the German methods.

CHAPTER XXXIII

AMERICA TRANSFORMED BY WAR

When Germany threw down the gauge of battle to the civilized world, the
German High Command calculated that the long, rigorous and thorough
military training to which every male German had submitted, would make a
military force invincible in the field. The High Command believed that a
nation so trained would carve out victory after victory and would end
the World War before any nation could train its men sufficiently to
check the Teutonic rush.

To that theory was opposed the democratic conception that the free
nations of earth could train their young men intensively for six months
and send these vigorous free men into the field to win the final
decision over the hosts of autocracy.

These antagonistic theories were tried out to a finish in the World War
and the theory of democracy, developed in the training camps of America,
Canada, Australia, Britain, France and Italy, triumphed. Especially in
the training camps of America was the German theory disproved. There
within six months the best fighting troops on earth were developed and
trained in the most modern of war-time practices. Everything that
Germany could devise found its answer in American ingenuity, American
endurance and American skill.

The entrance of America into the tremendous conflict on April 6, 1917
was followed immediately by the mobilization of the entire nation.
Business and industry of every character were represented in the Council
of National Defense which acted as a great central functioning
organization for all industries and agencies connected with the
prosecution of the war. Executives of rare talent commanding high
salaries tendered their services freely to the government. These were
the "dollar a year men" whose productive genius was to bear fruit in the
clothing, arming, provisioning, munitioning and transportation of four
million men and the conquest of Germany by a veritable avalanche of war
material.

Out of the ranks of business and science came Hurley, Schwab, Piez,
Coonley to drive forward a record-breaking shipbuilding program,
Stettinius to speed up the manufacture of munitions, John W. Ryan to
coordinate and accelerate the manufacture of airplanes, Vance C.
McCormick and Dr. Alonzo E. Taylor to solve the problems of the War
Trade Board, Hoover to multiply food production, to conserve food
supplies and to place the army and citizenry of America upon food
r