that Washington soon would, soon must, declare war. The country was uneasy, discontented, mutinous over the delay.
Meantime, all these new foci of this amateur organization began to show problems of organization and administration. The several captains unavoidably lapped over one another in their work, and a certain loss in speed and efficiency rose out of this. The idea had proved good, but it was so good it was running away with itself! No set of men could handle it except under a well-matured and adequately-managed organization, worked out in detail from top to bottom.
We may not place one man in this League above another, for all were equal in their unselfish loyalty, from private to general, from operative to inspector, and from inspector to National Directors; but it is necessary to set down the basic facts of the inception of the League in order that the vast volume and usefulness of its labors properly may be understood. So it is in order now to describe how this great army of workers became a unit of immense, united and effective striking power, how the swift and divers developments of the original idea became coordinated into a smooth-running machine, nation-wide in its activities.
Now at last, long deferred—too long—came April 6, 1917. The black headlines smote silence at every American table.
WAR!
We were at War! Men did not talk much. Mothers looked at their sons, wives at their husbands. Thousands of souls had their Gethsemane that day. Now we were to place our own breasts against the steel of Germany.
The cover was off. War—war to the end, now—war on both sides of the sea—war against every form and phase of German activity! America said aloud and firmly now, as, in her anguish, she had but recently whispered, "I need you, my children!" And millions of Americans, many of them debarred from arms by age or infirmity, came forward, each in his own way, and swore the oath.
The oath of the League spread. Not one city or state, but all America must be covered, and it must be done at once. The need of a national administration became at once imperative.
In this work on the neutrality cases Mr. Clabaugh and
