History of the World War | Page 9

back of the fighting fronts;
Locomotives and rolling stock to take the place of those every day
going to pieces;
Everything with which the people of England and France and Italy and
Russia have usually supplied themselves, but cannot now afford the
men, the materials, or the machinery to make.
I particularly appeal to the farmers of the South to plant abundant
foodstuffs as well as cotton. They can show their patriotism in no better
or more convincing way than by resisting the great temptation of the
present price of cotton and helping, helping upon a large scale, to feed
the nation and the peoples everywhere who are fighting for their
liberties and for our own. The variety of their crops will be the visible
measure of their comprehension of their national duty.
The response was amazing in its enthusiastic and general compliance.
No autocracy issuing a ukase could have been obeyed so explicitly. Not
only did the various classes of workers and individuals observe the
President's suggestions to the letter, but they yielded up individual right
after right in order that the war work of the government might be
expedited. Extraordinary powers and functions were granted by the
people through Congress, and it was not until peace was declared that
these rights and powers returned to the people.
These governmental activities ceased functioning after the war: Food
administration; Fuel administration; Espionage act; War trade board;
Alien property custodian (with extension of time for certain duties);
Agricultural stimulation; Housing construction (except for
shipbuilders); Control of telegraphs and telephones; Export control.
These functions were extended: Control over railroads: to cease within
twenty-one months after the proclamation of peace.
The War Finance Corporation: to cease to function six months after the
war, with further time for liquidation.

The Capital Issues Committee: to terminate in six months after the
peace proclamation.
The Aircraft Board: to end in six months after peace was proclaimed;
and the government operation of ships, within five years after the war
was officially ended.
President Wilson, generally acclaimed as the leader of the world's
democracies, phrased for civilization the arguments against autocracy
in the great peace conference after the war. The President headed the
American delegation to that conclave of world re-construction. With
him as delegates to the conference were Robert Lansing, Secretary of
State; Henry White, former Ambassador to France and Italy; Edward M.
House and General Tasker H. Bliss.
Representing American Labor at the International Labor conference
held in Paris simultaneously with the Peace Conference were Samuel
Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor; William
Green, secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America;
John R. Alpine, president of the Plumbers' Union; James Duncan,
president of the International Association of Granite Cutters; Frank
Duffy, president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners,
and Frank Morrison, secretary of the American Federation of Labor.
Estimating the share of each Allied nation in the great victory, mankind
will conclude that the heaviest cost in proportion to prewar population
and treasure was paid by the nations that first felt the shock of war,
Belgium, Serbia, Poland and France. All four were the battle-grounds
of huge armies, oscillating in a bloody frenzy over once fertile fields
and once prosperous towns.
Belgium, with a population of 8,000,000, had a casualty list of more
than 350,000; France, with its casualties of 4,000,000 out of a
population (including its colonies) of 90,000,000, is really the martyr
nation of the world. Her gallant poilus showed the world how
cheerfully men may die in defense of home and liberty. Huge Russia,
including hapless Poland, had a casualty list of 7,000,000 out of its
entire population of 180,000,000. The United States out of a population

of 110,000,000 had a casualty list of 236,117 for nineteen months of
war; of these 53,169 were killed or died of disease; 179,625 were
wounded; and 3,323 prisoners or missing.
[Illustration: KINGS AND CHIEF EXECUTIVES OF THE
PRINCIPAL POWERS ASSOCIATED AGAINST THE GERMAN
ALLIANCE (King George V of England, President Raymond of
France, President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, King Victor
Emmanuel II of Italy, King Albert I of Belgium)]
[Illustration: Photograph of Clemenceau] Copyright International Film
Service. THE "TIGER" OF FRANCE George Benjamin Eugene
Clemenceau, world-famous Premier of France, who by his inspiring
leadership maintained the magnificent morale of his countrymen in the
face of terrific assaults of the enemy.
[Illustration: THE RIGHT HONORABLE DAVID LLOYD GEORGE]
British Premier, who headed the coalition cabinet which carried
England through the war to victory.
[Illustration: KING GEORGE V] King of Great Britain and Ireland and
Emperor of India, who struggled earnestly to prevent the war, but when
Germany attacked Belgium sent the mighty forces of the British
Empire to stop the Hun.
To the glory of Great Britain must be recorded the enormous