No excess of delicacy prevents the Americans, moreover, from informing themselves by extremely minute questions, even in cases of small industries, about the nature and the extent of production, the fixing of prices, the exportations, and other important details. But the Americans excel all their Allies in their good nature: their attitude toward us is not at all chauvinistic. When they invested the city, they entered without any theatrical demonstration, demanded no submissive reception from the city government, and regarded arrogant proclamations as entirely superfluous. They all sought to occupy their own quarters as soon as possible without unnecessary display, to wash themselves, and to attend to sleeping accommodations. The French soon presented a striking contrast. When a detachment of them came to Coblenz, they made haste to find the monument of William I and to run derisively around it, as though possessed, blowing their trumpets. This scene amused the Americans vastly. The American officers quite properly punish premeditated affronts; but it is not in harmony with their manner of thinking or acting to exact more deference than accrues to men who exercise neutral control. They are rather inclined to protect the Germans from discomfiture by the French,

CHAPTER XXXIX

AFTERMATH OF THE WAR

MERICA'S tremendous vitality was never revealed to

AM

better advantage than in her recovery from the stress and burden of the World War. A sacrificial spirit was born in the millions who were banded in America's fighting forces of land, sea and air, and in the hundred million men, women and children, who enrolled themselves back of the fighting lines in the victorious effort to advance democratic ideals over the earth. The cost in lives and in money was heavy, but it was light in proportion to that sustained by those who had battled years before America entered the conflict. The loss to the nation in deaths from wounds and disease and in the number of wounded men returned to America has been told. The financial burden laid upon future generations would have been staggering to any other but the American people. Resolutely they set themselves to the task of entering into the new international relations thrust upon them by their entrance into the great copartnership of peaceful nations.

One of the first details of finance to be cleared up during the period of reconstruction was the sale to France of all the equipment and property of the American Expeditionary Forces on French soil. The original cost of this vast store of supplies, locomotives, motor trucks and other equipment was more than one billion dollars. The special liquidation commission sent by the American Government to France to arrange for the sale of this property placed a value upon it of $749,000,000. That value was placed on August 1, 1919. A deduction of twenty-five per cent was allowed to cover the cost of selling the equipment in small lots by the French Government, reducing the estimated value to $562,000,000. The French Government offered to pay $400,000,000 for all these stores and after considerable negotiation this proposition

was accepted by America. It was estimated that the labor of 40,000 men for seven months would be required to sort, salvage and dispose of the property. The sale was consummated August 28, 1919. Payment was made in ten-year gold bonds bearing five per cent interest from August 1, 1920.

The problems of demobilization extended of course both to material and to men. Immense quantities of material had been accumulated in cantonments and storehouses. Had this mass been thrown upon the market by the government, immediate demoralization of industry would have resulted. To prevent this manufacturers in various lines arranged with the government to purchase and pool these commodities. In this way they came to market little by little. The plan prevented the shut-down of thousands of factories. Airplanes, automobiles, plumbing supplies and numerous other lines of manufacture were safeguarded.

The problem of re-employment of soldiers was one that confronted all countries. Various plans were tried, some nations adopting the expedient of slow demobilization. The idea back of this process was the gradual and certain absorption of the demobilized men back into the industries from which they came. The protests against this scheme came in avalanches. The soldiers demanded immediate return to their homes and this demand was intensified by the tremendous pressure to the same end exerted by the families of the soldiers. America's policy was one of speedy demobilization. At first, thousands of jobless soldiers walked the streets, but the Knights of Columbus, the Jewish Welfare Board, the Y. M. C. A., the Salvation Army and other civilian agencies added their efforts to those of the government, with the result that re-employment advanced faster and more satisfactorily in America than in any other belligerent nation.

Another serious problem was the adjustment of labor conditions affecting women who had taken men's places during the war. This was an economic question of great gravity. Through the wisdom of American women, be it recorded that the fears of friction and of grave difficulty that had been expressed concerning this condition were never realized. Hundreds of thousands of women who had gone into business

and industry continued their work, but the amazing growth of new industries absorbed this additional labor.

It was natural that there should be a labor ferment following the war. Bolshevism had radiated from "Red" Russia and its spores were carried to America. Strikes and labor disturbances featured the year 1919. The Socialist Party split in twain into moderates and radicals, the latter espousing the principles put forward by Lenine and Trotsky in Bolshevist Russia. It was a period of adjustments of violent reactions on the part of both capital and labor.

The question of food and the high cost of living as it affected food extended throughout the world. The United States Government sent to Europe Dr. Alonzo E. Taylor of Philadelphia, head of the Division of Research of the United States Food Administration who made a detailed report upon the conditions found by him overseas.

"There are millions of people in Europe who have no food," he said, "and who look to the United States to supply it. Growing of crops abroad is curtailing pending territorial adjustments. Governments will not spend millions of dollars for farm implements, even if they can obtain them, to be used on land that may shortly be given to a neighboring nation.

"The great defect in central Europe today, indeed, in Europe as a whole, is the failure of production. Loss of manpower is not responsible for the condition, since in all countries unemployed men are drawing out-of-work stipends. The causes of the reduced productivity may be summarized as scarcity of coal, raw material and food, depreciation of currency, disinclination on the part of labor to work and loss of initiative and enterprise on the part of capital."

Discussing his work overseas, Dr. Taylor said he belonged to one of the optimistic groups of students of European affairs, particularly with respect to their relations to America. Then he said:

"The treaty with Germany being signed and ratified by Germany, central Europe is now most concerned with the harvest.

"After the treaties with Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey and Hungary have been concluded, there will remain only the

problem of the relations of western Europe and the world with inscrutable Russia-inscrutable because of the fact that the future Russia lies in the psychology of the Russian peasant. Just as the problem of importation of food was uppermost in the minds of all the peoples between the Baltic and Adriatic Seas during the six months after the armistice was signed, so the results of the harvest are now uppermost, since it is felt that the problems of economic and industrial reorganization cannot be undertaken until the relations of the food supply during the coming year are known.

"Poland is in a fairly hopeful situation, despite the great scarcity of work animals. The crops being harvested promise to cover about three-quarters of the requirements, leaving, however, for import something like thirty million bushels of bread grains. American cotton is now reaching Poland.

"There is a particularly difficult racial problem in Poland, within whose present boundaries are contained one-half the Jews of the world. These are divided in two groups, those who desire assimilation with the Polish State and those who wish to remain foreigners outside of citizenship and enjoying special rights as foreigners.

"Finland and the East Baltic States are in a condition of chaos. In Finland the cause is largely finance; in the East Baltic States the causes are racial and geographical.

"Czecho-Slovakia is in good condition. Within the boundaries of the new republic are large resources in coal and metals. Prague has large textile industries that are now operating on American cotton.

"Roumania has also been carried to the present harvest upon American and British foodstuffs. The present Roumanian boundaries correspond fully to the distribution of her people. The Germans had robbed the country in a merciless fashion.

"The kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is harvesting a good crop which will give them an exportable surplus. Serbia is busily engaged in the rehabilitation of the railways destroyed by the Austrians. The northern areas, passed to the new state from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, were practically self-supporting. Serbia has been fed since the armistice by the American relief administration.