New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-07-07

To say that the Administration is grinding
on the rocks is surely palpably far from true;
but those who say so and who say it often be-
cause they wish it and plan IT'D are now every
day fortified with fresh arguments, such as
the protracted and really quite aimle's delay
in arriving at national policy with regard
10 the highly immediate question of tie price
OF steel, and such as the recent Congressional
elections in the First District of New Hamp-
shire and in the Sixth District Of Indiana
elections in which the Republican candidates
were returned to the House Of Representa-
tives with doubled and trebed majorities
and in which disaffected persons like Mr..
Hearst are slnkingly but effectively Ia
boring to persuade their followers 10 see
4 reputation OF Mr.. Wilson and Of the Allies
and of the war; In such circumstances, with
the enemy always at our gates in the persons
OF his friends it may be useful to observe
certain broad reasons for public confidence,
or for lack Of public confidence, suggested by
the Administrations general conduct Of war
affairs at Washington.
A Spirit That Deserves Confidence
The spirit of that general conduct as dis
tinguished from it's mechanism, has deserved
public confidence convincingly and even
ltouchingly 1t speaks with an eloquent
tongue in those petty details Of daily rou-
tine which necessarily are beneath the notice
Of the Division of Public Information.
young man closes his desk in New York, re-
signs his salary repairs TO Washington, ap-
pears at the War Department and offers
himself for service in the medical corps in
n rra in
terview him find that he has been occupying
an important administrative position IN an
important business house. They Immediate
ly, of their own motion, suggest that he take
an officers commission and attach himself
10 them in their central administrative task
of organizing our medical corps for its ire
mendously enlarged and difficult service both
at home and abroad. Incidents of con-
trary type are numerous Incidents of this
tyne are ten times more numerous. The
wells of red tape have been rent and the
temple of the bureaucracy has been laid open
20 the tread of unclean outsiders in a man
ner almost miraculous and with a hospitality
utterly impossible except under the spell
Of A great devotion.
The final proof Of the existence of this
Purpose and of this devotion is seen in the
continuance of the relations established be-
tween, on the one hand, the General NUM-
tons Board and the Aircraft Production
Board of the Council Of National Defence
and. on the other, General Crozier's ordnance
section and general aviation section in the
War Department. Commercial civilian adj
vice in the persons Of Mr.. Scott and of Mr..
Coffin. bureaucratic military execution in
the persons of General Crozier and Of Cen
eral Squer, and political civilian ultimate
control in the persons of Mr. Baker and Of
Mr.. Wilson are here hidden to lie down to-
gethcr in the same fold ANONYMOUSLY and pre-
posterously. That it continues to be done
with a high degree Of friendliness and with
very considerable degree of effectiveness
is an event to confound the cynics of yes
terday. It would have blown away long ago
in storms of its own spontaneous internal
generation if il had not been sustained by
p spirit unknown to US before the war. In
eyidencing such a spirit-a spirit ample,
open, receptive reciprocative the Admins
tration, throughout its departments, Is in
process of becoming a genuinely national
Administration in all those matters Of daily
routine in which the politician and the
bureaucrat and the outside expert must unite
to give us a sound and swift handling OF the
detailed business of warfare.