for all the needs of the country, the railroads are not in position to carry to market anything like the amount actually needed. Until recently the railroads have been able to transport all the coal the mines felt impelled to produce. Their present condition of inadequacy, while it appears to have come almost like a thief in the night, must, of course, be the result of a large train of circumstances. The fact really is that the railroads have for a great many years past not been able to raise and spend the new money needed to take care of the growing population and consumption of the country. It was possible for for them to pursue this policy of neglectfulness for a long time without spectacular results. The additional strain caused by the war was all that was needed to show the folly of such a course. For many years the government, reflecting the will of the people, had been building up a policy of railroad regulation. Its attitude had become more and more critical, and we may even say hostile. There could be but one outcome of such a course, and it was reached even before the European war broke out. The credit of the railroads had become so impaired that they had not been able to raise the capital to put themselves in condition to meet such a situation as the last four years have evolved.

However, it is useless to theorize about that now. A hard grinding condition confronts us and every step possible should be taken to overcome it. And right here it may be proper to ask if the measures now being taken to rectify the shipping situation are not worth careful study in connection with the railroad situation. While ships and railroad cars differ in outward appearance and in their method of handling, they possess a fundamental identity. A ship and a railroad car are merely vehicles by which goods are got to market. For months past the whole world has been greatly exercised over the scarcity of shipping, and yet this scarcity is not a more serious difficulty than the scarcity of railroad cars and locomotives; for it goes without saying that practically all the goods that are put into ships have first to be carried in railroad cars.

Now so far as the shipping situation is concerned, the world has taken the bull by the horns. That, however, is very far from being the case in regard to the railroads. The Government has since January 1, 1918, exercised control of the railroads and has so far effected many drastic changes in their operation. Still, the internal transportation situation seems to be no

better than it was, whereas the turning-point in the shipping situation appears actually to have been passed.

The Fuel Administrator acts sensibly in asking us all to economize in the use of coal in order to accumulate enough fuel for next winter's need. But after all, is this not like paying tithes of mint, anise and cumin, while neglecting the weightier matters of the law? It ought not to be a matter of saving but of producing (transporting) coal, and not only coal but a great many other essential products. If the shortage of ships made it advisable for the Government to appropriate hundreds of millions of money to build shipyards for exigent purposes, it seems pertinent to ask if the shortage of cars and locomotives does not call for a similar programme. If all the car and locomotive works in the United States were working at capacity they could not in the near future bring the railroad equipment up to the point which it would now be at if the railroads had made the proper expenditures in the last ten years. When, however, it is borne in mind that the need of equipment is greatly in excess of normal, and that most of the car and locomotive works are now making munitions or doing other work for the Government, the question naturally arises, Why, if we have an Emergency Fleet Corporation, should we not have an Emergency Car and Locomotive Corporation?

The long and short of the matter is, the country has now reached the point where it should recognize that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Let us not seek for palliatives but for restoratives. It would be a good thing if this country should make an inventory of its most essential needs. There are a great many things we can do without for the time being. There are other things which we cannot do without, but need more than ever. By a process of elimination it is possible to get at the actual essentials, and certainly coal is one of these. To say that enough coal cannot be produced to meet our present needs is hardly true. It can be mined if cars to hold it can be provided.

Hence, it would almost seem that the most essential things of all in this extraordinary period are cars and locomotives. But the country has no Aladdin's lamp by which to produce them; nor are cars and locomotives spirits which we can call from the vasty deep. They are simply the products of labor and capital, like ships; and if they cannot be obtained from private fabricators (and it looks as if they could not be at

this particular time), there is only one other way in which they may be obtained, the Government must devote capital for the construction of shops and employ labor for the operation of the shops when constructed. It ought by this time to be possible to tell whether rush orders for cars and locomotives can be filled in private shops. If they cannot, then the Government should act.

