Chapter V: Part 5

The production of Liberty motors to date is, of course, gravely
disappointing. The Government officials having the manufacture
of the Liberty motor in charge have made the mistake of leading
the public and the allied nations to the belief that many
thousands of these motors would be completed in the Spring of
1918.

The production of combat planes in the United States for use in
actual warfare has thus far been a substantial failure and
constitutes a most serious disappointment in our war
preparations. We had no design of our own; neither did we adopt
any one of the European designs until months after we entered
the war. In all, five types, at one time or another, have been
adopted. Two of them have been abandoned after the expenditure
of much time and money. The three remaining types still left
upon our program are now in the course of manufacture. Of these
the largest and most powerful is the Handley-Page heavy bombing
machine, designed to carry as many as six men, eight machine
guns, and a heavy load of bombs, and to be driven by two Liberty
motors. The testimony before your committee shows that the
Signal Corps finally decided upon the manufacture of a number of
sets of parts of this machine about Jan. 1, 1918. Officials of
the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps testify that they do
not expect the completion of the first set of parts in this
country before June, 1918.

Another type of combat plane, known as the De Haviland, is
included in our program. This machine habitually carries two
men, four machine guns, a moderate load of bombs and other
apparatus and is driven by one Liberty motor. Fifteen have been
completed; one has been shipped to France; the remaining
fourteen have been very recently completed in this country.

The third type upon the program is known as the Bristol fighter.
This machine is lighter and faster than the De Haviland. Its
speed is expected to be in the neighborhood of 125 miles per
hour. It is what is known as a reconnoissance machine. Another
term which might be properly applied to it is "defensive
fighter." It carries two men, four machine guns, and is driven
by one Liberty motor. The decision to make this type was reached
on Nov. 7, 1917. The manufacturers completed the first of these
machines during the week ended March 30, 1918. The machine was
tested once during that week with a Liberty motor, and,
according to the testimony of the aviation officials, met its
preliminary test successfully. This machine, a few hours after
its flight, caught fire while standing upon the aviation ground
and was entirely destroyed. The officials of the Signal Corps
assured the committee that another machine would soon be
finished by the manufacturer, and that if it met the tests
satisfactorily quantity production might be expected within a
reasonable period.

In addition to the American production of engines and airplanes
as herein set forth, considerable orders for combat airplanes
and engines were last Summer placed with European manufacturers
by General Pershing, and we have furnished quantities of
material and numbers of mechanics to aid in their construction.

Your committee is convinced that much of the delay in producing
completed combat airplanes is due to ignorance of the art and to
failure to organize the effort in such a way as to centralize
authority and bring about quick decision.

Further light is thrown on the production of aircraft for the American Army by the minority report. One passage reads:

Soon after the war began the Signal Corps arranged with the
French Government for the making of 6,100 combat planes at a
total cost of $127,000,000, the planes to be produced as rapidly
as American fliers could be trained to operate them. As the
American aero squadrons reach the front ready for duty, battle
planes are being supplied them under this arrangement. To aid in
this foreign manufacture of planes for American fliers, the
Signal Corps has shipped to France 11,000 tons of various
materials and has sent 7,000 mechanics to release, for French
factories making planes for our American fliers, the French
workers on motor transports. The Signal Corps then arranged for
the making of about 11,500 combat planes in the United States,
the term combat plane being here used to embrace all kinds of
planes, both offensive and defensive, except training planes.

Let it be said here that when the war began the United States
Government had purchased altogether less than 200 airplanes in
its entire history, and that of the few airplane factories in
this country probably not one was making over five or six a
month. It is hardly possible to grasp the magnitude of the task
the factories contracting to make the 11,500 combat planes found
before them.

America's First Year of War

An Anniversary Summary

April 6, 1918, marked the first anniversary of the participation of the United States in the European War. The period was primarily one of preparation. If America did little actual fighting in the first year, it nevertheless achieved a great deal both in strengthening the cause of the Allies and in getting ready to play its own part on the battlefields of Europe. The increase in the war strength of the army is shown in the following figures:

APRIL, 1917
Officers. Men.
Regulars 5,791 121,797
National Guard 3,733 76,713
Reserve Corps 4,000
National Army
----- -------
Total 9,524 202,510

APRIL, 1918
Officers. Men.
Regulars 10,698 503,142
National Guard 16,893 431,583
Reserve Corps 96,210 77,360
National Army 516,839
------- ---------
Total 123,801 1,528,924

Of these 1,652,725 officers and men, several hundred thousand were already in Europe in April, either in training camps or on the battle front. "Over 100,000" was the figure given by General Pershing when he announced the number of adequately trained, fully equipped American troops that were immediately available for use in the battle of Picardy. The War Department had announced its expectation of having 1,500,000 American soldiers in the war zone before the end of 1918. The progress of training in the camps in the United States was unexpectedly rapid, and at the close of the first twelve months our troops were going across the Atlantic as fast as transportation could be provided.

