Winning a Cause Part 29

If critical persons were to try to point out any weakness in America's preparedness program, they would probably take the production of aircraft as an instance where the government had failed. Although America was slow in producing airplanes, it must be taken into consideration that this was almost entirely a new departure for American manufacturers. The delay in airplane production was due to the fact that there was too much red tape to be unrolled before actual work was begun. The government soon realized this and appointed one man to have entire charge of aircraft production. Under his management the red tape was thrown aside and business-like methods took its place.

The combined ability of the automobile engineers of the country produced the Liberty motor which proved to be one of the best airplane engines ever developed to lift great weights. The DeHaviland and Handley-Page, bombing and reconnaissance planes, were immediately equipped largely with the new Liberty. 3180 of the former and 101 of the latter were produced in this country in the year before the armistice was signed. Out of this number 1379 had been s.h.i.+pped overseas. In the meantime the production of planes had been far outstripped by the enlisted and commissioned personnel of the air service. Thousands of cadets and officers were delayed in the ground schools, at the flying schools, and at Camp d.i.c.k, Texas, the concentration post for aviation, because of the ruinous shortage of planes, just when the American forces newly brought into the battle zones needed the efficient help of a great fleet of aircraft.

Airplanes are rightly called "the eyes of the army." It is unofficially stated that less than 800 American aviators ever saw service over the German lines, and these men, not having American scout planes, used largely foreign models equipped with the famous French Gnome, LeRhone, and Hispano-Suiza motors. American-made machines, whether for bombing, observing, or scouting, went into action for the first time in July, 1918.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A photograph from an airplane at 7900 feet, showing Love Field, Dallas, Texas, and a parachute jumper in the "Flying Frolic,"

November 12, 1918. Parachutes were used by observers to escape from "kite" balloons ignited by German artillery fire, and a new type is being perfected by which aviators may also escape from disabled airplanes.]

The American people before the war were the most wasteful people in the world. This was probably due to the fact that the people had never been confronted by a real necessity for economizing. However, when war was declared the government immediately demanded that the people conserve their food. The result was that Americans were soon observing wheatless, meatless, and porkless days with great patriotic fervor.

12,000,000 families signed pledges to observe the rules of the food administration, and hotels and restaurants joined in the great conservation effort. War gardens sprang up by the millions. The country was soon conserving millions of pounds of foodstuffs that would ordinarily have been wasted. A food "hog" was considered in the same light as a traitor!

On the same plan as the food administration, the government conducted the conservation of coal. The result was that the essential industries received coal first and the people could get only what was absolutely necessary for heating their homes. Lights were turned out in cities early to save fuel. The "daylight saving" plan from April to November turned the clocks ahead one hour. As a result of all these precautions, the factories were kept going, the s.h.i.+ps were not hindered for lack of coal, and America's great preparedness program was carried on without hindrance or delay.

It is difficult to realize what gigantic efforts America was putting forth. An ill.u.s.tration from the manufacture of ordnance will help such an understanding. In the fall of 1918, the United States government was spending upon the making of ordnance alone, every thirty days, an amount equal to the cost of the Panama Ca.n.a.l, and it was spending as much or more in several other departments. What a terrible loss war brings to the world!

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Red Cross War Fund and Members.h.i.+p poster by A. E.

Foringer was one of the most effective produced during the War.]

To finance these tremendous preparedness projects, the government called upon the people to lend their money by buying government liberty bonds. This was an entirely new thing for the American people of any generation, but they responded in a manner that showed the government that the people were backing it to the last inch, and that they were out to win as quickly as possible, regardless of cost, or other sacrifices they were called upon to make. The government conducted great loan campaigns. Each one met with greater success than the one preceding it. The bonds were bought by all cla.s.ses of people, and a man without a bond was like a dog without a home. Of course the great banks and corporations bought millions of dollars worth of bonds, but the great number of small denomination bonds bought by the wage-earning cla.s.ses was what spelled the success of the loans. The total amount raised by the five loans was approximately twenty-two billion dollars.

Besides these great loans, the American people contributed $300,000,000 to two Red Cross funds inside of a year. There were also enormous contributions to the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the War Camp Community Service, the Salvation Army, and allied funds.

Although a great deal of credit for the remarkable success of America's preparedness program is due to the fact that she had such wonderful resources, the true underlying reason for her success is the magnificent spirit of the American people. Germany thought that, because of the cosmopolitan make-up of the people and the immensity of the country they occupied, they would not unite as one great nation.

The United States has proved for all time that she is one solid indivisible nation with ho thought of anything but the progress and liberty of her country and the world, of the unsullied honor and unquestioned defense of her flag, and of all for which it stands.

It was not his olive valleys and orange groves which made the Greece of the Greek; it was not for his apple orchards or potato fields that the farmer of New England and New York left his plough in the furrow and marched to Bunker Hill, to Bennington, to Saratoga. A man's country is not a certain area of land, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. The secret sanctification of the soil and symbol of a country is the idea which they represent; and this idea the patriot wors.h.i.+ps through the name and the symbol. . . .

