It has not even been possible to touch on the work of business men in such great war agencies as the Food and Fuel Administration, the War Trade Board, the Shipping Board, the Aircraft Production Board, the Office of the Alien Property Custodian, the War Finance Corporation, and those divisions of the War Department which called highly qualified civilians to their aid. It would seem better to emphasize the initial effort, when the Council, through force of circumstances, became the great administrative laboratory for the examination, organization, and, at the proper time, allocation of totally new and untried phases of Federal action related to the prosecution of the war. It was in effect a fecund mother, which, it is not the slightest exaggeration to say, gave birth to and propelled the war machine which in the closing days of the conflict oversea overseas was reaching to the peak of its load, and which in fact dealt the death blow to the Imperial German Government. It made, in truth, its fair share of mistakes, but some day its part in sending out the trumpet call to the business and labor and scientific leaders of America to join in the national defense will be fully told. Then there will be perceived in clear and true light the extent to which peace-loving American civilians offered all they had and all they were to the Government of the United States so that decency might again be paramount upon the face of the earth.
VII—THE LIBERTY LOAN ARMY
Mobilizing Americans at Home to Pay for the War—A National Effort Which Yielded $24,065,810,350
By GUY EMERSON
Vice-President of the National Bank of Commerce, formerly Director of Publicity, Government Loan Organization
Our Army was our first line in the war against Germany. Our second line of offense and defense was the Navy, and behind both stood another line without which neither the Army nor the Navy could have "carried on." This third force was the greatest unit ever marshalled in the history of this or any other country—the Liberty Loan Army. Before a man in the United States uniform entered a trench, before the first depth bomb had been dropped on a U-boat, this Army, which finally carried a roster of 22,777,680 names, had entered the war.
Think of it! One person in every five in the immense population was in the war!
True, their contribution to the eventual triumph of our arms was measured in dollars while that of the men at the front or on the seas was in lives or limbs. Yet it is a fact that dollars were as powerful relatively as men in bringing the Boche to bay.
Various causes have been given to account for the startlingly sudden collapse of the Kaiser's army. Some say that the Allies' superior military strategy brought it to its knees. Others contend that success against the U-boats broke it down. Both are partly right, for each helped to undermine the German morale. But however great the contribution of both was, it is safe to say that the front presented by the Liberty Loan Army was a vital factor. The belated German consciousness that the United States as a whole was in the war, as tangibly represented in the strength of the Liberty Loan Army, helped to shatter the Germans' will to victory. As much as the men in khaki or in blue, this gigantic unit bore in upon his mind as an unyielding opponent. He understood the futility of trying to defeat a people that enlisted against him to the number of 22,777,680 at home, 4,000,000 in the field and 300,000 on the water.