August lb, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
IX 
America's Industrial Mobilization 
By Isaac F. Marcosson, Author of The War After the War, The Rebirth of Russia, etc. 
THE first time I met Mr. Lloyd George he said : 
" This is a war of machines. It is a contest between 
British and Frencli workmen on one hand and German 
workmen on the othei"." 
America has taken this warning to heart. With the 
mobilization of her men has come a kindred mobilization of 
her resources, the setting up of a standardization of industry 
that is one of the miracles of the Republic at war. The 
story of her industrial preparedness — which was really the 
cornerstone of her whole mihtary readiness — is a narrative 
of practical patriotism as inspiring as it is helpful. It is all 
the more remarkable when you realise that it has been 
achieved in a melting-pot of a democracy with a multitude 
of peoples, a diversity of racial ideals and, up to the declara- 
tion of hostilities against Germany, a sharp clash of war 
interests. 
Likewise you can understand the almost acute readjust- 
ment necessary in our industry when I say that for years we 
had proceeded on a 100,000 army basis and that suddenly the 
country was called upon to prepare and think in terms of ten 
or twenty times that unit. It was just as if a private manu- 
facturing establishment was forced, almost over night, to 
increase its capacity tenfold. Yet America has made the 
change without perceptible dislocation to her vast productive 
machine. How was it done ? 
There were four main reasons. Thefirstis that the country 
declared instantly for conscription, which made the mobiliza- 
tion of industry swift and simple. \Vc will not have to recall 
our artisans from camp and field. The second was the fact 
that for nearly three years wc have been pouring munitions 
into Europe. The thiVd was that almost 'from the day far- 
seeing men realised that a break with Germany was inevitable, 
our best business brains began to concentrate on the industrial 
war problems. A fourth — and in some respects the most 
important factor— was the programme of industrial pre- 
paredness out of which grew the structure of munitions out- 
put. America was prepared to a far greater extent than her 
foreign critics comprehended. 
Quickened to War 
It really began on that fateful day in May, 1915, when 
German " frightfulness " registered one of its most appalling 
strokes with the destruction of the *Lusitania. It was then 
that the heart of America quickened to war. But with what ? 
Our army was less than Lord French's first Seven Divisions ; 
the sole powder plant owned by the War Department had a 
daily capacity of 11,000 pounds, not enough to last the guns 
Df New York harbour for one minute of firing. 
The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Josephus Daniels, had an 
inspiration. " Why not create ^a Board to study the whole 
rnechanism of war," he asked himself. He enlisted Thomas 
Edison who became one of the organising forces. The eleven 
leading scientific societies of the country were each asked to 
name two members to serve on what came to be known as the 
Naval Consulting Board. Around it rallied the mechanical 
wizards of the nation, men of the type of Mr. A'e.xander 
Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, and his most dis- 
tinguished colleagues. Straightway the Board saw that its 
great need was experts. The President got behind the move- 
ment and issued a call to the 30,000 membefs of the American 
Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Mining 
Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 
the American Society of Electrical Engineers, and the American 
Chemical Sotiety. An army of specialists was thus swimg 
into line. Having mobilized the 'scientists the ne.xt step 
was to array the industrial chieftains. 
A Committee on Industrial Preparedness was formed with 
Mr. Howard Coffin as chairman. Mr. Coffin was a famous 
engineer and ma.ster motor-car producer. He had per- 
sonality and a real genius of organization. Tall, sinewy and 
self-made, he was what Americans delight to call " a live wire." 
Production is his hobby ; he thinks in terms of quantity oiit- 
put. He knew that the best safeguard of the country "in the 
war emergency was to be prepared to turn out munitions 
on the swift scale that it manufactured cheap automobiles 
and safety razors. He also knew that the Republic could 
not put itself on this basis without first finding out what 
and how much it could produce. Under his experienced 
♦ Mr. James Gerard, late I'nited States Ambassador in Berlin, in his 
memoirs now appearing in The Daily Telegraph describing an interview 
he had with the Kaiser at Potsdam in October igi.5, writes: " The 
Kmperor said he would not have permitted the torpedoing of the 
Lusitama if he had known it, for no gentleman would kill so many 
women and children.'' 
direction a complete survey of American industry was in- 
stituted. The committee jircparcd a printed form which was 
filled in by 29,000 factories. This form called for the nature of 
the factory output, the capacity of the plant, the number of 
workers. Skilled and unskilled, what war munitions could be 
produced in case of emergency ; indeed all ¥he vital statistics. 
