on incomes in the lower ranges and rising to sixty-three per cent of that part of any income above $2,000,000.  A progressive tax was levied upon inheritances.  An excess profits tax was laid upon all corporations and partnerships, rising in amount to sixty per cent of the net income in excess of thirty-three per cent on the invested capital.  “This,” said a distinguished economist, “is the high-water mark in the history of taxation.  Never before in the annals of civilization has an attempt been made to take as much as two-thirds of a man’s income by taxation.”

=Mobilizing Material Resources.=—­No stone was left unturned to provide the arms, munitions, supplies, and transportation required in the gigantic undertaking.  Between the declaration of war and the armistice, Congress enacted law after law relative to food supplies, raw materials, railways, mines, ships, forests, and industrial enterprises.  No power over the lives and property of citizens, deemed necessary to the prosecution of the armed conflict, was withheld from the government.  The farmer’s wheat, the housewife’s sugar, coal at the mines, labor in the factories, ships at the wharves, trade with friendly countries, the railways, banks, stores, private fortunes—­all were mobilized and laid under whatever obligations the government deemed imperative.  Never was a nation more completely devoted to a single cause.

A law of August 10, 1917, gave the President power to fix the prices of wheat and coal and to take almost any steps necessary to prevent monopoly and excessive prices.  By a series of measures, enlarging the principles of the shipping act of 1916, ships and shipyards were brought under public control and the government was empowered to embark upon a great ship-building program.  In December, 1917, the government assumed for the period of the war the operation of the railways under a presidential proclamation which was elaborated in March, 1918, by act of Congress.  In the summer of 1918 the express, telephone, and telegraph business of the entire country passed under government control.  By war risk insurance acts allowances were made for the families of enlisted men, compensation for injuries was provided, death benefits were instituted, and a system of national insurance was established in the interest of the men in service.  Never before in the history of the country had the government taken such a wise and humane view of its obligations to those who served on the field of battle or on the seas.

=The Espionage and Sedition Acts.=—­By the Espionage law of June 15, 1917, and the amending law, known as the Sedition act, passed in May of the following year, the government was given a drastic power over the expression of opinion.  The first measure penalized those who conveyed information to a foreign country to be used to the injury of the United States; those who made false statements designed to interfere with the military or naval forces of the United States;