The United States was that source of supply. During the years from 1915 to 1917, the industries of the United States were shifted gradually from a peace basis to a war basis. Quantities of material destined for use in the war were shipped to the Allies. The unusual profits made on much of this business were not curtailed by heavy war taxation. Thus for more than two years the basic industries of the United States reaped a harvest in profits which were actually free of taxation, at the same time that they placed themselves on a war basis for the supplying of Europe's war demand. When the United States did enter the war, she came with all of the economic advantages that had arisen from selling war material to the belligerents during two and a half years. Throughout those years, while the Allies were bleeding and borrowing and paying, the American plutocracy was growing rich. When the United States entered the war, she entered it as an ally of powers that were economically winded. She herself was fresh. With the greatest estimated wealth of any of the warring countries, she had a public national debt of less than one half of one percent of her total wealth. She had larger quantities of liquid capital and a vast economic surplus. As a consequence, she held the purse strings and was able, during the next two years, to lend to the Allied nations nearly ten billion dollars without straining her resources to any appreciable degree. The nations of Europe had been so deeply engrossed in war-making that they had been unable to provide themselves with the necessary food. All of the warring countries, with the exception of Russia, were importers of food in normal times. The disturbances incident to the war; the insatiable army demands, and the loss of shipping all had their effect in bringing the Allied countries to a point of critical food scarcity in the Winter of 1916-1917. The United States was able to meet this food shortage as easily as it met the European credit shortage--and with no greater sacrifice on the part of the American people. Then, too, with the exception of small amounts of food donated through relief organizations, the food that went to Europe was sold at fancy prices. The United States was therefore in a position to lay down the basic law,--"Submit or starve." With the purse strings and the larder under American control, the temporary supremacy of the United States was assured. She was the one important nation (beside Japan) that had lost little and gained much during the war. She was the only great nation with a surplus of credit, of raw materials and of food.