The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-09-17

and to give the authorities at Wash ington the benefit of their individual, practical suggestions.
 "It is most interesting work, al- ways new and always new and al ways changing. Part of the job of our section is to persuade the leaders of new undertakings at Washington not to try to build separate admins trative machines all over the country but to simplify things and save waste and confusion by using the official state bodies already appointed. Another part Of our job is to enlist the enthusiasm of the state councils in new and important measures such as those being taken just now for the assistance and entertainment of the drafted men; and we are constantly advising and informing the state councils. We conduct a special in formation department which receives reports from the various states, as- semblies and indexes these facts; and enables us to issue bulletins and cir culars of suggestions at frequent in- tervals.
 Suppose, for example, the Con- necticut Council of Defense wants to increase the scope of some special part of it's work It writes to us. We send it a letter, telling of this ex- pertinent by Illinois, and that experi- ment by Kentucky; a little later it re- cetves an information circular, de- scribing various plans carried through in other states; later still, it may re- ceive a bulletin requesting it to carry out throughout Connecticut pro. gram of work which so many states have found successful that we in Washington are hoping to standardize it, and, if possible, to make it nation wide.
 'So it goes. If one made a chart to represent the wartime govern ment of the nation, there would be AS squares to represent the AS states each with it's own subsidiary system of lines and SquareS-and for each of these AS squares, line would run through the square representing the section on cooperation with states and out again to each of the squares representing the Council of National
 Defense and other organizations in Washington. The section on cooper ation with states may be thought of as the ring through which pass the in- numerable threads which connect the states with Washington. Or if we think of the administrators at Wash ington as a lot of men talking over
 the long distance telephone with their assistants in every state capital in the country, the section on cooperation with states is Central Most of us have at one time or another wondered | if Central in a telephone system l wouldn't find it interesting to lister !In on the conversations passing through her switchboard. We'll, it is our job to listen in on all these con. versations and to do what we can te 1 make the result of the conversation
 useful; and considering that the sub 1 ject of talk is the means of safe guarding the republic and of uniting
 our vast population to undertake tasks that have never been under l taken before in history, no wonder we find it thrilling.
 "One of the most striking thing. about this work is it's decentralization It is not controlled from Washington
 The city and county and town coun | cils of defense are independent. w, have no legal hold on them. They dt not receive orders, they receive sug gestions. They carry on their ow1
 work in their own way. It, is the,
 who are pulling the wagon along. Tn, kind of work our section supervise
 cannot be done by a few big men il Washington; it has to be done b. thousands and thousands of citizen l of the country, each of them an in
 dispensable part of the tremendou
 machine. Could there be any nor, i perfect .exemplification of democ i racy?''