Mobilizing the Economy 621Congress authorized the manufacture of 20,000 air-
planes, but only a handful, mostly British-designed
planes made in America, got to France.
American pilots such as the great “ace” Captain
Eddie Rickenbacker flew British Sopwiths and
De Havillands or French Spads and Nieuports.
Theodore Roosevelt’s son Quentin was shot down
while flying a Spad over Château-Thierry in July 1918.
The problem of mobilization was complicated.
It took Congress six weeks of hot debate merely to
decide on conscription. Only in September 1917,
nearly six months after the declaration of war, did
the first draftees reach the training camps, and it is
hard to see how Wilson could have speeded this
process appreciably. He wisely supported the pro-
fessional soldiers, who insisted that he resist the
appeals of politicians who wanted to raise volun-
teer units, even rejecting, at considerable political
cost, Theodore Roosevelt’s offer to raise an entire
army division.
Wilson was a forceful and inspiring war leader
once he grasped what needed to be done. He dis-
played both determination and unfailing patience in
the face of frustration and criticism. Raising an army
was only a small part of the job. The Allies had to be
supplied with food and munitions, and immense
amounts of money had to be collected.
After several false starts, Wilson placed the task in
the hands of the War Industries Board (WIB). The
board was given almost dictatorial power to allocate
scarce materials, standardize production, fix prices, and
coordinate American and Allied purchasing. Evaluating
the mobilization effort raises interesting historical ques-
tions. The antitrust laws were suspended and producers
were encouraged, even compelled, to cooperate with
one another. Government regulation went far beyond
what the New Nationalists had envisaged in 1912.
As for the New Freedom variety of laissez-faire, it
had no place in a wartime economy. The nation’s rail-
roads, strained by immensely increased traffic, became
progressively less efficient. A monumental tie-up in
December and January 1917–1918 finally persuaded
Wilson to appoint Secretary of the Treasury William G.
McAdoo director-general of the railroads, with power
to run the roads as a single system. McAdoo’s Railroad
Administration pooled all railroad equipment, central-
ized purchasing, standardized accounting practices,
and raised wages and passenger rates.
Wilson accepted the kind of government-industry
agreement developed under Theodore Roosevelt that
he had denounced in 1912. Prices were set by the
WIB at levels that allowed large profits—U.S. Steel,
for example, despite high taxes, cleared over half a bil-
lion dollars in two years. It is at least arguable that
producers would have turned out just as much even if
compelled to charge lower prices.
At the start of the war, army procurement was
decentralized and inefficient—as many as eight
bureaus were purchasing material in competition with
one another. One official bought 1,200 typewriters,
stacked them in the basement of a government build-
ing, and announced proudly to his superior, “There is
going to be the greatest competition for typewriters
around here, and I have them all.”
Mobilization required close cooperation between
business and the military. However, the army, suspi-
cious of civilian institutions, resisted cooperating with
them. Wilson finally compelled the War Department
to place officers on WIB committees, laying the foun-
dation for what was later to be known as the “indus-
trial-military complex,” an alliance between business
and military leaders.
The history of industrial mobilization was the
history of the entire home-front effort in microcosm:
Marvels were performed, but the task was so gigantic
and unprecedented that a full year passed before an
efficient system had been devised, and many unfore-
seen results occurred.“Enlist”—a poster by Fred Spear, published in June 1915 by the
Boston Committee of Public Safety—evoked the drowning deaths of
women and children on the Lusitania.