General Pershing and his staff arrived in France on June 15, 1917, and less than a month later the first division of American troops followed him. Exactly 187 days after the United States declared war the first American soldiers were in the trenches. The first contingents were ordered abroad well in advance of the time intended, or expected, when war was declared.

LABORS IN FRANCE

The preliminary labors in France necessitated by the presence of an ever-increasing army were both diverse and herculean. Docks had to be constructed, railways built and equipped and cantonments, hospitals, and a base constructed. American engineers went into the French forests and there did the work of the pioneers of the American Northwest, cutting down trees to build the permanent camps which were to replace the temporary cities. They built a railroad 600 miles long from the points of disembarkation to the operating base. The rolling stock it carried was all shipped across the ocean from the United States.

All this was accomplished with great rapidity. An army locomotive, for example, was built in twenty-one days and shipped to the expeditionary forces. In a few weeks after the first departures there were urgent calls for other locomotives, for cars, trucks, logging trains, sectional buildings to be assembled on arrival. All these took many ships and appreciably delayed the transport of men. There was sent everything from fabricated ironwork for buildings and trestles to nails and crossties for the railroads. Among the items of construction is an ordnance base costing $25,000,000. Most of this preliminary work was approaching completion as the first year ended. Much of it is finished.

American troops occupy trench sectors of their own in the line northwest of Toul, and in the neighborhood of Verdun. They have taken up positions also in other sectors, and the main body is operating with the Allies in opposing the German advance. Casualties in the first year of war reached a total of 2,368, distributed as follows:

Killed in battle 163
Died of disease or accident 957
Lost at sea 237
Died of wounds 52
Other causes 47
Missing and prisoners 63
Wounded 829
-----
Total 2,368

RAISING THE NEW ARMIES

Most remarkable in the preparations for the struggle was the method of raising the new armies, namely, conscription. With comparatively little opposition the selective draft law was passed by Congress barely five weeks after the declaration of war, and three weeks later 9,600,000 young men were registered for military service. By June 30 the 4,000 local draft boards were ready to begin the task of examination and exemption. Sixteen cantonments, small cities in themselves, were already under construction in various parts of the country for the reception of the drafted men. Ninety days after this work began the initial groups of the first national army were on their way to these camps. In a steady stream since then the men have been called up, organized into military formations, and put under intensive training.

The first half million are now ready and are being sent across the ocean, to complete their training within the war zone and take their place on the battle front. As fast as the camps are emptied new men are being summoned to refill them, new battalions formed, and new forces sent forward. Another 800,000 unmarried men without direct dependents are under notice to report for duty.

The cost of raising the army under the selective draft law has been only 54 cents per registrant, $1.69 per man called up, and $4.93 per man accepted for service.

With the national army there have also been made available the 450,000 men of the National Guard, who meantime have been mustered into the Federal service and trained under their own officers. Of these three divisions, the Rainbow, (so called because almost every State in the Union is represented in its composition,) the New England, and the Sunset (Far Western) Divisions have already gone abroad, and the first two have won honorable mention in the battle zone.

TRAINING NEW OFFICERS

The National Guard had its own officers. There was none, however, to spare for the national army. The regular military establishment could provide only a handful. Two classes at West Point were graduated in advance of the usual time, but they were not enough to affect the situation. The new army was, therefore, provided with carefully selected, specially trained officers, chosen by merit rather than on the old system of political appointments, by the general adoption of the Plattsburg training camp system, initiated in 1915. When war was declared there were already in the United States some 20,000 graduates of the Plattsburg, Fort Oglethorpe, and other training camps, who had undergone at least one month's intensive military training, supplemented by military studies when out of camp.

The Plattsburg organization was taken over by the War Department, and a series of sixteen training camps for officers, in which most of the earlier Plattsburg graduates were commissioned as subaltern and company officers, was opened at advantageous points, and continued until the middle of August, 1917. Of 40,203 candidates enrolled in these camps 27,341 qualified for commissions. Sufficient officers were thus at the cantonments to receive and command the national army when the men arrived. A second series of officers' training camps was begun in August, to add to the line and staff. Approximately 23,000 candidates attended, of whom 17,237 obtained commissions. Many who failed have since been enlisted and appointed noncommissioned officers in the national army. A third series was instituted in January, 1918, to create an officers' reserve force. Only enlisted men were admitted, except for a limited number of students who had received military training in schools under army officers during the last ten years. About 18,000 are in attendance, and the problem of officering the new armies has practically been solved.

