June 7, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
31 
Mr. Wilson's War Efficiency. 
f 
By Norman Hapgood 
THE amount that the United States can acomplish in 
the war must depend of course largely on the nature 
of the people themselves ; on the youth and the 
business men. The youth will turn out to be good 
fighting men. Most of them go to college and have a resulting 
increase of responsibiUty and honour. The business men 
have been accustomed to large units and will be found to be 
capable of the work of organising as they are called on by the 
Government. Efficiency, however, will depend also in large 
part on the political leadership. It must depend on Mr. 
Wilson more than is the case in any other country ; not only 
because his powers are so great but also because they are so 
secure. Lloyd George, Lvov, Ribot, or Hollweg might be 
displaced at any moment, bat Wilson is secure in office until 
March 4, 192 1. 
British newspaper correspondents have sometimes drawn 
analogies that left this and simiUar differences out of account ; 
as for example when they have suggested the advisabihty of a 
Coalition Cabinet, and 
have even named as 
possible members the 
most intransigeant mem- 
bers of the Opposition 
party. It is no doubt '*•■ , 
always well for the 
President to use men of 
any party when they are 
the best men for the 
actuil work. It may even 
De necessary for him to 
place certain conspicuous 
Republicans in certain 
positions when they are 
not the best men, merely 
for the purpose of quel- 
hng factional agitation in 
newspapers and in Con- 
gress. But under our 
system of government it 
certainly would not be an 
advantage to introduce 
opposed political leaders 
into the Cabinet itself. 
An5'body who is put in 
the Cabinet on account of 
the war will be put there 
for efficiency alone and 
not for the sake of hold 
ing the support of the 
RepubUcans of the 
country. Congress, or the 
Press. 
The President is so 
much of a student and a 
writer that it is some 
times overlooked that he 
is essentially a man of 
action. I see pictures of 
loirn in London shop-windows marked " Dr. Wilson," which 
is a misleading emphasis. Nobody who appreciates the Presi- 
dent s record would think of calling him Dr. Wilson, or of in 
any way seeking to give an academic suggestion about his 
character. A modern College President in the United States 
is a man of action. He is necessarily a business man. He 
may chance to be a scholar, as Mr. Wilson is ; but, if successful, 
an enterprising and active executive he absolutely must be. 
As President of Princeton Mr. Wilson was a dominant 
administrator, and at the same time an innovator; doing the 
regular college business energetically, and at the same time, 
with notable spirit, undertaking fundamental improvements. 
It was as Governor of New Jersey that he proved to the 
general public throughout the country that it was in his 
nature to " do things," as they like to say in America. 
He does not use the prevailing expressions about doing things 
and " hustling," but he does drive, albeit without noise, and 
he does accomplish to a distinguished extent. Foreigners can 
hardly be expected to know that the first four years of his 
presidency saw more important constructive legislation put on 
the statute books in Washington than have been put there 
in any other dozen years since the reconstruction amendments, 
or that the President was the force that took the lead both in 
formulating this legislation and in successfully forcing it 
through Congress. Much of it, as the Federal Reserve Act, 
the new Tariff Act, the Shipping Act, the Act creating a 
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Federal Trade Commission, and the Rural Credits Act, brought 
along with it new administrative bodies which are of peculiar 
use just now. 
In selecting men for these bodies the President is subject 
to fair criticism in a few instances, but only in a few. In the 
main they are composed of men of appropriate ability ; and 
perhaps the very names of the bodies will indicate why their 
existence makes far easier tlian it would otherwise have been, 
the task of organising a large country for modern war. In 
fact, if the big effort the United States is now called on 
to make turns out to be, as I anticipate, decidedly successful, 
it will be in no small degree because of what President Wilson 
did before the country went into the war at all. 
Could any better illustration be asked of war-tests than 
the increased appreciation of Secretary McAdoo and Secretary 
Houston in the last few months ? Mr. McAdoo is imaginative, 
daring, untiring, ,and combatant. I have heard several 
highly qualified judges speak of him as the most resourceful 
American Secretary of 
:he Treasury since 
Alexander Hamilton. 
Politically he is a Radical 
and the privileged in- 
terests do not like him. 
Foreigners travelling in 
America in social and 
financial circles have 
usually heard ill of him. 
Since the United States 
went into the war, Mr. 
McAdoo's powers of 
initiative and labour have 
stood out conspicuously 
and have widely increased 
the general appreciation 
of his exceptional value. 
In spite of his support of 
drastic taxation mea- 
sures, the complaints 
from a few of the wealthy 
have, as far as I can judge 
from abroad, gained 
comparatively little 
backing. Before the war 
is over it wiU be much 
more fully realised that 
the selection and reten- 
tion of Mr. McAdoo, much 
used against the Presi- 
dent, is one of the 
strongest proofs of his 
ability to act and to lead. 
Secretary Houston is 
an example of a different 
kind. He is not a fighter 
by preference, but a re- 
tiring, steady, exact and 
most comprehensive mas- 
ter of his subject. He has not been attacked, but it has 
until recently been impossible to make the country at large 
realise the full importance of what he has been doing for 
agricultural production and distribution ; for variety and 
suitability of crops, for organisation, for markets, for 
spreading information, for bringing together supply and 
demand. It has been said that he knows less how to 
advertise the accomplishment of his department than any 
other man in tlie Gov'ernment. 
Now it will be realised that our entrance into the war found 
the food question far on the way towards solution, through 
what Mr. Houston had done already, and what Congress had 
done along the lines largely pointed out by him. With Mr. 
Hoover to share the war aspect of this work, notably on the 
side of the needs of the Allies, it will be as well conducted, 
I think, as is humanly possible. From the standpoint of the 
Allies the food question and the shipping question are of course 
closely related. The members of the Shipping Board were 
chosen after I left America, but I know some of them, and am 
convinced that the board is likely to be of decided value from 
the war point of view. If, by the way, Mr. McAdoo and the 
President had not been beaten in Congress in their attempt tc 
increase shipping, early in the war, through government 
participation, we should be in a much stonger pdsition to-day. 
The shipping interests, their allied interests, and others calling 
themselves practical men. and condemning visionaries, were 
A tnfltnjiwtr 
