Primarily the Council of National Defense was an organizing machinery. It took into its hands the universal eagerness to serve of all the millions of the American people in civilian life and created for them the emergency means by which each and all could join the vast and immediate mobilization of resources and of effort that was necessary. At once it summoned to Washington for conference and the starting of coöperative effort the leaders in science, engineering, industry and other phases of national life. Under this exchange of ideas there was a rapid evolution of plans that were quickly put into operation under its auspices. As they proved workable and grew in importance some were turned over to existing agencies for administration and others developed into separate organizations. But all were so interlocked that they marched forward with harmonious step, each coöperating with and aiding the others.

The coöperation among industrial leaders for the mobilizing of the country’s material resources for war production which was at once instituted by the Council developed later into the War Industries Board, the story of whose work for the war is told in the chapter dealing with “War-Time Management of Trade and Industry.” The Council initiated also the work of stimulating production for aircraft needs, of speeding coal production, of interesting the people in food conservation and of drawing the railroads together into a national transportation policy. Its Committee on Labor drafted the War Risk Insurance Bill, initiated the undertaking and then turned it over to the Treasury Department. The policy of price fixing, which finally developed into a definite organization under the War Industries Board, had its beginning in the informal voluntary agreements entered into between members of the Council in the early days of its existence and representatives of industry. So also the priorities policy, which afterwards became a most important and efficient means of controlling trade and industry and bringing them into direct and effective war service, began with voluntary agreements between leaders of industry and commerce and the Council in the early days of the war. Its Commercial Economy Board, which afterwards became the Conservation Division of the War Industries Board, did a comprehensive and most essential service in the planning and instituting of economical policies for industry of nation-wide application that would release material and labor for war production uses. By the principle of voluntary coöperation which it inspired, initiated and organized into the war machinery of the Government the Council largely eliminated the possibility of profiteering in connection with war effort and so helped to make the conducting of the industrial phases of this war, enormously increased though they were in both magnitude and possibilities, incomparably more honest than it had been in any previous war in which the country had ever engaged.

The Department of Science and Research of the Council of National Defense did particularly valuable work in getting together the scientific and technical men of the country and so organizing and directing their knowledge and skill and their ability in research as to form a war resource of inestimable value. Its membership included a large part of the men representative of the scientific, technical and engineering achievement in the United States and through this Department of the Council their services were at the call of the Government whenever needed. Through its General Medical Board the Council aided in the mobilization of the medical personnel and resources of the country. Its Committee on Engineering and Education brought together the best thought and skill for the solution of engineering problems in connection with the war and for the aligning of educational institutions and facilities behind the country’s war effort. Its Committee on Labor, besides drafting the war-risk insurance bill and initiating that undertaking and aiding in the development of the plan for the War Labor Administration, did valuable work in helping to maintain hearty coöperation between the labor movement and the national war policies by promoting the welfare of industrial workers and by providing a system for the rapid and intensive training of mechanics. Its Highways Transport Committee coöperated with the War Department in facilitating the work of its important motor-truck convoy service, developed rural motor express routes, instituted a movement for the better development and care of highways and assisted the Railroad Administration in its early struggle with the congestion of freight.

As an organizing machinery and provider of means by which the whole nation could be brought into coöperation for war effort swiftly and efficiently, the Council of National Defense did not confine itself to the material phases of the country’s resources but also helped the national spirit to find adequate expression. To that end it organized a great, nation-wide system by which the war machinery was synchronized to harmonious work through every smallest section of the country and through which the national spirit was enabled to find expression in effective action. Under the State Councils Section of the National Council of Defense within a few months there had been organized in every state of the Union a State Council of Defense whose function was to centralize and coördinate the war work within the state, to coöperate with the work of the National Council, to inaugurate whatever new work local conditions rendered advisable and to create and direct local councils. County councils were organized in every county of each state and within most of the counties community councils, usually with the school district serving as the unit, were formed. These community councils were not committees, but were the community itself, with all its citizens and agencies organized for coöperative, effective, national service. It was a neighborhood democracy made effective by organization and it established a direct means of reciprocal communication between the Government and the masses of the people. An immense and closely woven network thus overspread the country consisting, under the State Councils, of 4,000 county organizations, 16,000 women’s divisions and 164,000 community and municipal units, extending through the wards of cities, through towns and villages, across farming countrysides. The Woman’s Committee of the Council, described at more length in the chapter on “The Work of Women for the War,” collaborated constantly, organizing the women of every community for any sort of war work they could do. While the functioning of the Councils, State, County and Community, was kept flexible and responsive to local initiative and local conditions, their most important work was that of translating into action those war policies of the Government that called for the coöperation of the people. Through them were made effective such nation-wide movements as the conservation of food and coal, the increasing of food production, the mobilization of industry, the selling of bonds and war stamps, the marshalling of labor, while there was hardly a war effort of the Government of any sort in which they did not give aid. So remarkable and important has been this unifying of the nation by means of the system brought into life for war purposes by the Council of National Defense that it is likely to remain as a permanent and useful feature of the life of the country in the coming years of peace.

