The Arizona copper camp., 1919-01-04


American Executive that "force with
out limit" would be exerted by this
country in the great battle for freedom
was brilliantly fulfilled. So immersed
were the American people in the con-
flict that war may be said to have be
come their chief, indeed almost their
only, business. Every energy was bent
to the purpose either OF fashioning the
weapons of warefare or of pro-
viding men to use them; of supply
ing the needs of the fighting forces
and of the vastly larger number of
those who merely aided these forces,
the while that supplies of food for our
own men and our Allies abroad were
forthcoming without stint. except
where American men, women and chill
dren, on the mere request of our gov
>ernment, forbore to eat their normal
foods in order that our army and our
Allies armies and civilian populations
should have enough. Thus it was that
ordinary civilian trade took, as it were,
a back seat, that many non-warlike
occupations were curtailed or entirely
suspended, and that every one could
the office, in the factory or on the
farm, all were engaged in a common
cause and for common end. Then
just as the mighty machine that had
to function powerfully and victoriously
the enemy's collapse came, and the
remainder of the year was given over
TO the process of demobilizing, the IN
dustries single-mindedly devoted to
war were directed back to peaceful
lines, and the processes of unharness-
ing trade and of unfiXing prices went
forward with as much if not greater
speed-than had the work of diverting
peaceful energies to warlike purposes.
These readjustments, which at the
time of writing are still in process,
with the unsettlement inseparable
therefrom, and the uncertainty pre-
vailing as to future price levels, now
that the great urge of government buy
ing was removed, gave quieter tone
to wholesale trade and industry in
the closing months, while the influenza
epidemic and the early and natural con-
servation bred by displacement OF many
thousands of workers later, operated
to hold down retail trade, which was
only partly recouped by an excellent
holiday demand in the closing weeks
Of the year.
The statement was frequently made
in 1917 that, great as had been our
work of organization for war, there
was very little in the way of surface
indications to show it, and that one
might imagine that no war was being
waged. This was. emphatically not the
case in 1918. War in many of it's grim
phases was brought home to us by the
sending of two million men abroad
and the gathering of another two mil
lion in American camps, by the voting
by congress of an army without limit
by the stripping of our industries OF
it's best men, by the extension of the
draft ages to include all males from
18 to As, by the operations of the
German submarine murderers on oul
coast, by the growing lists of casual
ties, and by the mounting up of wal
costs to almost unbelievable heights
II oil f1n IIy
as to the causes and nature of the
! war were dissipated, and its true
character as a life and death struggle
of decency and civilization against all
that was abhorrent and decadent be
came manifest That the sending over
of our armies to France was not
merely a question of numbers carried
but also of quality of fighting material
sent, was proved by the splendid work
of our soldiers, who, our friends the
Allies admit, arrived just in time to
turn the scale of the conflict and to
block the way of the Germans to the
channel ports and to Paris, and later,
in conjunction with our Allies, under
the supreme command of the brilliant
French Marshal Foch, broke the Ger
man lines, expelled the invader from
northern France and from Belgium
and finally, by the terms of the armls-
tice asked for by the beaten foe, es-
tablished the Allied line far within the
enemies border, constituting a new
watch on the Rhine" pending final
peace settlement. 1t will probably De
the verdict of history that our full
strength had not yet been put forth
when the collapse of the boasted ef-
ficient Teutonic combination was reg
istered in the German surrender and
revolt and the final abdication OF
power by the self-styled war lord and
his confederates. Thus this latest and