Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1917-04-24
President Is Commander In Chief
Over Al-Directing Force Is
General Staff, Of Which Ma
jor General Hugh l. Scott Is
Chief.

Su STATES, ny WHICH Is lueuHC LHc IualeS
aged between eighteen and forty-four
years, not included in the organized
forces, amounted to 2O,53S,347 men.
The above total does not include the
men of the insular possessions except
Hawaii. These could produce another
100000 men Of military age.
France is said now to have one per-
son out of every six in her population
serving in the army or navy. If the
United States and her insular posses
sions ever made such an effort, TAX
ing the present population as 112,00O,-
CO., the president would have at his
disposal no less than 1S,666,666 men.
This is probably more men than Ger
many, Austria Hungary, Bulgaria and
Turkey together have in the field to-
day. a. " e
Unapproachsd Industrial Power.
If the unorganized manhood strength
Of the United States is imposing, the
industrial capacity Of the nation Is
even more impressive.
With less than one-tenth of the
worlds population, we make nearly
one-third of all the things produced.
In iron and steel, for instance, we
turn out more than Great Britain and
Germany, the two next largest pro-
1ucers, do together
Some observers have estimated the
present industrial capacity of the Unit
ed States at as much as all the rest of
the world put together. While this Is
perhaps an overestimate, large scale
production has been carried to such a
fine point here that no nation can ap-
proach US in the total produced per
worker.
The average American produces more
per hour Of labor than the citizen of
any other nation. We rely on mechan-
zeal power three times more per man
than does Great Britain, four times
more than Germany and five times
more than France.
The committee on industrial prepar-
edness Of the naval consulting board
is just about completing an inventory
of the nations war resources.
While the organization which was to
result from this inventory has only just
been started, the work of investigation
done indicates in the clearest manner
the factory strength Of this country.
In preliminary report Howard =.
Coffin, chairman Of the committee, stat
ed that there are more than 10000
manufacturing concerns in the United
States which can render important
service in the event of war. No plant
Is included in this list whose annual
output is less than 100000.
The inventory is in the hands Of the
great engineering societies Of the coun-
try, which have had committees at
work in every state.
The United States marine corps is
independent of both the army and the
navy. and its small strength should
perhaps be added to that of the two
mail services when estimating the to-
tai organized belligerent power of the
ma ton. The authorized strength of the
corps is 1922 officers and men Of all
classificatiOns, and the ranks are near
ly full.
Various schemes for army reserve
bodies were incorporated in the ma.
tional defense act of last year, but
these provisions have not been In force
long enough to produce results OF I'M.
portance. For instance, Of 10000 re-
serve officers provided for a total OF
less than 500 has been commissioned.
Organization Of the Army.
The commander in chief of the army
las of the navy ALSO Is the president
of the United States.
, His representative who carries out