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Show U. S. IN" FRANCE. I Across France, from the sea to the 'American front, is a strip of the United 1 .States. It is very nun-h as if we had picked up one of our great industrial states ami transported it three thousand thou-sand miles and then made it a going concern on the other side of the ocean. Six months ao this broad highway was being made American by the labor of Frenchmen and of Teutonic prisoners. Today the French are back in their army or factories and American labur is used for the most part to keep the great industrial highway in operation. It begins at the sea with gigantic piers, warehouses, administration buildings, cantonments and railway terminals. Thence it extends across France, through scores of cities and villages, and alung the route are to be found American workmen, machinery, locomotives, locomo-tives, cars, auto trucks, cold storage plants, aviation fields, troops, guns and supply depots of many kinds and sizes. All this has been accomplished as if by a miracle in a few months. When our. first divisions arrived at points near the front and began training, train-ing, the task seemed as hopeless as the Germans then conceived it to be. How could any nation, even with the unparalleled un-paralleled resources and industry of the United States, transport all the necessary materials across three thousand thou-sand miles of ocean and, as it were, construct a new nation in the time that it takes to grow a crop of wheat or oats. This industrial highway is the line of communication without which tho army cannot fight. And the armies of today require lines of communication so abundantly supplied that whole nations could subsist and prosper on the accumulated accu-mulated material wealth. When Secretary Baker gave his testimony tes-timony before the senate committee he knew of these conditions, but he did not dwell on them. He knew that they would explain much that the senators would like to learn, and undoubtedly the lawmakers have ascertained the facts we have stated and much more besides in confidential conversations. Ivo army can fight unless every department de-partment is co-ordinated. A modern army requires more co-ordination than the armies of old, because there are so many more departments to be operated. oper-ated. The one department of aviation, for example, requires special kinds of transportation facilities, clothing, equipment equip-ment and machinery. By what tho French call "liaison," all of these things are co-ordinated and kept in continuous operation. Unless there is a vast body of trained officials and workers the "liaison" will collapse and the fighting at the front will stop.-. The United States has been called upon to co-ordinate not one but many departments. It has been compelled to build a new world in the old world, and to start it going and keep it going. These few facts will help us to understand un-derstand why our army has not been in the fight sooner. But once we do grasp the idea wo shall see that when the "liaison" is in perfect operation, it will be easy to maintain the fighters in a prepared condition, always fit and ready to cope with the enemy. The titanic machine is now well on the way to completion. As a result, the newly arrived military units can be trained two or'three times as rapidly as the units which arrived early last summer. sum-mer. Everything is made easier, and it is possible to "speed up" all tho departments. |