The Washington herald., 1918-03-05
Our Way of Doing Things.

American slang.
That is why coordination between the Amer
lean forces for war, and those of the French and
the British, is so difficult so hard to encompass
Our methods of getting results are radically diff
ferent from those practiced overseas.
The Bntsher on any given task maintains as
far as possible even, measured gait-he is fas-
tdious in his discrimination between speed and
mere haste, determined to make the first moment
of his energy count for almost as much as his
last He has ingraned prejudices against waste
motion, or even against preliminary experimental
hon which might be accounted waste motion.
The Frenchman throws his big burst of speed
into the first lap of his race; maintains himself
with splendid energy in mid-career, and winds up
aS rule, weak, without much of a squirt in re-
serve. That is the characteristic Latin rhythm
Furthermore, the Frenchman likes to make his
work dramatic, just as the Englishman likes to
make his substantial, almost from the first day.
The American keep his work on paper and
appear actually to be lodging and delaying it
when a matter of fact he is engaged in the
most vital bit of brain work involved in the whole
project.
The American efficiency curve shows a num-
Der of interesting variations. First of all, we are
tedously slow in getting started-apparently. We
do nterminable amount of pulling and hauling
at first. We like to concentrate all mud
ding. pickering, mistakes, in the first lap.
Until matters of detail are settled we dislike to
give the word, full speed ahead"
Many Europeans have grasped this attribute
of the national character, and expressed it vvidy.
Lord Northcliffe related in his own impressionistc
style the building OF American Skyscraper-the
apparent chaos and tedious progress in the first
Jew months OF the construction, followed by the
strikingly speedy work which follows when the
steel girders rise above the ground. He compared
this to preparations, refuting a popular
verdict that the first six months of work was
intolerably and disgracefully slow. He pointed out
how the American instinct for standardization, for
quantity production, for doing things a record
breaking scale an approved model, all developed
the tendency to make first stage of any given
task painful and sometimes wasteful period OF
preparation.
We spend weary months in arriving at the main
outlines OF any project, and then do the swiftest
kind of swift work in sketching in the details.
Our method is a machine method. 1t is not fair
to say that Americans 'let things slide" until the
last moment, and then flash under the wire with
reckless hazardous speed In all modern indus
trialism the preliminary planning period is long,
trying, and tedious one for in it is concentrated
all of the brainwork the experimentation, the test
ing of opposing forces. There is much popular
contempt for mere project on paper" yet it is
the paper period" when the whole success fail
ure OF project is determined in the American
method When your true American industrial
captain is ready to go ahead, he is about well
prepared as was Won Moltke in the Franco-Prus-
sian war OF 1870. Won Moltke was asleep when
word was brought to him that Prussia had de-
clared war on France. He gave orders to his sub
ordinate to pull out few written, numbered slips
in his desk, giving complete instructions to his
generals. Then he rolled over in his bed and went
back to sleep.
In the present war, the United States is just
emerging from the chrysals of the preparatory period
It seems outrageous think that have spent
ten months merely in preparing to fight, in pre-
pairing to get army overseas. Yet it is strictly
in line with the logic OF this conflict The British
threw masses of unprepared unframed into
the field between August, 1914 and June, 1916;
vet il was not until the latter date that the British
were ready to take a part of the Western
front commensurate with the true power of their
nation, or to start a major offensive against the
enemy. OF course, "Kitchener's mob" saved Calais
let US not forget that; but saved it largely be-
cause Russia in that first critical year of saved
France and Berlin. British military men today
are utterly unable to comprehend the German fail
ure to run their armies into the in that fright
fuI year of 1915.
When America appears to be unduly slow in
forging its sword and in welding it against the
Hun let us not forget that these the days when
the issue is really being decided-the days of train
ing and preparation. The foundation of structure
does not show above the ground, but let it be
hurricdly cheaply inadequately built, and the
failure of the whole project is inevitable
H.kl..- 1p.u.I al. I.-n