New-York tribune., 1918-05-18
Coming Through

Sending 5,548-ton steel ship down to
the sea, all ready for a cargo, thirty
seven days after her keel was laid would
be miracle in any land but this. Here
we take it for granted. That is in one
sense very high compliment to the
builders. We knew they could do it.
We know, too, that they will not stand
on the Tuckahoe record. They will beat
it; then they will beat the beating of it,
and we shall go on taking their achieve
ments for granted, not that we are in
different, but because our optimism is
boundless.
1t is singular of the American charac-
ter to talk pessimistically and think
optimistically. We can imagine the
builders of the Tuckahoe talking hour
by hour the blackest pessimism, review
ing each of the thirty-seven days as
separate calamity, admitting only their
failures, suppressing good news with
caution amounting to almost a supersti-
ton, yet never once failing to react
serenely to the incentive of unexpected
difficulties.
This is the indomitable spirit of the
pioneer which we inherit. The tongue
grumbles and the heart is confident.
But that is not the most significant
popularity of the American tempera-
ment. Our way with big job is unique.
1t is the way of the pioneer, who is a
strange contradiction Of laziness and en-
terprise.
First he surveys the thing to be un-
dertaken. He walks round and round.
He reflects and says: "That's hell of
job. 1t will take a week. If I had
any sense I could think of some way to
do it in a hurry. The trouble is that l
haven't got the right TOOLS" So he
spends five days inventing new tools
with which, on the sixth day, he attacks
the job and gets it done before dark.
The Old World way with corre-
spending piece of work is to attack it at
once with what implements there are at
hand, and in six days of hard labor it is
finished. Therefore, it comes to the
same thing in time, with this important
difference: that the pioneer, who has
spent five days inventing the tools with
which to do six days. work in one, has
the tools left over. The next undertaking
of that kind is very easily dispatched.
Thus we have attacked the business
Of war. It was seen to be a colossal
job, for which all the existing tools were
inadequate. Instead of going on at once
with the means there were we have
taken the time to make strange and spe.
cial tools. We have contrived the way to
fabricate steel ship while you wait.
We have invented machines with which
to produce Liberty motors in quantity
by automatic processes, which the Eu-
ropean experts said couldn't be done at
all. We shall presently be pouring con-
crete into moulds and dumping ships
into the sea in very unceremonious
manner.
we are still conceiving greater means
TO unlimited ends, but already some of
this formidable tool-power is going into
action. The results will be astonishing.
AN unimaginable, uncomfortable mo-
mentum is making up behind us. When
we begin really to produce the modern
sinews OF war, by characteristic Ameri-
can methods, the world will be amazed
unere will never have been anything
like it.
we nave wasted time as no other peo-
PIE could or would. 1t was the wav we
knew. Presently we shall show how time
may be foreshortened. The only o,,,os
slon was whether the job would wait
happily that is answered. The line still
Ao,os and our strength is coming in.
we VIII fill the air with planes.
w we wlii burden the sea<with ships.
we will fabricate war!
And when the job is done we shall,
have the tools left over,