PROVIDING THE GUNS

When war was declared, the Army Ordnance Department had ninety-seven officers. It now has 5,000 in America and abroad, and in the first year of the war had spent $4,756,500,000. To its peace-time task of administering eleven small Government arsenals has been added the problem of getting quick production of shells of all calibres, rifles, ammunition, grenades, and bombs from some 1,400 private manufacturing establishments. It has acquired a total of 2,475,219 square feet of storage space, has 2,701,880 square feet more under construction, and requires 23,000,000 square feet altogether to store its supplies. It has miles of railroad sidings, all inclosed, including 50 miles of track especially built, and it handles 10,000 carloads of explosives a month, with the total steadily increasing. The complexity of the Ordnance Department's task may be seen in the fact that the number of items made and supplied to the troops totals about 100,000, ranging from the small firing pin of a rifle to a complete 16-inch gun and emplacement, or a motor truck or tractor. Reserves of all these spare parts must be maintained and ready for distribution.

The Ordnance Department has had to create organizations, build new plants, finance them and to design as well as to manufacture not only the weapons themselves, but thousands of tools, gauges, and jigs required for their manufacture. For instance, the French Government offered the secret of the recoil mechanism in the carriages of its famous .75 guns. To manufacture these it was necessary to machine steel castings so accurately that they will not be off two-thousandths of an inch in a distance of more than six feet.

BUILDING NEW PLANTS

Never had machinery been built in the United States to work on so large a scale with such a degree of accuracy. The Ordnance Department had to persuade manufacturers to undertake this difficult work, to assist them financially to build a thirteen-acre plant, to purchase and manufacture $6,000,000 worth of special tools, and develop an organization to do this. The contract was signed on Nov. 1, 1917, and today the plant is completed and is turning out the recoil mechanisms.

The Nitrate Division has under construction two plants for the manufacture of powder, costing $45,000,000 each.

The Ordnance Department itself has provided for the army 1,400,000 rifles, has brought the production of them up to 45,000 a week, or enough to equip three army divisions; has secured deliveries on 17,000 machine guns and brought the rate of production of them from 20,000 to 225,000 a year. It has increased the rate of production of field guns, heavy and light, from 1,500 to 15,000 a year, and is manufacturing 35,000 motor trucks and tractors to haul them and their ammunition. It has remodeled the British Enfield rifle so that it can be produced in quantities to take American ammunition and adopted two new types of machine guns, the Browning, heavy and light.

The United States entered the war resolved to win supremacy in the air. Congress adopted an appropriation of $640,000,000, in addition to $15,000,000 already granted, to provide the best airplane service possible. The best motor engineers in the country combined their talents to provide a motor, and the result of their efforts was the Liberty motor, asserted to be superior to anything used by any army air corps. Delivery of the new motors in quantity has been delayed by various causes. But the initial difficulties have been solved and quantity production of battle planes, as well as of training planes, is expected during the Summer of 1918. While there are more than seventy different types of airplane motors on the western allied front, the United States is relying on a single standardized type, greatly reducing the ratio of forty-seven men required on the ground by foreign service for every man in the air.

Colossal work has been done by the Quartermaster Corps, which supplies almost everything that a soldier needs, except ammunition; which transports those supplies as well as the soldier, feeds him, clothes him, and provides him with shelter. The war found the Quartermaster General's office without funds, Congress having adjourned without voting the Army Appropriation bill. But it tided over the interval until money was forthcoming. It has since spent $2,789,684,778, has clothed the draft armies and fed them, supplied the oversea forces with the million things they need, and there are at present few complaints of its work. The details are seen in columns of figures all running into millions.

In this first year the Quartermaster Corps has spent $60,000,000 for horse-drawn vehicles and harness, more than $50,000,000 for horses, mules, and harness, and now estimates it will need for fuel and forage alone more than half a billion dollars.

ARMY MEDICAL CORPS

In preparation for large numbers of wounded and invalided men, the Medical Corps of the army has enlisted doctors and nurses by the thousand. In addition to the work being done for the Red Cross, which is a separate institution, the Army Medical Corps has enlarged its personnel from 8,000 to 106,000, including orderlies, stretcher bearers, and ambulance drivers. Its 900 doctors before the war are now increased to 18,000. It had 375 army nurses a year ago; now it has 7,000. It had no ambulance service; now it has 6,000 drivers in training. Reconstruction institutions are being provided in the United States on a more comprehensive scale than any other nation at war has attempted. Already a few wounded soldiers are being reconstructed at Medical Corps hospitals so as to be able to support themselves now that they are blind or crippled. Professional men, nurses, and attendants from our most noted civil reconstruction hospitals have been added to the personnel of the Medical Corps for this work.