We of America, with our soil sanctified and our symbol glorified by the great ideas of liberty and religion,--love of freedom and of G.o.d,--are in the foremost vanguard of this great caravan of humanity. To us rulers look, and learn justice, while they tremble; to us the nations look, and learn to hope, while they rejoice. Our heritage is all the love and heroism of liberty in the past; and all the great of the Old World are our teachers.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

A CONGRESSIONAL MESSAGE

FROM PRESIDENT WILSON'S ANNUAL ADDRESS TO

CONGRESS DECEMBER 2, 1918

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: The year that has elapsed since I last stood before you to fulfill my Const.i.tutional duty to give the Congress from time to time information on the state of the Union has been so crowded with great events, great processes, and great results, that I cannot hope to give you an adequate picture of its transactions or of the far-reaching changes which have been wrought in the life of our nation and of the world. You have yourselves witnessed these things, as I have. It is too soon to a.s.sess them; and we who stand in the midst of them and are part of them are less qualified than men of another generation will be to say what they mean or even what they have been.

But some great outstanding facts are unmistakable and const.i.tute, in a sense, part of the public business with which it is our duty to deal.

To state them is to set the stage for the legislative and executive action which must grow out of them and which we have yet to shape and determine.

A year ago we had sent 145,198 men overseas. Since then we have sent 1,950,513, an average of 162,542 each month, the number in fact rising in May last to 245,951, in June to 278,760, in July to 307,182, and continuing to reach similar figures in August and September--in August 289,570 and in September 257,438. No such movement of troops ever took place before across 3000 miles of sea, followed by adequate equipment and supplies, and carried safely through extraordinary dangers of attack--dangers which were alike strange and infinitely difficult to guard against. In all this movement only 758 men were lost by enemy attacks--630 of whom were upon a single English transport which was sunk near the Orkney Islands.

I need not tell you what lay back of this great movement of men and material. It is not invidious to say that back of it lay a supporting organization of the industries of the country and of all its productive activities more complete, more thorough in method and effective in results, more spirited and unanimous in purpose and effort than any other great belligerent had ever been able to effect.

We profited greatly by the experience of the nations which had already been engaged for nearly three years in the exigent and exacting business, their every resource and every executive proficiency taxed to the utmost. We were the pupils, but we learned quickly and acted with a promptness and a readiness of cooperation that justify our great pride that we were able to serve the world with unparalleled energy and quick accomplishment.

But it is not the physical scale and executive efficiency of preparation, supply, equipment and dispatch that I would dwell upon, but the mettle and quality of the officers and men we sent over and of the sailors who kept the seas, and the spirit of the nation that stood behind them. No soldiers or sailors ever proved themselves more quickly ready for the test of battle or acquitted themselves with more splendid courage and achievement when put to the test. Those of us who played some part in directing the great processes by which the war was pushed irresistibly forward to the final triumph may now forget all that and delight our thoughts with the story of what our men did.

Their officers understood the grim and exacting task they had undertaken and performed with audacity, efficiency, and unhesitating courage that touch the story of convoy and battle with imperishable distinction at every turn, whether the enterprise were great or small--from their chiefs, Pers.h.i.+ng and Sims, down to the youngest lieutenant; and their men were worthy of them--such men as hardly need to be commanded, and go to their terrible adventure blithely and with the quick intelligence of those who know just what it is they would accomplish. I am proud to be the fellow countryman of men of such stuff and valor. Those of us who stayed at home did our duty; the war could not have been won or the gallant men who fought it given their opportunity to win it otherwise; but for many a long day we shall think ourselves "accurs'd we were not there, and hold our manhood cheap while any speaks that fought," with these at St. Mihiel or Thierry. The memory of those days of triumphant battle will go with these fortunate men to their graves; and each will have his favorite memory. "Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, but he'll remember with advantages what feats he did that day!"

What we all thank G.o.d for with deepest grat.i.tude is that our men went in force into the line of battle just at the critical moment when the whole fate of the world seemed to hang in the balance and threw their fresh strength into the ranks of freedom in time to turn the whole tide and sweep of the fateful struggle--turn it once for all, so that thenceforth it was back, back, back for their enemies, always back, never again forward! After that it was only a scant four months before the commanders of the Central Empires knew themselves beaten; and now their very empires are in liquidation!

And through it all, how fine the spirit of the nation was. What unity of purpose, what untiring zeal! What elevation of purpose ran through all its splendid display of strength and untiring accomplishment. I have said that those of us who stayed at home to do the work of organization and supply will always wish that we had been with the men whom we sustained by our labor; but we can never be ashamed. It has been an inspiring thing to be here in the midst of fine men who had turned aside from every private interest of their own and devoted the whole of their trained capacity to the tasks that supplied the sinews of the whole great undertaking! The patriotism, the unselfishness, the thorough-going devotion and distinguished capacity that marked their toilsome labors day after day, month after month, have made them fit mates and comrades of the men in the trenches and on the sea. And not the men here in Was.h.i.+ngton only. They have but directed the vast achievement. Throughout innumerable factories, upon innumerable farms, in the depths of coal mines and iron mines and copper mines, wherever the stuffs of industry were to be obtained and prepared, in the s.h.i.+pyards, on the railways, at the docks, on the sea, in every labor that was needed to sustain the battlelines, men have vied with each other to do their part and do it well. They can look any man-at-arms in the face and say, "We also strove to win and gave the best that was in us to make our fleets and armies sure of their triumph!"

