June 7, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
There have been cumulative difficulties in that respect.. 
Again the Council of Defence steps in. Its railway member 
is one of the foremost railway presidents in the country. 
He takes counsel with his colleagues and in a jiify the nation's 
resources are overhauled. Another expert is attending to 
the economical collection and marketing of raw materials. 
Yet another is engaged in co-ordinating the manufacturing of 
kvar supplies, with a result that not only the American 
Governmien,t but the Alhes will soon have their bills cut down 
and the flow of supplies expedited. The question of tonnage, 
the building of new ships, etc., is in the hands of a recently 
appointed Federal Commission of experts, with Colonel 
Goethals, the builder of the Panama Canal, in practical charge. 
The floating of loans falls to the Federal Reserve Board, 
another expert commission. 
A great deal has been said against organised business in the 
United States. It has been accused of subverting democracy 
in the interests of plutocracy. There has been much truth 
in the accusation. So long as the conservative Republicans 
were in power the alliance between " big business " and the 
politicians was too close. It produced unhealthily high 
tariffs. It encouraged the " Trusts " and other monopolistic 
abuses. But it is now the business man who is coming to 
the rescue of a democracy dazed by the prospect of unac- 
customed war. He has given the United States off-hand the 
nucleus of the economic organisation which Great Britain 
so long lacked, distrusted by the Radicals and Liberals in 
power, he is going to vindicate him.self in the factories and 
country houses no less effectively than the equally distrusted 
British aristocracy and plutocracy have vindicated them- 
selves on the ba,ttlefield. He will, especially after consulting 
with Mr. Balfour's commission, enable the United States to 
wage the most effective sort of war while the Government 
is sloughing off the remains of its; liberal pacifism. 
Not that it need be doubted that eventually the United 
States will do what may be needed of her in a military sense 
as well. And in the meanwhile it is all to the good from the 
Allies' point of view that the President's former aversion 
from large armies, and his refusal to admit that the war clouds 
could carry across the Atlantic, should have prevented the 
formation of huge masses of half-trained men to equip whom 
American supplies of munitions would have been held back 
from F'rance, Flanders, and Russia where they are so insis- 
tently needed. Paradoxical though it seems, the superficial 
carelessness of the .American people about the war will increase 
for some time to come, the value of their recruitment to the 
posse comitatus of civilization. 
Cartoons and Posters 
THE cartoon occupies a position in the dailij 
journalism of .'\merica whicii can only be compared 
with leading articles in English daily newspapers' 
It epitomises current opinion in a forcible and pic- 
turesque manner, its object being not so much to amuse as 
to drive hard home a particular point of view. So the typical 
illustrations of this essentially American form of journalism 
which are given on these pages represents public opinion 
even more closely than if we nad extracted long passages from 
the leading articles of our new Ally's Press. Uncle Sam is a 
very favourite figure with American cartoonists, more so 
perhaps than John Bull is with ours, possibly because so much 
greater expression can be thrown into his lithe figure. We 
see him full of humour and activity starting off to hold 
Olympics on his own in Berlin on a following page. And 
elsewhere he appears as a business man and as a much 
puzzled elderly gentleman, who thinks the time has come to 
take a hand in the war. 
Directly war was declared there was, as might be expected, 
a wonderful outburst of poster activity, especially on the 
part of the Naval Department. This has taken all manner 
of forms, the most striking perhaps being the adaptation of 
the famous poster " It's your money we want," so familiar 
at one time on London hoardings, which is reproduced on 
page 31. America is not only learning from our blunders, 
but has not disdained to take a few hints from our war 
advertising campaigns, and New York is as gay with 
war posters as ever our English cities were in 1915. 
The full-page cartoon " Damn the torpedoes ! Go ahead," 
that by the courtesy of the ^ew York Times, is reproduced 
to-day in Land & W.\tp;r, promises to become a classic among 
cartoons, for it .so exactly hits off the*spirit in which the United 
States have entered the war. Germany is to be taught 
what " the freedom of the seas " really means — a .phrase 
which she only adopted in order to abuse and misapply. It 
has been our object in making this selection of cartoons and 
posters to convey to our readers how the war presents itself 
to American minds. Opinion naturally is not unanimous 
throughout that vast country, but we can see that as it 
becomes more apparent democracy is at grips with auto- 
cracy, pubhc resolution to win complete victory will 
strengthen and harden. Already activity progresses apace, 
and public ppinion as expressed in the Press grows more 
defined on the futiu^e part it will play in the war. 
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Bij vonrtesy of "The Chicaijo Tribune" 
** Wonder if it ain't purty near time to begin 
to load her up ? " 
By courtcfij of "TJie BrooUlyn CitUtn" 
"You've started something, Kaiser!" 
