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of the country and the result was that the soldiers went into the winter without warm clothing or overcoats. As for artillery, the incapacity was complete.

Meanwhile we sent a small expeditionary force to France, and in the autumn began sending troops across in a leisurely way, at the rate of ten thousand a week.

Then suddenly, late in March, with the German army driving straight on Paris and the Allied defenses giving way, under the appeal of Lloyd George we suddenly woke to the fact that we had been playing with the war. From that time on we acted as if we had a man's job, and we got into the line just in time to save the situation.

All through the fall and winter of last year what Mr. Roosevelt and the other outspoken critics were trying to do was to arouse the country and the Administration to the magnitude of the task and to the danger from delay. They succeeded only partly. But they did succeed to the extent of forcing the removal of incompetent departmental chiefs, and the substitution of efficient men who were able to handle the emergency when the Administration finally discovered that the emergency existed.

Looking back over the events of the last eighteen months, we believe no fair-minded American can fail to perceive the patriotic service done by Mr. Roosevelt and other critics, who were seeking to awaken the Government from a lethargy that just missed proving fatal to the Allied cause.

Colonel Roosevelt's last visit to his desk in the editorial rooms of The Star was early in October, 1918. It struck those who had been associated with him that he was not quite as fit as usual. I asked him if it were true the physicians had placed him on a diet. He said it was, but, to be frank, he had not given much heed to their recommendations. In a discussion at his desk with men of the editorial force