And what shall we say of the women--of their instant intelligence, quickening every task that they touched; their capacity for organization and cooperation, which gave their action discipline and enacted the effectiveness of everything they attempted; their apt.i.tude at tasks to which they had never before set their hands; their utter self-sacrifice alike in what they did and in what they gave? Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new l.u.s.ter to the annals of American womanhood.

The latest tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men in political rights as they have proved themselves their equals in every field of practical work they have entered, whether for themselves or for their country. These great days of completed achievements would be sadly marred were we to omit that act of justice. Besides the immense practical services they have rendered, the women of the country have been the moving spirits in the systematic economies by which our people have voluntarily a.s.sisted to supply the suffering peoples of the world and the armies upon every front with food and everything else that we had that might serve the common cause. The details of such a story can never be fully written, but we carry them at our hearts and thank G.o.d that we can say that we are the kinsmen of such.

And now we are sure of the great triumph for which every sacrifice was made. It has come, come in its completeness; and with the pride and inspiration of these days of achievement quick within us we turn to the tasks of peace again--a peace secure against the violence of irresponsible monarchs and ambitious military coteries, and made ready for a new order, for new foundations of justice and fair dealing.

PRESIDENT WILSON IN FRANCE

On December 14, 1918, President Wilson arrived in Paris. He had by leaving North America done something never done before by an American president; but he was never afraid to establish a new precedent if he believed his duty called upon him to do so. Very rarely have the presidents gone in person before Congress to read their messages, but Woodrow Wilson revived the custom. In leaving the continent, however, he was not reviving an abandoned custom but establis.h.i.+ng an entirely new precedent.

He sailed on one of the huge American transports, the _George Was.h.i.+ngton_, and was wildly welcomed upon his arrival at Brest, the American base in France.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A photograph of the United States Transport _George Was.h.i.+ngton_ taken from an airplane convoying the steamer out to sea.

From the forward mast is flying the President's flag, distinguishable by the four white stars. At the bow and stern can be seen the naval guns, used formerly in case of submarine attack.]

In Paris, at a great dinner given in his honor, he was welcomed by President Poincare in the following words:--

_Mr. President_: Paris and France awaited you with impatience. They were eager to acclaim in you the ill.u.s.trious democrat whose words and deeds were inspired by exalted thought, the philosopher delighting in the solution of universal laws from particular events, the eminent statesman who had found a way to express the highest political and moral truths in formulas which bear the stamp of immortality.

They had also a pa.s.sionate desire to offer thanks, in your person, to the great Republic of which you are the chief for the invaluable a.s.sistance which had been given spontaneously, during this war, to the defenders of right and liberty.

Even before America had resolved to intervene in the struggle she had shown to the wounded and to the orphans of France a solicitude and a generosity the memory of which will always be enshrined in our hearts.

The liberality of your Red Cross, the countless gifts of your fellow-citizens, the inspiring initiative of American women, antic.i.p.ated your military and naval action, and showed the world to which side your sympathies inclined. And on the day when you flung yourselves into the battle with what determination your great people and yourself prepared for united success!

Some months ago you cabled to me that the United States would send ever-increasing forces, until the day should be reached on which the Allied armies were able to submerge the enemy under an overwhelming flow of new divisions; and, in effect, for more than a year a steady stream of youth and energy has been poured out upon the sh.o.r.es of France.

No sooner had they landed than your gallant battalions, fired by their chief, General Pers.h.i.+ng, flung themselves into the combat with such a manly contempt of danger, such a smiling disregard of death, that our longer experience of this terrible war often moved us to counsel prudence. They brought with them, in arriving here, the enthusiasm of Crusaders leaving for the Holy Land.

It is their right today to look with pride upon the work accomplished and to rest a.s.sured that they have powerfully aided by their courage and their faith.

Eager as they were to meet the enemy, they did not know when they arrived the enormity of his crimes. That they might know how the German armies make war it has been necessary that they see towns systematically burned down, mines flooded, factories reduced to ashes, orchards devastated, cathedrals sh.e.l.led and fired--all that deliberate savagery, aimed to destroy national wealth, nature, and beauty, which the imagination could not conceive at a distance from the men and things that have endured it and today bear witness to it.

In your turn, Mr. President, you will be able to measure with your own eyes the extent of these disasters, and the French Government will make known to you the authentic doc.u.ments in which the German General Staff developed with astounding cynicism its program of pillage and industrial annihilation. Your n.o.ble conscience will p.r.o.nounce a verdict on these facts.

Should this guilt remain unpunished, could it be renewed, the most splendid victories would be in vain.

Mr. President, France has struggled, has endured, and has suffered during four long years; she has bled at every vein; she has lost the best of her children; she mourns for her youths. She yearns now, even as you do, for a peace of justice and security.