New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-02
Business as Usual?
Why England's Discarded Slogan
Should Not Be Heard Here

To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: I have just read the item in to-day's
Tribune under the caption, business as
Usual Urged as L. s. Slogan" to the effect
that the International Association OF Rotary
Clubs wants this country to adopt the slogan
that was so popular in Great Britain at the
beginning Of the war"
II was popular in Great Britain in the early
DAYS of the war for the same season, appar-
emily. as the Rotary Clubs would make it pop
ular here-because the people then had not
the most superficial realization of what they
were entering into.
War at any time-but this greatest of all
wars in particular-is not a business as
usual" proposition; on the contrary, II Is
most unusual business A nation at war can
not 60 about it's business "as usual" One OF
the main reasons for England's early blum
ders was because the general run OF people
swallowed the war as business as usual
proposition. instead of realizing that it was a
most unusually serious affair--one that had
to be tackled in a serious, unusual way
A nation at war cannot go about its bust
ness as it would in times of peace. The bust
ness of the United States since the war broke
out has not been business as usual" Con-
ditions have confronted US that we have
mover had to meet before, and now that we
have allied ourselves on the side of righteous
| democracy our problems are going TO DO even
more complex and unusual.
II took the people of Great Britain quite
some time to awaken TO the fact that the
serious business of world war could not
be taken complacently as an everyday,
business-ss-usual problem. When they did
awaken. they soon found out that they had
lost a lot of valuable time--time that could
not be made up. =.
Those in command will undoubtedly profit
! bv the mistakes made by the nations on the
other side. Our businesses cannot transact
business "as usual" from now on, any more
than can the wheels of the government al
Washington grind as they did when we were
neutral One of the greatest achievements
of Great Britain in the whole conduct Of the
war had been her tremendous industrial
awakening. There are over fifteen hundred
concerns in Great Britain that are now max
ing war material that never made it before
There are millions of women engaged in
making war munitions that never made them
| before There are hundreds of thousands OF
]
clerks. Office men, bankers, behind-the counter
men and the like engaged in the business OF
war that never dreamed of such a thing be-
/ fore August, 1914.
The entire business life and activities OF
| Great Britain have been modified by the
government and turned into the channels oil
warfare. And the same can be said of France
1t is all bosh and buncombe to say we car
! transact business as usual when we are up
TO the hilt in the greatest war of all times
| Our various commercial, financial and agri-
cultural activities have to be modified; they
have to be turned into the channels OF war
| fare; they cannot, even though they would
continue their before-the-war activities II
we are going TO do our part in this war VIC
/ have been forced TO enter-and ] doubt not
that we will do all our part and more-we
| have got to do as they have done in Great
Britain and France. Everything has TO be
sacrificed to this end.
So let US forget business as usual" Let
us make it instead, as they did in Great Brit
ain when they finally awakened, swim the
/ War;" and turn all our energies, commercial
| financial and agricultural, toward winning II
as speedily and as completely as our great re-
sources on all three counts give US the oppor'
tunity of doing. W. G. BRADLEY.
East Orange, N. j., April 20, 1917.