The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-09
Council of National Defense
BY Frederic j. Haskin. Director
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNE
INFORMATION BUREAU
Washington, ID. c.
u-RaiIroads and Munitions.

20 1,,l,,;ssion of the Council of National
/ Defense, belongs to that Wen hiioM u
| school of Americans. 1oulueu py
! Abra ham Lincoln, who start with the
/ lowIiest Jobs they can find, ana TON
I fully ascend to the highest IN thelI
! resnective lines. This fact may not
seem pertinent to Mr.. WIZARDS pres
! ent lob of co-ordinating the trans
nortation and communication systems
/ of the country for war; but II IS
I significant because few men OF TINS
thOrogoing and competent variety are
now found in American public service
The creation of the advisory coflIlls-
sion marks the entrance OF new
kind of man into our public lie.
What sort of men are these clylhan
commissioners who have le1t ldrse
affairs to devote all of their Tune
! without compensation to the WORK %
organizing for war? In what splrlt
do they enter upon the undertaking
This letter and the next one wlll De
partial answers to these quesllo1lS:
Daniel Willard is a man reputeo TO
shun publicity, who has recently come
in for a goodly share of It his re
organization of a great railroad syS-
tenn his leadership OF the fallroeoS
in their fight for a freight rate IN
crease. his endorsement of the admin
istration's eight-hour law, and nnaiiy
his selection TO head the advisory
commission, have made nm easily
the most famous railroad man III
A
gest that he is a railroad executive
of an unusual sort, and TINS IS porile
out both by the looks OF the Hail.
and by his record
He is a lean-faced New Englaho ,t,
with more brow and less jaw than the
typical American money-lender-d
man more idealistic than acqulsltlVe.
He began his railroad career dl the
age of Is as track walker on the
Central Vermont railway. Then came
| 4 foil
which usually forms large part OF
the lives of the great, tho not OF their
bioera phies Willard was almost eV-
erything that a railroad man may pc,
including engineer, conductor, round
house foreman, and finally at the age
of SO, division superintendent. rms
was not a dizzying ascent, but it gave
him thoro knowledge of the railroad
business. And now that he was pre-
pared, opportunity came along in the
shape of +. D. Underwood, who made
him assistant manager ofthe Baltimore
& Ohio. From that hme on the way
to a railroad presidency was open to
him, and his story becomes monoto-
nously successful He did not try to
form great combines or build new
lines; he merely ran his railroads IN
a competent, quiet sort of way. 1t
Hartman or Hill. But when the rail-
roads wanted a spokesman to tell the
country about their need for higher
freight rates, Willard was selected for
the lob. Here was a railroad executive
who did not astonish the public with
his deeds of high finance, but whom,
perhaps, the public would trust Will
lard has been described as a sort of
unofficial mediator between the public
and the railroads. That led naturally
to his present position as chief of the
representatives of big business who are
he lT1in n
war.
Mr. Wizards share of the work of
industrial organization is to have all
of the railroad, telephone and tele-
graph lines of the country ready for
cooperative government service. He
has already held a meeting with fifty
railroad executives representing $780,
000 miles of railroad, and these have
pledged themselves to organize a con-
tinental system which will be entirely
at the disposal of the government dur
ing the war. The telephone and tel
egraph companies have also expressed
themselves as ready to put all of their
facilities at the service of the govern
ment. The motor resources of the
country have been carefully listed, and
they will be no small part of our
emergency transportation equipment:
for America has over three million
automobiles and can produce a mill
lion and a quarter year. The troops
that saved Paris from the first Ger
man onslaught went to the front in
private autos and taXis.
The new facts available about Mr..
Howard E. Coffin, who is commits
sioner for Standardization and indus
trial relations, are chiefly interesting
as showing that he belongs to the
same type as Mr.. Willard. For he,
too has devoted all of his life to in
dustry, and enters public service with
both his fortune and his reputation
made, and with valuable equipment
Of experience. He, too, started in a
modest way, as a postal employe; but
soon found that building automobiles
was his real vocation and has been
building them ever since with a sue
cess and foresight which are familiar
TO almost every one Equally well
known are his achievements m his
present position where he has made a
reputation by his fecundity in original
ideas. 1t was he who worked out the
plan for educating manufacturers to
make government goods by the judi
c1ouS placing of small orders. More
recently he daringly opposed the ma
tlon-wide movement for economy on
the ground that it was paralyzing bus
mess.
DR.. Hollis Godfrey, president of the
Drexel Institute of Philadelphia. is the
only member of the advisory commits
sion who is not connected with BUSH
ness. A man~who has spent much of
MS life within college walls as student
professor and executive, he belongs 20
type which was also rare in public
life until Woodrow Wilson demon
strated that considerable degree of
education might be applied to politics
without disastrous results
whereas most of the other mom-
bers of the advisory commission have
set out to do things without saying
much about their plans, Doctor cod
frey began by issuing an admirable
analysis of the problem which con-
fronts his department of science and
research. He points out that Ger
many's wonderful war efficiency is
largely due to the fact that in Ger
many the interdependence of science
and industry are fully recognized, and
the two fully co-ordinated This
means that in Germany every univer-
sitXy Ia ic