Two Blades For One

Mr. H. G. Winsor's paper in this issue is very timely. His subject is "Obtaining Co-operation from the New Employee and from the Old One under Present Conditions." If it is true, as has been stated, that every soldier in service requires three civilians to provide the instrumentalities for his work in the field, the world is certainly confronted with a situation of the first magnitude. Mr. Winsor quotes Congressman Johnson of Washington, who not long ago visited the battle front in France and Belgium, as saying that the most reliable estimate is that the combatants in the present war have so far sustained losses aggregating 8,500,000 in killed. That of itself is a very serious matter for industry. Yet from a cold-blooded economic point of view it is only a small part of the problem now confronting the world; for it is estimated that there are now 35,000,000 men in service, which implies 105,000,000 persons at work providing them the means to fight.

If we narrow the question down to this country alone, the contingencies are disquieting. If we actually put 5,000,000 men in the field, we shall, if the estimate of three to one is reliable, be obliged to divert 15,000,000 persons from the task of providing for the needs of our civilian population to that of supplying exclusively the means of war. Though still very far from our maximum war strength, essential industries — agriculture for example are suffering from a shortage of labor, which is bound to be sharply accentuated as we get farther into the actual hostilities.

Yet even if we should put into the field more men than any one of the belligerents has yet done, there would still remain at home practically 100,000,000 persons to be clothed and fed and ministered to in other essential ways. In 1910, the last census year, something over 38,000,000 persons over ten years of age were employed in gainful occupations in the United States. In other words, the number of persons necessary to provide for

5,000,000 men in service would be about 40 per cent of the total number of persons at work in this country in 1910.

Adding together the number of men we shall put in the field and the number of persons necessary to provide for their needs, we have a labor situation which is already troublesome, and which seems likely to become much more so as the war progresses. It is obviously, therefore, a time for mental discipline. It looks as if, in order to live in any comfort, it will be necessary for every one to make two blades grow where one grew before. The best of theories breaks down in face of exceptional conditions, and certainly we can recall no labor conditions so exceptional as the present in the last five centuries, or since the Black Plague wiped out a large fraction of the population of the world.

Mr. Winsor is dealing merely with the conduct of public utilities, but what he says about the need of co-operation in that field is applicable to the whole domain of essential industry. Co-operation to the fullest extent is imperative. We are all in the same boat and the hand of everyone is necessary at the oars. To change the figure, we must, as Franklin told the Continental Congress, all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.

RED CROSS INCIDENTS IN THE WAR ZONE

BY ELIOT WADSWORTH

[Mr. Eliot Wadsworth, who retired from the firm of Stone & Webster to assume the vice-chairmanship of the American Red Cross, recently returned from a four months' trip to the War Zone. At the beginning of the Red Cross Drive in May, he was in Boston for a brief period, and consented to talk to the members of the Stone & Webster organization, at a hastily arranged meeting, of some of his experiences. The following article embodies the substance of his remarks. - Editor.]

I sat

It seems very natural to stand here in this room here on this platform for many years before they built that barricade around it and see a great many familiar faces. I had an unusually warm welcome this morning from Mr. Shea, who shook me by the hand and said, "You are just the man we are looking for, will you make a speech this afternoon at 4.30?"

When I came back from the trip in 1915 the first chance I had to talk about it was right here in this room, and I am very glad to have a chance now to tell you a little bit about the Red Cross organization and what it is accomplishing.

In the first place, we are trying to do everything we can over there for our own troops and there were a great many things we found they needed - they are a long way from home, in a strange land with a strange language — and we try to keep them in touch with what is going on and give them a lift in the hospitals and their camps. We have put men with all the troops so they can send word back to the home service committees of the Red Cross here, who will do something for their families. We have put women in all the hospitals so they can take dictation of letters, write home to their families a great many men, of course, have been gassed and will not be able to use their eyes for a long time — and they are very lonely over there, sometimes in field hospitals, sometimes in French or English hospitals. We hope that in every hospital where a man may go he may have the touch of the Red Cross and of some American who will give him a sympathetic word or some comfort he wants, read him the news from papers we are sending out, and generally let him know that we all at home have not forgotten him.

We have ambulance service in various parts of France. Particularly, the service in Paris has had a great deal to do in connection with the air raids and the shelling of Paris. Perhaps 30 Americans are on duty all the time with their ambulances,