The hundreds of thousands of men taken from civil life into the army are now showing a death rate from disease below that of men of military age in civil life.

WORK OF THE NAVY

The navy was ready and began to take part in the war even before the formal declaration, for as early as March 12, 1917, in response to the President's order, it began arming American merchantmen and fighting their battles. Meantime, the navy gathered in recruits and set about building ships and getting in supplies ready for the more important work which followed when the nation was actually at war. At present there are 150 warships, including battleships, with 35,000 personnel, in the war zone.

In a year the navy has more than trebled its personnel. As a beginning it called up its own reserves and also the National Naval Volunteers and the Coast Guard. The following figures show the increased personnel:

APRIL, 1917
Officers. Men.
Regular Navy 4,366 64,680
*Naval Reserves ---- 10,000
Naval Volunteers ---- 10,069
*Coast Guard ---- 4,500
Marine Corps 426 13,266
Total 4,792 102,515

APRIL, 1918
Officers. Men.
Regular Navy 7,798 192,385
*Naval Reserves 10,033 79,069
Naval Volunteers 805 15,000
*Coast Guard 639 4,250
Marine Corps 1,389 38,629
Total 20,664 329,333

*Approximately.

On May 4, twenty-eight days after the declaration of war, United States destroyers arrived at a British port to assist in patrolling European waters, and on the following day Admiral Sims attended an allied war conference at Paris. The first of the regular armed forces of the United States to land in France were units of the naval aeronautic corps. They arrived on June 8. The first contingent of the army transported and convoyed by the navy was landed safely at a French port early in July. Night and day since then American warships have convoyed transports and supplies across the Atlantic and brought the ships safely back. Only one empty transport in its care has succumbed to an enemy attack, and only two naval vessels have been sunk by enemy U-boats--the destroyer Jacob Jones, torpedoed Dec. 6, and the patrol vessel Alcedo, a converted yacht, sunk Nov. 5, 1917. The small destroyer Chauncey was sunk in collision with a British transport. The Cassin was torpedoed, but reached port under her own steam, was repaired, and returned to service. Casualties in the navy have been 144 killed or died and 10 wounded; total, 154.

NAVAL AUXILIARIES

At first there was a shortage of the small vessels required for minor naval duties. Some 800 craft of various kinds have been taken over and converted into the types needed, thus providing the large number of vessels required for transports, patrol service, submarine chasers, mine sweepers, mine layers, tugs, and other auxiliaries. Hundreds of submarine chasers have been built besides the new destroyers put into service. There are now four times as many vessels in the naval service as there were a year ago. The destroyer fleet now building in record time is at least as large a fleet of this type of craft as England is believed to have.

The United States battle fleet has grown to twice the size of the peace-time fleet. As schools in gunnery and engineering they are training thousands of gunners and engineers required for the hundreds of vessels added to the navy and the many merchantmen furnished with arms and gun crews. Target practice in past years had been devoted mainly to practice with the big guns. Special attention during the past year has been devoted to the guns of smaller calibre, effective against submarines.

When war was declared there were under construction, or about to be started, 123 new naval vessels:

Battleships 15
Battle cruisers 6
Scout cruisers 7
Destroyers 27
Submarines 61
Fuel ships 2
Supply ship 1
Transport 1
Gunboat 1
Hospital ship 1
Ammunition ship 1

Most of these have now been completed and the few remaining are well under way. Meantime contracts have been placed for 949 new vessels, including submarine chasers designed here which have done good service. Altogether there have been added to the navy since April 6, 1917, vessels to the number of 1,275, aggregating 1,055,116 tons.

When the Government seized the 109 German-owned ships lying in American ports, the German engineers believed that their vessels had been damaged beyond repair for a year at least. Within six months the ships were in running order and have since carried numbers of American troops and huge quantities of supplies to the fighting lines in France. The damage was repaired by navy artificers and engineers under the jurisdiction of naval officers.

BUILDING NEW SHIPS

The vital question of shipping was assigned early in the year to the United States Shipping Board, now headed by E. N. Hurley, while the Emergency Fleet Corporation, since made subordinate to the board, was intrusted with the execution of the building program. Congress appropriated $1,135,000,000 for this purpose, and on March 1, 1918, $353,247,000 of this sum had been spent. Friction and consequent delay, however, at the outset caused vital changes in the composition of the Shipping Board. General Goethals, manager of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, resigned after a controversy with Mr. Denman, the first Chairman of the Shipping Board, over the comparative merits of wooden and steel ships. There have been other causes--labor troubles, lack of material, and of building facilities, of which America had few.

