I visited a small tile factory that was being utilized to make hand
grenades. Innumerable small shops in Paris are engaged in munition
work. The amount of ammunition bought in America by France has been
grossly exaggerated by the German press. Latterly, France has employed
American engineers to build large munition plants in France that will
become the property of the Government.

Throughout the spring the Paris newspapers appeared every morning
with large headlines: "More guns! More ammunition!!" And they got
them, made them. The headlines are no longer needed, for the
superiority in shell and guns rests with the French, not with the
Germans, on the western front.

* * * * *

France, industrially crippled, has accomplished this marvel in
one short year. The country has become one vast workshop for war.
The Latin genius for organization on the small scale has met the
German genius for organization on the large scale. The industrial
transformation has been facilitated by the system of conscription
over which the English have wrangled so long and so futilely to the
mystery of their keener-witted allies. To the Frenchman conscription
means merely the most effective method of applying patriotism, of
cooeperation for the common cause. France has mobilized not only her
men, but her women and children, it might be said, so thoroughly have
the civilian elements worked into the shops and other non-military
labor. To sort out their labor and put it where it was most effective,
to substitute women workers for men wherever possible, were the first
steps in the huge work of social reorganization. There were no labor
troubles to contend with, thanks to the conscription system and to