ward impatiently. "We put out more than three times as
many cars, refrigerators, kitchen stoves, washing machines."

His superior said, "That's the point. While we were putting the product
of our steel mills into automobiles and automatic kitchen equipment,
they did without these things and put their steel into more steel mills,
more railroads, more factories. We leaned back and took it easy, sneered
at their progress, talked a lot about our freedom and liberty to our
allies and the neutrals and enjoyed our refrigerators and washing
machines until they finally passed us."

"You sound like a Tass broadcast from Moscow."

"Um-m-m, I've been trying to," the Chief said. "However, that's still
roughly the situation. The fact that you and I personally, and a couple
of hundred million Americans, prefer our cars and such to more steel
mills, and prefer our personal freedoms and liberties is beside the
point. We should have done less laughing seven years ago and more
thinking about today. As things stand, give them a few more years at
this pace and every neutral nation in the world is going to fall into
their laps."

"That's putting it strong, isn't it?"

"Strong?" the Chief growled disgustedly. "That's putting it mildly. Even
some of our allies are beginning to waver. Eight years ago, India and
China both set out to industrialize themselves. Today, China is the
third industrial power of the world. Where's India, about twentieth? Ten
years from now China will probably be first. I don't even allow myself
to think where she'll be twenty-five years from now."

"The Indians were a bunch of idealistic screwballs."

"That's one of the favorite alibis, isn't it? Actually we, the West, let
them down. They couldn't get underway. The Soviets backed China with
everything they could toss in."

Paul crossed his legs and leaned back. "It seems to me I've run into
this discussion a few hundred times at cocktail parties."

The Chief pulled out a drawer and brought forth a king-size box of
kitchen matches. He struck one with a thumbnail and peered through
tobacco smoke at Paul Koslov as he lit up.

"The point is that the system the Russkies used when they started their
first five-year plan back in 1928, and the system used in China, works.
If we, with our traditions of freedom and liberty, like it or not, it
works. Every citizen of the country is thrown into the grinding mill to
increase production. Everybody," the Chief grinned sourl