New-York tribune., 1918-01-22
The President

We believe it is time to speak, simply
and directly, of some things which are
vital to this nation and to our allies in
the war.
President Wilson has back of him a
loyal and undivided nation. It's great
mass have only one thought, one wish.
That is to win this war, and toward that
end to throw the whole of it's great
strength. With high felicity and unfinch-
ing clearness he has stated our aims. No
living man could have done this more
effectively A whole nation has affixed its
resolute approval. We are proud of our
high-minded spokesman. He has won for
Us an enviable place in the councils of our
allies The position Of America through
out the world has been heightened by his
vividly American utterance. No states
man could have done more.
When we turn from this splendid per-
sonal achievement to the results attained
since our entry into the war, in the grim
business of organizing a vast fighting ma
chine, this pride fails. 1t is not disloy-
atty, it is not super-criticism, to say that
these results have fallen far short of
what we might reasonably expect Of Amer
;can genius for organization. Our people
have no more salient or distinguishing
characteristic than this latter. And ma
lion which has built up incomparably the
greatest industrial machine in the world
has a right to believe that the industrial
and business conduct of the war shall be
on a plane of the highest American ca
pacity.
1t has not been We have been at war
ten months. And for more than ten
months before that it was fatefully clear
that our entry was inevitable. We have
raised an army of a million and half
IN admirable effort but one that England,
with only two-fifths our fighting strength,
had in the same time equalled or sur
passed And of this number one million
two hundred thousand are still idly tramp
ing the training camps. 1t is saying moth
ing that Germany does not know, and that
German newspapers have not printed day
after day, that there is now little pros
pect that even the whole of this army can
be landed in France this year. They lack
a full equipment of rifles, of machine
guns; and we lack ships. The war may
be lost before we can strike an effec-
tive blow
We have laid down a huge shipbuilding
programme, and even the skeleton of the
first ship to be fabricated under this pro-
gran1me is not yet complete. Our railway
system is greater than that of all Europe,
and it cannot get immediate materials to
the shipyards. And the yards have not
the labor needed to carry out the schedule
We produced last year, possibly, more coal
than all Europe, and we have a coal
famine. Our steel product in 1916
cqualled that Of Germany and Britain
combined, and near to half this capacity is
now idle for lack of coal. And the largest
corn crop in our history is threatened witt,
rot for lack of cars.
Organized labor has proclaimed it's low.
atty from the housetops, and the number
of strikes and of men involved since last
April has been unexamped in our his
tory. 1t is a disappointing and un-Ameri-
can pcture--a nation of a hundred mill
ion baffled and impotent.
1t is given to no man to possess everv
variety Of talent. President Wilson NAV
come to rank as one of the nations greatest
statesmen. No good American withholds
the full need of his praise 1t is no de-
traction to say that neither his tempera-
ment nor his experience has been in the
direction of business organization and the
effective handling of the types of men who
have built up our industry and trade. His
lifelong associations have been in the
sheltered paths of academic life, which in
many minds breeds a deep antipathy and
suspicion toward the business and execu-
tive type offwhich we speak. How far the