in order that he be supplied with everything his physical, moral and
military well being might require. They were put there. The result was
a sweeping change, an immense expansion of energy in the United States
itself. The draft took care of the army. No time or trouble had to be
given to filling the ranks and keeping them full. The enormous sums of
money necessary to finance our allies as well as ourselves were promptly
oversubscribed in a series of loans, the first and least of which ran
into three billion dollars, the fourth into six billions, a sum larger
than any single loan ever floated by any other nation. Idleness was
abolished. The order to "work or fight" was strictly enforced upon all
the people, rich and poor alike, for any attempt to except any one or
any class would have been blown away in a gale of laughter. In a space
incredibly brief the United States became a nation of actual workers, in
which every individual did his or her share, submitting meanwhile, with
good grace and no murmuring, to being rationed. Interstate utilities
were taken over and operated by the government, including the railway,
telegraph and telephone lines; and government fixed prices on the
necessaries of life. Everything was subordinated to the one and only
purpose of winning the war. All that we were and all that we had was
thoroughly mobilized behind the fighting arms, the army and the navy.

RATIONING THE NATIONS

Almost immediately after the first military and naval preparations had
been set in operation the United States Government, taking no chance as
against the future, began to regulate the lives and living of Americans
at home. A policy of conservation, so well devised that it went into
effect without the slightest disturbance of daily living and daily
routine, was at once adopted.

England, France and Belgium had to be fed. Belgium had to be clothed and
housed as well as fed. Out of our abundance had to come the means to
those ends, as well as to equip and maintain vast armies of our own,
from bases three thousand miles away in Europe and twice as far in Asia.
The whole nation was mobilized for war.

Britain and France had come through more than three years of
close-lipped but bone-cracking effort, in which every aspect of domestic
life was changed, the final ounce of strength exerted, privations
unheard of endured in grim silence. America saved them, and not alone by
force of arms against the common enemy.

WHAT