The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1919-05-21
PLACES REIMBURSEMENT DATA AT
COMMAND OF THE BUSINESS WORLD
Research Division the Council of National Defense Offers All Its
Facilities to Aid in Reorganization of Industry and
Resumption of Trade-Burden of Reconstruct
ton Must Fall on Industry.

FehOT d. SldrkSOn, lLS director, on May
., 1913. The president of the United
States received a copy of this memo
randum, and shortly afterward author
lied the council to begin it's studies.
In the memorandum in question Mr..
Ciarkson, after defining the prime
problem as being that of Industrial
reconstruction-in broad terms, the
reconversion of industry from the
war basis back to the peace-time basis
and the reabsOrptiOn into industry of
the labor employed in the service of
the United States-said:
A Changed America.
ut is elementary that after the war
America will not be the same Amer
lea. Already she has in many direc-
tions broken with her past and she
is being hourly transformed. The meta
morphosis is going on as much in
the thought of the country as it is
in the structure; the same thing will
be true in the period after the war.
New conditions and relationships Gre
ate new problems for nations as well
as for individuals; and, let me add,
the change will be as great in the
thought and ideals of the nation as it
will be in its strictly material prob
lens, whether these be military, COM
mercial, or those having to do with
labor
Let us grant that we shall gain
military success. Let us then not fall
into the danger-trap of allowing the
material effects of such success to ov-
ershad0w consideration of the higher
values which give a nation it's life.
The civilized world today, as we know
that world, may be said to be one
great altar of sacrifice. If that is not
true now, it certainly will be true if
the war continues for another year.
1t is our duty in any adequate intel
lectual conception of the task to see
to it that the gains to the moral as
well as the material well-being of the
nation shall square with the sacrifice.
A little reflection will convince one
that this aspect of reconstruction is
the fundamental aspect and that upon
1t must be predicated all successful
plans in this direction.
"A year ago we were a great, lazy
democracy. Lincoln said, "A fat hound
won't hunt That sentence illumined
our national disease. The transfor-
nation from that condition is already
under way. Soon the spirit of the ma
ton will be burning flame. There
will be Sloughed off the scales fostered
by love of luxury and the loose and
bOastful thinking that have been our
curse in the last generation. Out of
the turmoil and the sacrifice will come
discipline and orderly living and think
ing; and, therefore, with sequential
and irresistible logic will come tie
mandS for new conditions of living
commensurate to the new ideals. Again
| repeat, here is the fundamental re-
construction to which the American
government should address itself, and
only herein can be found the policy
which shall be the groundwork of any
enlightened organization for recon-
structiOn.
History records but few fruitful
governmental agencies that did not
have a firm and penetrating quality
at the base. Raising the framework
for the task is merely matter Of me-
chanics in organization. In
the meantime the council and advisory
commission should accumulate all of
the literature bearing upon this ques-
ton and form it into q working Ii
brary.
ct may be that as the war nears its
ends and as the issue between au-
tOcracy and democracy becomes ever
sharper and more terrible, the civilized
world will demand that Immediately
at the wars close all reconstruction
of the worlds affairs be based upon
the dictum of Lincoln that no man is
good enough to govern any other man
without that other mans consent, to
the end Of approaching the proper
reimbursement of national, interna-
tional and racial relationships. offer
this, though. not for the purpose of
injecting idealism in discussion
where undue accent Of it does not be-
long, but to emphasize anew that none
of us can see the end of the road
and that therefore all plans for re-
construction should be builded so as
to permit of flexibility of action and
even of minor policy at any given
time. The main thing now is to come
to concrete thinking and study of the
entire problem"
Director Clarkson Immediately be-
gan the organization of staff of ex-
perts, including o. NJ. w. Sprague,
professor of finance and banking at
Harvard, and Herbert N. Shenton of
Columbia. Out of this staff work grew
the reconstruction research division,
which was organized on February 8,
1919 with Mr.. ShentOn as its chief.
Burden One for Business.
1.-THE reconstruction research divi-
sion" said Charles III. Chase, a men,
Der, "has come to feel more and more,
as the reconstruction has progressed,