Every State was thoroughly organised to make the census 
complete. Each one of the mechanical organisations that 
I have mentioned named a member to sit on a State Board. 
These Boards in turn sent skilled engineers in person to secure 
information. Never in all industrial history was a survey 
made under such conditions. Men whose salaries ranged from 
£5,000 to £^15,000 a year drudged day after day, without 
thought of compensation. It was a labour of love and 
patriotism. When the facts were tabulated, standardized and 
co-ordinated the Committee knew precisely what it could 
count on when war was declared. 
An Industrial Revolution 
The results were startling. Manufacturers suddenly 
realized that quite unconsciously tli,eir establishments were 
embryo arsenals. A jeweller for example, was surprised to 
know that his plant, with slight changes, could turn out 
periscopes ; a sash-chain maker found that he could make 
cartridge clips ; the phonograph-record producer that he could 
make delicate shell jiarts or aeroplane mechanism; the music- 
roll maker that he could turn gauges ; the cream-separator 
factory that it could add to the shell primer output. And so 
it went on. Even the makers of baby foods cUscovered that 
they could " do their bit " in the war game bv manufacturing 
shell plugs. 
The committee went further than this. They gave prac- 
tically every factory in the survey a sample order for the muni- 
tion that it was best adapted to produce. It might be for one 
hundred si.x-inch shell cases or a set of aeroplane parts. This 
meant that all the necessary jigs, tools, gauges, blue prints 
and other necessaries had to be produced and a set of workmen 
skilled for the job trained. Here then was the nucleus of 
the whole industrial mobilization. When the country turned 
to war the experiment simply became a practical work on a 
huge and nation-wide scale. The sample order was increased 
a millionfold. 
Out of the Committee on Industrial Preparedness came the 
Council of National Defence appointed by the President. 
It included the Secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Com- 
merce, Agriculture and an Advisory Commission composed 
of seven civilians. These men were: Mr. Howard Coffin, 
Mr. Daniel Willard, President of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railway ; Mr. Julius Rosenwald, a merchant prince who had 
built up the .largest mail order business in the world ; Mr. 
Bernard Baruch, an eminent New York financier ; Dr. 
HoUis Godfrey, President of the Drexel Institute and a dis- 
tinguished engineer ; Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the 
American Federation of Labour, and Dr. Franklin Martin, 
one of America's greatest surgeons. From these men radiated 
the experience and the personnel, including the ho^ts of labour 
that vfould comprise the nation's chief bulwark in time 
of war. 
Now began an intensive organisation of the whole country 
which drafted the best business, scientific and industrial 
energy and resource. Long before President Wilson hurled 
down the gauntlet to the Kaiser in his memorable speech 
of April 2nd, the national defence had set up its far-flung 
battle line. It had laid the foundations of a colossal Ministry 
of Munitions and had a branch in practically every one 
of the forty-eight States. It was geared to the biggest pro- 
ductive machine in the world, and what was more important, 
that michincry was already a going concern. It was one of 
the principal national assets, and when war was actually 
declared it went promptly to its task. 
By May 15th, the following departments had been organised 
and were at work : General Munitions Board ; Munitions 
Standards Board ; Aircraft Production Board; Medical Section; 
Commercial Economy Board (dedicated to the elimination of 
waste) ; Co-operative Committee on Purchase of Army 
Supplies ; Inventions Board ; National Research Council ; 
Committee on Shipping (out of which has grown the >vhole 
wooden and steel tonnage programme) ; Committee on Coal 
Production ; Inter-Department Advisory Committee, which is 
charged with the task of co-ordinating the war work and 
preventing any duplication of effort, and a Committee on 
Women's Defence Work which will marshal the whole 
femilc labour clement with a view of its adaptibility to war 
