PETE S posted:Why engage in a capital and labor intense publicly financed project when the war was showing no early conclusion and several bloody battles had already been fought is a question also often just glossed over by history.
Glossed over? There simply wasn't much money or labor to be had--no mystery there. But SOME money *was* devoted to it--the figures elude my memory, but work actually began. Heck, some of the engineering predated the war.
The session/war made it not only politically possible but also industrially and economically possible. The industrial base grew to the necessary size/sophistication, the labor force became available, and the national will coalesced around a unifying, building project.
