it was, on the whole, unpopular
and accomplished no very useful purpose at home, it developed during
1918 a service of European propaganda which was of immense value in
heartening the Allies, informing the neutrals and discouraging the
enemy.

For all this money was needed, and in May and June the first Liberty
Loan of $2,000,000,000 was put before the public in an intensive
campaign of publicity. Mr. McAdoo proved himself an extremely able
advertiser of the public finances, and with the vigorous cooperation of
banks and business men the loan was more than 50 per cent
oversubscribed. There were other and larger loans later, but after the
success of the first one there was no doubt that they would be taken;
the first great accomplishment in national financing was almost as much
of a surprise to the public as the ready acceptance of the draft.

Early in April the railroads were put in charge of a committee of five
railroad Presidents, who were given great powers in the combination of
facilities for better service. But the system did not work well, and on
Dec. 26, 1917, the President announced the assumption by the Government
of control of the railroads for the war emergency, with Mr. McAdoo as
Director General.

Nineteen hundred and seventeen, then, saw the Wilson Administration
undertaking far heavier burdens than any previous Administration had
attempted, and meeting with a measure of success which was beyond all
prediction. The most powerful nation in the world was getting ready for
war on an enormous scale, getting ready slowly, to be sure, but with a
surprising ease and a surprising harmony. The nation which had
re-elected the President in November because he had kept it out of war
was whole-heartedly behind him from April on as he led it into war.

But great as was the President's moral authority at home, it was still
greater abroad. The principles proclaimed in his address of April 2,
and repeated and elaborated later in the year, became the creed of
almost every political element in Europe except the German military
party. The Russian revolution was still a liberalizing influence, in
the early part of the year, and self-determination began to be
proclaimed over all Europe as the central principle of any satisfactory
peace settlement. In the allied countries, where Mr. Wilson's
forbearance toward Germany had been heaped with ridicule for the last
two years, he became over night the interpreter of the ideals for