°, and many changed their heating plants so as to use soft coal or wood. For many weeks in 1918, at the request of the government, churches were closed, and stores, amusement halls, and most industries were closed on certain days of the week, to save coal. People grumbled a little, but joked and assented. A little later, to save gasoline needed in France for tanks and auto-trucks and aëroplanes, "gasless Sunday" took its recognized place alongside "heatless," wheatless," and meatless" days, all essentially on government recommendation only.

Labor standards saved

The selec

tive draft, and its success

66

In zeal to secure more rapid output of war supplies, some States began to repeal existing laws limiting hours of labor for women and children. Organized labor protested wisely, and the government stepped in to check this disastrous tendencywhich had already been tried and abandoned in England. The important thing was, not to "speed up " production for a few weeks, at cost of a long let down afterward, but rather to "keep fit," to keep labor at the top notch of vitality, to gear our industry for a long hard pull, not for a short spurt. Said President Wilson, in a telgram to one State governor :

66

It would be most unfortunate for any of the States to relax the laws by which safeguards have been thrown about labor. I feel that there is no necessity for such action. It would lead to a slackening of the energy of the nation, rather than to an increase, besides being unfair to the workers."

It was necessary that America should give of her manhood as well as of her wealth. So far as results go, that story has been told in preceding pages. Here we may briefly note the method.

At the declaration of war, eager volunteers pressed forward

for army and navy; but what was needed was more than

individual volunteers.

America needed a wise use of the whole nation's resources, each man being assigned the job he could do best. And so, May 18, 1917, the "selective draft" became law. Every man and youth from 18 to 45 (by the first law only from 21 to 31) was required to register in his county seat, giving, in answer to a questionnaire, full information about his character, training, health, and ability. All were liable for service: the President was to lay down principles upon which to select for service in the ranks those best fitted, or most easily spared from other service.

Before the end of the year, half a million soldiers were training in fifty swiftly built camps - each camp a new city - largely 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.

tivities

Along with this national activity, there was a vast volunteer Local acactivity by local democracies, always looking gladly to Washington for advice and direction, but also quite ready to trust to their own initiative if needful. Each State had its Council of Defense (modeled on the Council of National Defense). Most of these were well supplied with State funds; and many of them did exceedingly useful work in promoting unity, arousing interest, and suppressing possible treason within their States. Below each State Council, and in constant touch with it, were county and village councils of like character. In rural districts, the schoolhouse was usually the center for such bodies to meet, as well as for local chapters of the Red Cross and for war lectures.

Other organizations

The work

of the women

Even more significant than these public organizations, were the thousands of canvassing boards that served in the draft without pay; the examining boards of busy physicians, who gave their time freely to secure the physical fitness of the soldiers; the volunteer bodies of village teachers, working Saturdays, Sundays, and nights, to classify the results of draft questionnaires; the Red Cross societies in every neighborhood; and the volunteer canvassers for Liberty Bond sales, wherein the Boy Scouts had a fine share. Democracy proved that, when attacked, it could put aside its ordinary life of work and play, to take on war activities with resolution, efficiency, and unanimity unexcelled.

True, there were some blots on this splendid record. Here and there, selfish or stupid politicians sought personal popularity by wrapping their country's flag about them, or tried to discredit or destroy rivals by false accusations of lack of patriotism. In the heat of war passion, some grave injustices were committed; and some foolish offenders were punished too severely. Mob violence, even, was permitted, and in some cases against thoroughly patriotic men falsely accused by personal enemies. The method by which poor people were sometimes intimidated into taking more bonds than they could afford did not suit well the name Liberty for those bonds. These things America will regret; but, spite of such blemishes, the history is a proud one.

It will not do to omit mention of woman's share in the war. In all the good work described above, she had a part. But we must remember further that, in America as elsewhere, behind each man who took up a rifle there stood a woman to take up the work he laid down. Even in America, women ran elevators, street cars, and motor busses, and took up new and heavy work in factories, especially in munition factories and in air-craft building. In England, as her men were drained away, five million women took up men's work, an Earl's daughter sometimes toiling in a munition factory at the same bench with

a working girl from the streets. And in America, in twenty states, college girls enlisted in the "Woman's Land Army," for outdoor farm work.

as

Nor was it only in manual toil that these new workers played a new part. Many kinds of office work and business management were taken over by women with marked success well as much of the organization and most of the work of the Red Cross both in America and with the American army in France.

In all countries this war efficiency of women gave the final impetus to the movement for equal suffrage. The last "argument" against suffrage the silly plea that a woman ought not to vote because she could not fight - was proved false.

7

Attempts at working

class rule in Central Europe

CHAPTER XI

THE WORLD LEAGUE AND NEW EUROPE

January 18, 1871, the first German Emperor placed the new imperial crown upon his own head at Versailles, while his victorious armies were still besieging Paris. January 18, 1919, the Peace Congress opened its meetings in the same room of the Versailles Palace, to reconstruct Europe after the fall of the German Empire.

1

There was supreme need of reconstruction. Central Europe had broken into fragments, and each fragment was tossing helplessly on waves of revolution. In Germany an extreme wing of the Socialists, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, were planning a second revolution to take power from the "Conservative Socialists" of the Provisional Government into the hands of the working class. Those two leaders, splendidly fearless, had been foremost in all Germany in opposing Prussian militarism before the war; and Liebknecht had spent most of the war years in prison as a traitor to German autocracy, because he had dared to oppose the war even after it began. Freed by the fall of autocracy, he now taught that selfish capitalist and imperialist forces would try to make a peace of plunder. Only a workingman's government in Germany, he preached, and the spread of such a government into France and England, could secure a lasting peace based on justice and righteousness.

This mistaken doctrine, however honest in the leaders, was suited for use by selfishness, ignorance, and passion. Accordingly in several large German cities, especially in Berlin,

1 See C. Altschul's German Militarism and its German Critics, War Information Series, No. 13.