involved in
war, be denied the benefit of seeking such supplies from neutrals to
amplify its own meager productions.

But the contention that the country in case of war would have to rely
on outside help could no longer be made on the face of the sweeping
change in conditions existing after eighteen months of the war. From
August, 1914, to January, 1916, inclusive, American factories had sent
to the European belligerents shipment after shipment of sixteen
commodities used expressly for war purposes of the unsurpassed
aggregate value of $865,795,668. Roughly, $200,000,000 represented
explosives, cartridges, and firearms; $150,000,000 automobiles and
accessories; and $250,000,000 iron and steel and copper manufacturing.

This production revealed that the United States could meet any war
emergency out of its own resources in respect of supplies. Its army
might be smaller than Switzerland's and its navy inadequate, but it
would have no cause to go begging for the guns and shells needful to
wage war.

How huge factories were built, equipped, and operated in three months,
how machinery for the manufacture of tinware, typewriters, and countless
other everyday articles was adapted to shell making; and how methods for
producing steel and reducing ores were revolutionized--these
developments form a romantic chapter in American industrial history
without a parallel in that of any other country.

The United States, in helping the European belligerents who had free
intercourse with it, was really helping itself. It was building better
than it knew. The call for preparedness, primarily arising out of the
critical relations with Germany, turned the country's attention to a
contemplation of an agreeable new condition--that the European War,
from which it strove to be free, had given it an enormous impetus for
the creation of a colossal industry, which in itself was a long step
in national preparedness, and that much of this preparedness had been
provided without cost. The capital sunk in the huge plants which
supplied the belligerents represented, at $150,000,000, an outlay
amortized or included in the price at which the munitions were sold.
Thus, when the last foreign contract was fulfilled, the United States
would have at its own service one of the world's greatest munition
industries--and Europe will have paid for it.

CHAPTER IX

NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS IN MANY WATERS

The months which brought the second year of war to a