Repository: UIHistories Project: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 3 [PAGE 16]

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van bring itself into working relations with the forces of the state and nation will depend largely upon the way in which the state is organized tor war service. Practically every state in the Union has OTganiied a state council of defense to cooperate with the National Council of Defense. The relationship between the municipal defense councils and the state councils of defense is in general of two distinct types. First there arc states in which there is direct connection between the state council and that of the city, without the aid of any intermediate agency. Second, there are states in which the local unit for war work is the county, and the municipality is regarded as an administrative subdivision of the county. Turning first to those states in which the cities cooperate directly with the state councils of defense we find considerable variation as to the scheme of organization. In the first place there are states in which the state council has been made large enough to include among its members, either active or advisory, the mayors of all the important towns and cities. In these cases, the mayors serving on the state council have naturally been able to direct more wisely the activities in their own cities. In the second place the direct cooperation of municipalities with the state council has been asked and received even when the county or township was the regular local unit for war work. In Iowa and New York, at least, direct appeals for assistance have been made to the mayors of cities. In Louisiana and Iowa the president of the municipal league of the state is a member of the state council of defense and, though in neither case does he hold that office ex officio, an additional channel of communication is thus opened up between the state and municipality. In the third place, there is the quite unique type of organization of war service in New Jersey. In that state all war activities are placed under the control of the adjutant general's office with which is associated a committee of public safety, composed exclusively of the mayors of the state and working through a small executive committee. While many states have councils of defense in which the officers of important cities have places, this seems to be the only instance in which the state council is composed only of city officials and on which no other subdivisions, interests and organizations are given representation. Much more numerous, however, than these instances of direct 12