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130 C h a p t e r f o u r The War Industries Board, a Responsive Alliance Responsive alliances are created as a reaction to a particular crisis and are established not to resolve the cause of the crisis itself but to face a national challenge that has developed because of crisis. In the case of the World War I crisis, the War Industries Board (WIB) was established as a responsive cross-­ sector partnership to harness industry and the military together to ensure that the United States was mobilized for war and able to provide for its citizens and troops. The WIB lasted a very short time and was fully functional for less than one year, from March to November of 1918. This case study tracks the history of the organization to understand it as a public–­private alliance. The WIB was one of a number of emergency agencies created by President Woodrow Wilson’s administration during World War I. A great deal of writing explores Wilson’s actions and the politics of the period in terms of the tendency to “statism” during the period, as well as the degree to which the actions of the Wilson administration were in keeping with the principles of a democratic, capitalist society. Some authors even go so far as to describe Wilsonian statism as essentially fascist.1 While such discussions are beyond the scope of this particular work, they are worth noting. Because the WIB was such a short-­ lived agency, only a limited amount of work is published on this subject. Many of the more historical accounts are written by individuals who were intimately involved in the mobilization effort and, while hugely informative, are often laced with bias and personal agendas. The chairman of the WIB, Bernard Baruch, wrote extensively on the WIB in two books, one of which was published after he was asked to testify before Congress during the Nye Committee hearings of 1935 regarding the WIB and his conduct as chairman.2 While Baruch and the WIB were exonerated, and some even praised Baruch for his conduct, his account of the period is not objective . Perhaps the most famous historical WIB account, Industrial America in the World War: The Strategy behind the Line 1917–1918 by Grosvenor Clarkson, is an excellent reference but must also be handled with caution and has been The War Industries Board, a Responsive Alliance • 131 criticized as a “promotional tract to keep alive in peacetime the mobilization lessons of the first world war.” Critics said the work “publicized the organizational philosophies of WIB director Baruch, who had paid for the study and its publication.”3 Accordingly, this chapter relies most heavily on the work of academic and historian Robert D. Cuff, whose extensive research and writings about the organization offer the least biased, most critical and thorough resource on the WIB published to date. While numerous additional sources are employed in this case study, including journal articles as well as papers, congressional reports, and letters drawn from the US National Archives, Cuff ’s work is by far the most important. This chapter explores the WIB using the same seven critical factors used to assess disaster-­ oriented PPPs and the Fed. These seven factors—crisis, leadership, organizational structure, information sharing, shared benefits, trust, and institutional adaptability or sustainability—have been identified as crucial to the development and success of disaster-­ oriented PPPs. The WIB is explored in these terms to determine the degree to which these factors are relevant to a responsive cross-­ sector partnership in order to assess whether any relevant parallels emerge that make these historic partnerships relevant to disaster-­oriented PPPs. The Crisis of Wa r The twists and turns of American prewar diplomacy came to an end on April 2, 1917. On that day Woodrow Wilson asked a hushed Congress for a declaration of war. . . . The challenges that now confronted the Wilson administration were enormous. Manpower, shipping, credit, trade, munitions—a whole range of problems came crashing in on an administrative structure ill-­equipped to meet them. . . . An emergency crisis was upon the United States, but the obstacles to a systematic response remained. Robert D. Cuff, War Industries Board Crisis in the WIB was crucial to achieve the backing of public and private leaders and to convince the nation that a cross-­ sector alliance was necessary. Although the WIB was established as a result of World War I, to fully understand the important role that crisis played in the...

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