478 
Last year I endeavored to direct attention 
to some of the conditions which post-war re- 
construction demands, and to indicate the di- 
rection in which we must move if we are not 
only to rebuild our national prosperity, but 
also to base it on broader foundations, so that 
it may be shared by every honest worker with 
hand or brain. Much has happened on sea 
and land since April of last year, and the war 
still dominates our activities and absorbs our 
thoughts. It has now been made plain to us 
all that the fate of the world will be deter- 
mined on the western front, as was inevitable. 
And to the vast majority of the English-speak- 
ing peoples it has become clear that no endur- 
ing peace—no peace compatible with honor 
and such as would enable us to begin our great 
_ task of reconstruction—is possible until Ger- 
many accepts defeat. The Allies have fre- 
quently disavowed all desire to crush Germany 
out of national existence. That idea is a 
fiction invented, like many others, by her 
Prussian rulers to induce the masses to bear 
their growing burdens and to acquiesce in the 
reckless squandering of their manhood. It 
is in the general interest that Germany should 
remain a great power; but the accursed spirit 
which has been deliberately instilled into the 
German people—the spirit which is responsible 
for the greatest catastrophe the world has 
known, and for the infamies committed by the 
German navy and army—must be destroyed. 
Otherwise there can be no rest for mankind, 
and civilization will perish. The war, with all 
its cruel losses, sorrows and suffering, must 
continue until the menace of German militar- 
ism has ended and the nations of the world, 
small and great, are left free to develop in 
security on their own chosen lines. If ever 
there were doubts as to the issue, they have 
been dispelled by the splendid resistance which 
the Allies are offering to the German masses 
and by the gigantic efforts which America is 
making to bear her full share in the battle for 
human freedom. 
In the year that has passed, our plans for 
reconstruction have made some progress, and 
we haye gained more insight into our national 
needs. Always, as we seek to weigh our past 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Vou. XLVIII. No. 1246 
methods in the balance and to find remedies 
for the blemishes in our national, political and 
industrial life, the task before us seems to 
grow in magnitude and difficulty. And al- 
ways, if we try to trace the ultimate cause of 
some failure, blunder, or sign of weakness, we 
arrive at errors of judgment due either to lack 
of knowledge or to neglect to apply knowl- 
edge that was available if sought. ‘Two of the 
outstanding tragedies of the war—the opera- 
tions in the Gallipoli Peninsula and the break- 
down in Mesopotamia—have been exhaustively 
examined, with the result of proving that nec- 
essary knowledge was either ignored or not 
ascertained by the individuals responsible. In 
other cases, similar investigations must have 
led to the same verdicts. 
The stern necessities of the war have forced 
upon successive governments the employment 
of trained non-officials in many capacities. 
The work accomplished under conditions of ex- 
temporization has been marvelous in amount, 
and it supplies evidence of our innate organ- 
izing capacities; but there has been lament- 
able waste. Government has not always suc- 
ceeded in using experts to the best advantage. 
Square men have been too frequently placed 
in round holes, and in the building up of new 
departments of state the coordination of effort 
and the essential principles of sound adminis- 
tration have been palpably lacking. The fore- 
sight required to convert a peace-loving people 
into an armed nation and to fulfil on a sudden 
all the vast and various demands of the great- 
est of all wars is necessarily rare; but it can 
not be said that the best use has been made of 
the trained intelligence at our disposal, and 
our political methods have not proved well 
adapted to a supreme national emergency. 
Meanwhile, we have been brought face to 
face with German efficiency, deadly in some 
aspects, because concentrated during many 
years upon deliberate preparation for world 
conquest. We are only now beginning to 
understand the meticulous care with which 
every requirement that could possibly be fore- 
seen had been studied and provided for in ad- 
vance. In the years before the war, we had 
often been warned of growing competition in 
