Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1917-01-26
RATHENAU TELLS
OF GREAT WORK
Germany's Great Organizer De-
scribes How Difficulties Were
Overcome.
STRONGER Than The ALLIES
Declares Success Of Work Is Due to
Fact That Germany's Industries
Quickly Adapted Themselves
to War Conditions.

Berlin.-Dr. Walter Rathenau, In
charge of all raw materials for the
German government, has written
book in which the famous wizard"
describes the enormous difficulties that
confronted him when he was called TO
his post by the war minister, and the
wonderful results accomplished.
when we started our herculean
work the war department gave us
four small rooms" the great organizer
says. "The war minister thought that
these offices would be sufficient and
he was greatly astonished when / in
formed him within two weeks that /
space.
After much parleying i got twenty
rooms, but in another month / had to
request forty more. That necessitated
the removal Of whole sections of the
war department. More than 100000
important documents had to be trans
ported to other buildings and the work
took weeks.
Cramped and Crowded.
I'm the meantime our labor threat
ened to come to a standsnll. Although
we put desks in every possible corner,
and even in the Railways, we were not
able, to make room for our ever-in-
creasing working force. When we
finally got our sixty rooms I'VE were
as cramped and crowded as before,
and we continually had to ask for
more and more space. Our offices now
cover an entire city block and we
still need more room.
ut is difficult to give a description
of our work, because much of what has
been done and accomplished must re-
main secret until the war ends. The
public has no idea of the difficulties
we had to overcome and the tremen-
dous labor that was necessary TO en-
able the empire successfully to defy
the British blockade. Every man In
our department worked from sixteen
to eighteen hours every day, including
Sundays and holidays, and we all only
regretted that the days did not have
forty-eight hours, instead of only twen-
ty-four.
Conferences were always in prog
ress from eight o'clock in the morning
until midnight, as new plans had to
be made continually and often it be-
came necessary to alter them before
they were completed.
Hard Work Won.
s"It was hard work, but we won out.
One of our advantages was that the
press paid little attention to US, and
we were not hampered by public
criticism. Sometimes professors called
to tell US that we were all wrong and
would have to start anew. Then
members Of the reichstag came to con-
vince US that the professors were as
wrong as ourselves.
ave had to listen to this talk and
that meant the loss of much valuable
time, but otherwise 1t did not hurt us.
"Our success is principally due to
the fact that the German industries
themselves to the war condi- |
tons with astounding rapidly and
energy. Our manufacturers carried
out their task enthusiastically and
without losing any words.
while our enemies were telling the
world how they would organize and
develop their resources we quietly
solved the problem, and now we can
look into the future. Ger
many today is economically and indus
triahy stronger than the allies and will :
navar hraoly