In the years of our neutrality our course as a nation was surely shaping itself for war, without an outward sign or act.  Ruthless destruction of property and of life became too open, too frequent, too outrageous, for the patience of even a long-suffering, tolerant people such as we.  The first impulse of genuine resentment was given when the Lusitania went down with its neutral passengers, a defenseless ship on a peaceful errand, drowning more than a hundred Americans of both sexes and all ages without the slightest notice, or the faintest chance of escape.

Any nation other than ours would have gone to war in a moment over such a blow in the face.  We did not.  Farther, we endured a sudden and flagrant increase of German propaganda in high quarters and low, and of German insolence openly and defiantly parading itself.  The catalogue of provocations grew daily, and daily bred anger, but our temper held until in February of 1917, when Germany proclaimed unrestricted piracy by submarines, and under the thin pretext of starving out the British Isles, American and other ships were destroyed with all on board, wholesale.

Even then our hand was withheld until Germany advised us that we might send just one ship a week to Europe, one ship and no more, provided that solitary ship were painted in a manner prescribed in the permission, and then held strictly to a course laid down by the German admiralty.  Germany, a third rate naval power, had arbitrarily forbidden us the freedom of the seas.

Then our patience broke.  For this and all the other causes Germany had given us, and for our own safety and the rescue of a world that without us would have perished, the United States went to war.

WORK OR FIGHT

Back of every American soldier about fifty men and women were needed in order that he be supplied with everything his physical, moral and military well being might require.  They were put there.  The result was a sweeping change, an immense expansion of energy in the United States itself.  The draft took care of the army.  No time or trouble had to be given to filling the ranks and keeping them full.  The enormous sums of money necessary to finance our allies as well as ourselves were promptly oversubscribed in a series of loans, the first and least of which ran into three billion dollars, the fourth into six billions, a sum larger than any single loan ever floated by any other nation.  Idleness was abolished.  The order to “work or fight” was strictly enforced upon all the people, rich and poor alike, for any attempt to except any one or any class would have been blown away in a gale of laughter.  In a space incredibly brief the United States became a nation of actual workers, in which every individual did his or her share, submitting meanwhile, with good grace and no murmuring, to being rationed.  Interstate utilities were taken over and operated by the government, including the railway, telegraph and telephone lines; and government fixed prices on the necessaries of life.  Everything was subordinated to the one and only purpose of winning the war.  All that we were and all that we had was thoroughly mobilized behind the fighting arms, the army and the navy.