Woodrow Wilson’s speech on postwar reconversion, As printed in American Affairs, V7, n 4.
From the Message of President Woodrow Wilson to the Congress on Dec. 2, 1918
“SO FAR as our domestic affairs are concerned the problem of our return to peace is a problem of economic and industrial readjustment.
“Our people do not wait to be coached and led. They know their own business, are quick and resourceful at every readjustment, definite in purpose and self-reliant in action. Any leading strings we might seek to put them in would become hopelessly tangled because they would pay no attention to them and go their own way. All that we can do as their legislative and executive servants is to mediate the process of change here, there and elsewhere as we may.
“I have heard much counsel as to the plans that should be forced and personally conducted to a happy consummation, but from no quarter have I seen any general scheme of ‘reconstruction’ emerge which I thought it likely we could force our spirited businessmen and self-reliant laborers to accept with due pliancy and obedience.
“While the war lasted we set up many agencies by which to direct the industries of the country in the services it was necessary for them to render. But the moment we knew the Armistice had been signed, we took the harness off. Raw materials, on which the government had kept its hands for fear there should not be enough for the industries that supplied the armies, have been released and put on the general market again.
“Never before have there been agencies in existence in this country which knew so much of the field of supply, of labor, and of industry, as the War Industries Board, the War Trade Board, the Labor Department, the Food Administration, and the Fuel Administration have known. It has been the policy of the Executive, therefore, since the Armistice was assured to put the knowledge of these bodies at the disposal of the businessmen of the country and to offer them intelligent mediation at every point and in every matter where it was desired.
“It is surprising how fast the process of a return to a peace footing has moved in these weeks since the fighting stopped. It promises to outrun any inquiry that may be instituted and any aid that may be offered. It will not be easy to direct it any better than it will direct itself.”
