America’s advance in potash production 
43 
immense, but as acetone, oils, esters, organic acids, algin, iodine, 
salt and potassium compounds are prepared in correspondingly 
large amounts, there is reason to view this as a permanent in- 
dustry, and not one to cease with the coming of peace. With 
large technical staffs and expert sales organizations available, 
the outlook is favorable. 
CONCLUSION 
And thus we see how Germany’s ^Vaunting ambition doth 
o’er leap itself” as truly in technical fields as in military and 
governmental affairs. She had the world buying potash from 
her mines, and a fleet of merchantmen carrying it to the utter- 
most parts of the earth. Her customers paid whatever price 
was demanded, and considered competition hopeless. Then 
came war, and long preparation for a short, intense campaign — 
like those waged under Bismarck’s direction — gave her an in- 
stant advantage over peaceable nations who thought of war in 
terms of Sherman’s definition. Conquest for booty, loot and 
subjugation of alien peoples — sordid and selfish motives all — 
was to the Junker and militarist only “big business.” 
But how she miscalculated the moral, mental and material 
reserves of an outraged world! Instead of having but one or 
two antagonists to dispose of at a time, the other nations being 
cowed into inaction through physical fear, she was soon sur- 
rounded by the dreaded wall of blood and iron, a circle of steel, 
and brought to bay, with a world against her. The eleventh 
hour of the fateful eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, 
marked the end of actual hostilities. What a reversal of form! 
And what a shock it will be to the government-controlled 
Kalisyndikat to realize that its monopoly has been broken, that 
America increased its potash production from practically noth- 
ing in 1914 to 10,000 tons in 1916, 33,000 tons in 1917, and 
65,000 tons in 1918, with the prospect of ever increasing produc- 
tion until all that is needed can come directly from local plants ! 
America’s economic independence of German potash is thus 
a valuable by-product of this frightful World War, a result en- 
tirely unforeseen by friend and foe in 1914. The end has not 
