The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-12-08

Lane, in Enthusiastically striking phrases, portrays the transition of ReRcefut democracy into a nation or San1zed for war. Possession of re- tources alone he warns the country Qoessnot win wars and recounting the enorrQus progress made on every hand declares the physical stores of the United States are almost com Nle4ely at command of the worlds
 what can you do to serve me?' 4astas the Secretary. ITO that ques- ticn SAch Individual and each depart nerf Of the government must give e1Swer The answer of this depart hent Is that it has put every agency 4nd activity which it has at the ser vice of those departments more di- rectly concerned with war making. Our men of scientific knowledge seta1lurgists, chemists, engineers, sraphers-hav found new work at their hands. The homesteaders and the miners on the public lands have been released from their obliga- zfons if they go into the army or show themselves to be of greater ser rlcs or their lands than on them. The Exclamation Service on a million 4na quarter acres of irrigated lands an6 the Indians on a hundred reser- 4tfons Joined in the campaign for 1Sre meat and more wheat. The Patent Of1ice has been searched for new devices that could be brought into uso to kill the submarine or limit it's destructiveness, for the plans of htretofore unused lethal weapons, and for the fomulae of improved or Nnknown sources of power. Before var actually came this department had compiled the data which showed fha poWer of the nation in mineral and chemical resources, our possible needs, and how they could be met at home or where abroad, prepared lists 1E those men who had special knowl- 4dFa or were of skill along the lines of our own activities enabled as to s4pand as the call was made.
 Under the imperative mandate 6f Uzr that all things shall become s1hiect to a new classification accord l1x 10 their usefulness in carrying on f1s nation's struggle, certain phases d< our work have fallen into the back ground, while others have been
 brought into the high light of national l.n npcrtsnce-
 But the making of war today is f6r moro than test of primal re- 8eurces: 1t tests the full powers of tht nation in every resource and ca- raclky and especially along lines of 4clsnklflc knowledge. And here again #6 lind that the ways of peace have EI4en something in the way of prep arstton for war. The scientific bu- reaue of the government found them saIVes converted over night into ad- 5tacs6 and auxiliaries in the great in h&lionaI contest. Men who had re- earded Themselves as modestly use- Ifl only 1n the discovering and reveal ing of new sources of material strength found that their years of ex- refience in the mountains and on the azsert, in laboratories and in mines, called them at once into the thick of klze European struggle.
 War forces a nation to an intensive Eddy of what it can do. Thought and Work-these are the answers to fhs problems of material insufficiency. #a Of America have had no little to boast of through the quick century of oar march across a continent. And without doubt our ability to stand clone depending on ourselves for the things that make a modern industrial hation is something of which we may be proud, not so much because
 have this land as because we have L1slnd out its worth and made it ours Hs putting it to use. But we soon realize when thrown into such strug- gle as this war how far removed from slfIre Independence we are.
 "a democracy making war is never " fn Agreeable sight, for it is not in its normal line of life. And, those who 1neer or jeer because it does not play the fame as well as might be, pay an unsconscious compliment to the merits of free institutions. It takes itn1e to accustom men to the short eiard words of command, and to the surrender of personal judgment. Il is not easy, either, for a nation to fsirn it's back upon the conception o1 world where justice works out its ends by quiet processes. and in ftt etand come to the stern belief that the ultimate court is a battle field. So il there is wrenching and side-slipp1nl and confusion there should be no sur rrise The surprise to me has beer with what comparative ease the trans. Etion has been made, and how mucf ilitdonscious preparation for the new work had been already made.
 NOW, that our problem is to pro 6uce more than ever before, 1t ii clearly to be seen that the physica resources of the United States are to- day almost completely at the com Inand of the worlds needs. If, in de6d, for the past 40 years the natioI
 had been planning to make war upoI si9 neighbors, and so seize the conti nanf for itself, what fnore would hay, been done to make our resources available for such an adventure This is, perhaps, the hardest test tt which the problem of our interna development could be put. Yet thu answer must be that very little nor, aonld have been done or would hav' eeen done by a people necessaril! doing % much.
 Hut this war is not to be won b. the measuring of resources, for if war wore to be 90 won China possibl! would be our only rival. The spiri of the people Is the making of the ma fIon. in war as in peace. The e<tsn % which people can co-operat' marks tie point of civilization the! have reached. Now, the greatest out sanding fact of the past year, al szsarlE shown in the work of this de 1affMent alone, Is that under thi czyEtaliuing influence of a common danger and under the inspiring i'm puise of a common purpose.
 Men are already thinking of thu