It was a difficult fight that the Committee waged outside of the home country and the lands of our co-belligerents, for it had to meet a tricky foe who already held possession and would and did use all manner of insidious means and lying statements. But everywhere the Committee presented its claims frankly and openly, telling the authorities just what it wanted to do and what its methods would be, offering to the people plain and true statements and depending upon their honesty, intelligence and sense of justice. One large factor in its success was undoubtedly this openness and honesty of purpose and methods. The completeness with which public opinion in the neutral countries finally swung to the side of the United States and the Allies, the collapse of civilian Germany and the decay of morale among the German and Austro-Hungarian troops all helped to prove the importance and the success of its long, hard struggle. Just how great a portion of these developments was due to the Committee’s work can not yet be estimated. But, because mind and spirit dominate force and its weapons were wholly those of mind and spirit, it is already evident that it deserves no small measure of credit. CHAPTER XXV WAR-TIME CONTROL OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY The entire commercial and industrial life of the country was established on a war basis very soon after war was declared. Trade had to be thus mobilized in order to defeat the efforts of the enemy to supply himself by roundabout and underground means with American products and in order to use efficiently the organization of commerce for the prosecution of the war. Industry had to be mobilized in order to make sure that it would produce all the enormous amounts of every sort that would be needed for war purposes. A people accustomed throughout their history as a nation to a minimum of governmental control of or interference in their business affairs and believing in and practicing the principle of individualism in business suddenly found themselves called upon to surrender that principle and submit to pervasive governmental regulation. It was a sharp and searching test of patriotism and of loyalty to national ideals and it put to thorough trial the mental elasticity, alertness and resourcefulness of the business life of the country.