20,000,000 miles. Other economies have been effected by providing for the common use of terminals by railways that were formerly competing. The standardization of locomotives and freight-cars, will, it is expected, make for increased efficiency and the saving of money.

While the public has suffered inconvenience by the curtailment of passenger service and has had an added drain put on its pocket by increases in rates, it has borne the change with patriotic good nature, realizing that efficiency in railroad operation was one of the factors in the winning of the war. Vast quantities of food and war materials and large numbers of troops had to be moved to the Atlantic seaboard, and this could only be done successfully with unified control. Government operation of the railroads was a war measure.

Whether

or not it will continue as a peace measure remains to be seen. If the roads are turned back to their owners, as it is promised they will be, some may find themselves to have suffered great hardship, while others may have benefitted greatly by the period of government

financing. The "unscrambling of the eggs,' will be a difficult problem.

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The government had to take over the operation of the railroads as a war measure, because the unscientific treatment of them for so many years had enfeebled them for war-work. They had been heckled by politicians of all parties. They had been hampered in their growth by Federal and State commissions. Radical politicians always speak of them as though they were run for the benefit of a few stockholders and bondholders, and are, therefore, fair game for attack. As a matter of fact, the number of those who have their money directly invested in them runs into millions. More than that, fully one-half of the people of the country have an indirect financial interest in them. There are over 10,000,000 savings-banks depositors in the country, and more than 30,000,000 industrial workers who carry insurance against death and casualty. Through these banking and insurance institutions their money has been invested in what should be a security as safe as any in the world. When the war is over these millions of investors will watch with

concern the future of their properties, and it is doubtful that the majority of Americans would quietly acquiesce in the continuatica in times of peace of a policy of railroad control which would leave the finest transportation systems in the world mere shuttlecocks for the battledores of politics. It is more probable that from the present experiment there will be worked out a system of control which will deal fairly with the public, the investors, and the employees.

This action of the government has been called socialistic. It was, but for the time there was no other way out of a dangerous situation. The war must be won. Realizing this, Americans have faced trainless days and seatless trains with the same cheerful willingness that they have wheatless days and gasless Sundays.

A

CHAPTER XV

THE COLLEGE

BOOK such as this, which seeks to de

scribe briefly America's mobilization for war, would not be complete without consideration of the splendid part played by our universities and colleges in the great effort. It was to them that the government had to look for the large number of officers needed for the formation of our armies. Modern warfare is a technical science. The science of war in Napoleon's day, and for many years after, was largely a matter of strategy and manoeuvre. The weapons used were few and comparatively simple. To-day every science is called to the aid of the armies. The knowledge of chemistry, of mechanics, of mathematics, and electricity all play a part in the construction and operation of engines of warfare. Officers who are to lead men into battle must be experts in the use of special arms and devices that were unknown but a few years ago. Not so long since

artillery fired almost pointblank at its target, but to-day it fires at an unseen target miles away, and must depend for accuracy on the niceties of mathematical calculation and observation from airplanes and outlying posts. Every branch of army service requires specialists of some kind, whether on the fighting-line or far behind it. For the command of effective fighting forces trained officers are essential. Before the Great War we had only two schools, West Point and Annapolis, whose sole purpose it was to fit young men for command in event of war, and they graduated yearly but a few hundred. When we entered the conflict, one of our crying needs was for competent junior officers.

Fortunately, there had been held, in the summer of 1915 and 1916, that series of camps for voluntary training which were attended by some thousands of young men. Of these the great majority were graduates or undergraduates of our universities and colleges whose education and discipline made them readily adaptable to the requirements of military life. From the colleges, in fact, came the first ef