Throughout all the many services of the Council of National Defense during the war, its organization of war machinery, its mobilization of material resources, its bringing together of leaders in all phases of national life and showing them how they could aid the country, its vital work in enabling the humblest individual, and all the individuals in the nation, to become efficient in action for the war, the two most conspicuous features are, the voluntary character of all the effort and the universal willingness of the equally universal coöperation. Of all the vast and varied services which it commanded, from captains of industry and leaders of science to the committee heads in little country towns, practically all, except those of its office staff and clerical assistance, were given gladly to the nation for the sake of love of country and belief in American ideals. And the result proved, in the words of President Wilson, “beyond all question that the highest and best form of efficiency is the spontaneous coöperation of a free people.”

CHAPTER XXIV
INFORMING THE PUBLIC

America fought ardently in the world war because of the devotion of her people to democratic ideals. Since one of those ideals is to base the participation of the people in public affairs upon a knowledge of those affairs as complete and accurate and universal as the limitations of human nature and human institutions make possible, it was necessary to provide some machinery that would serve as a means of communication between the purposes and the vast undertakings of the Government, functioning for the people, and the people themselves. In common with the spirit and the methods by which all the war activities were carried on—spirit and methods which strikingly exemplified one of the fundamental traits of the national genius—the situation was met by creating an organization for the widest possible spreading of information about the national needs, activities and aims. The Committee on Public Information, created by an executive order of the President soon after our declaration of war, began with a civilian Chairman and the Secretaries of State, War and the Navy as its members. At the close of hostilities it had a world-wide organization which commanded the services of thousands of authors, artists, journalists, speakers, moving picture actors and producers and people of public spirit, most of them giving their services, who were working zealously among our own people, our war associates, our enemies and the neutral nations.

The Committee was not concerned at all with censorship rules and regulations and constantly endeavored to secure, for the widest dissemination, all news of the war activities that would not benefit the enemy or obstruct our efficiency. As always in time of war, the decision upon what should be made public rested with the war making agencies of the Government. The function of the Committee was to secure important news and descriptions of all phases of our war making effort with as little waste as possible of the time and attention of absorbed and over-burdened officials and to make systematic and effective distribution of all this matter at home, among our war associates, in neutral countries and even behind the enemy lines, and to combat enemy propaganda by meeting its lies and perversions with simple truth. It depended always and solely upon facts, whether material or spiritual, and did not in any phase of its work deal in opinions or arguments.

In each of the war making departments of the Government the Committee had a representative experienced in newspaper work under whom, in each of the department’s bureaus, was an assistant whose duty was to know accurately all the phases and details of the bureau’s work, to keep in touch with its progress and production, and to prepare such information concerning it as could be published. All this matter passed through the hands of the Committee’s representative in the department, who was responsible for its accuracy. Connected with his office was the censor for that particular war making agency who decided upon the military advisability of its publication. Of all the many thousands of releases for publication thus made the accuracy of only three or four was ever questioned, and of these one was afterward proved by official dispatches to have been true.

Practically all the reputable newspapers of the United States agreed with the Government to refrain from publishing any news obtained by their own representatives which would hamper the war making program or give information to the enemy and in every large newspaper office the country over hung the Committee’s list of specified classes of information which they were requested not to mention. With one or two disloyal exceptions all the newspapers of the country voluntarily put themselves under this restraint and themselves censored their own columns until the end of the war. In no other country at war was the press ever so little hampered by governmental restrictions, or put upon its honor in this way, or animated by a spirit so unselfishly patriotic.