Repository: UIHistories Project: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 3 [PAGE 18]

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demands efficient organization to that end, 1 also calls for division 1 . | laboi betw n the o p n a i i n g agenciei. Viewed from this standpoint of effective division of labor, the kinds of war service which municipalities may from time to time consider undertaking will fall into three distinct categories. Fii t, there is work which the city al >nc hould undertake or which it can effectively do independently. Second, there air tasks which the city must do in conjunction with the county or state organizations. And third, there are things which the city >houkl not undertake at all but leave to the state or naThe war work which the city can most effectively do alone is that, of course, which relates to its own local problems or conditions, the assumption of its own unique responsibilities and obligations. By far the largest part of the service, however, which the municipality can render will fall in the second class of undertakings, in the doing of which it must work in effective cooperation with other agencies doing that task, or part of a task, in which it can best serve the great common end. Finally, there are a few sorts of municipal war work, entered upon with the best intentions and the highest motives which are rather generally admitted to be ill-advised. The Council of National Defense has urgently requested local defense organizations to postpone the adoption of any comprehensive plans for the permanent relief of soldiers or their dependents until the policy of the national government in regard to that matter shall have been worked out. The commandeering of supplies of food and coal and the fixing of prices should be done in accord with policies formulated to meet national or state rather than municipal conditions; and there have been some recent cases in which well-meaning mayors and sheriffs have found themselves within the grip of the federal law because of their unauthorized seizure of supplies intended by the national authorities for other places and purposes. Finally, one cannot too severely condemn the occasional acts of a few municipalities whose authorities in their misguided zeal sought to serve their country by taking the law into their own hands. The brand of patriotism which confiscates land or the use of land for war gardens without paying for it, compels a man to buy a liberty bond under threat of bodily harm or imprisonment, or in any other way violates the constitutional rights of the law-abiding citizen, even though his patriotic ardor be somewhat cooler than it ought to be, that brand 14