"Other nations will study the German plan, asking whether it is true, as has been taught in America, that that Government is best which governs least.
"It may be that this war will result, entirely apart from the urgency of the labor problem which it will magnify, and wholly on the grounds of general efficiency, in a general inquiry as to whether or not the time has come for quasi-socialistic national developments.
"I think it unlikely that the war will give impetus to that proletarian socialism which is founded on class consciousness and class struggle; but it may urge forward a socialistic movement based upon the large and fruitful idea that the best hope for the future is offered by the most complete and highly organized co-operation of all elements, all interests, all agencies which in their combination make up national structures.
"As a matter of fact, I am an optimist, and I believe that this is about what will come after this war ends.
"To put my theory in slightly different terms, I believe that the conflict will greatly further the development of what perhaps may be called 'public socialism,' and I mean by that the highest attainable organization of whole peoples for the production of commodities, the furtherance of enterprise, and the promotion of the general well-being.
"I think that when the world sobers up it will ask: 'How did Germany do it?'
"Whether she wins or loses that must be the universal query, for whether she wins or loses her achievement has been in many ways unprecedented.
"There can be but one answer to this query: She did it by an organization which brought together in efficient co-operation the individual, the quasi-private corporation, the public corporation, and the Government upon a scale never before seen.
"The world is bound to take notice of this."