Meantime the seized German ships, with an aggregate of more than 700,000 tons dead weight to manage, have been put in service, vessels under construction in private shipyards have been commandeered and completed, and at least three new ships planned and constructed by the Shipping Board have been finished and are now at sea. The seizure of 150,000 tons of Dutch shipping in American ports has further added to the Government's immediate resources, while an agreement with Japan has made another 200,000 tons of shipping available.

America's shipping industry had run down, until in the year before war was declared the total output of shipyards in the United States was only 250,000 tons. The Shipping Board drew up a program to construct 8,164,508 tons of steel ships, 1,145 ships in all, and 490 wooden ships, with a total tonnage of 1,715,000. Only a small part of this enormous total could be constructed in the first year of the war with the shipyard facilities available, and it has been necessary to build new shipyards on an enormous scale. Volunteer shipworkers have been enlisted from all quarters, and in April, 1918, work was proceeding at 150 shipyards in various parts of the country.

The following figures show the actual number of ships put into the water since the Shipping Board took control of the situation:

Steel ships requisitioned on ways, completed
by Emergency Fleet Corporation
and now in service 85

Steel ships requisitioned on ways, turned
back to former owners and now
completed and in service 15

Steel ships requisitioned on ways, hulls
of which have been launched 65

Steel ships contracted for by Emergency
Fleet Corporation which have
been completed and put into service 3

Steel ships contracted for by Emergency
Fleet Corporation, hulls of
which have been launched 9

Wooden ships contracted for by Emergency
Fleet Corporation, hulls of
which have been launched 11
---
Total 188

Steel ships requisitioned which are now
actually in service 100

Steel ships contracted for by Emergency
Fleet Corporation now actually
in service 3
---
Total 103

By April, 1918, the Government has been able to put 2,762,605 tons of shipping into the transatlantic service to carry men and munitions to France.

FINANCING THE WAR

The United States has been a great financial factor since entering the war. The Government lent to the Allies on the security of their bonds $4,436,329,750. For America's own expenses Congress has already authorized $2,034,000,000, of which one item alone, merchant shipping, accounted for more than $1,000,000,000. The total expenses in the first year were more than $9,800,000,000, but about $800,000,000 of this went for normal activities not connected with the war, so that its total cost has been about $9,000,000,000, of which more than $4,000,000,000 has been in loans to the Allies. Expenditures for aircraft alone have amounted to more than $600,000,000. Naval appropriations, made and pending, are more than $3,000,000,000; the War Department has taken $7,464,771,756. The army's annual payroll now exceeds $500,000,000 and the navy's $125,000,000, and these items are trifling compared with the cost of ships, ordnance, munitions, airplanes, motor trucks, and supplies of every kind, to say nothing of food. Allotments and allowances to soldiers' and sailors' dependents paid by the Government in the month of February alone amounted to $19,976,543.

Bonds, certificates of indebtedness, War Savings Certificates, and Thrift Stamps issued by the Treasury up to March 12 totaled $8,560,802,052.96. To meet expenses the Government has successfully floated two Liberty Loans with total subscriptions of $6,616,532,300, and on April 6, 1918, the first anniversary of America's entrance into the war, a third loan campaign for $3,000,000,000 was begun.

TAXES AND PRICES

The income tax has been greatly increased and the exemption limit lowered. New taxes have been imposed on corporate and individual profits, all profits arising out of the war have been penalized, and the old levies greatly increased. War taxes, customs duties, and internal revenue collections have brought in nearly $1,500,000,000. While the greater part of the war income and excess profits taxes are not due until June, the Treasury had collected in internal revenue taxes a total of $566,267,000 to March 12, 1918, and had sold $1,255,000,000 in certificates of indebtedness, which are receivable in payment of internal revenue taxes.

The Government has taken possession of and is operating all enemy-owned enterprises. At the same time, through a Federal Farm Loan Bureau, assistance is being given to farmers at reasonable rates of interest in providing the means for raising crops, needed in greater abundance than ever to feed the army and navy and civilian population and the peoples of the allied countries.

One of the first acts of the Administration after the declaration of war was aimed at putting a curb on the rising prices of the necessities of life. Herbert C. Hoover was appointed National Food Administrator, and after long delay his appointment was confirmed by the Senate. It was criticised, but Mr. Hoover has succeeded not only in bringing down the price of such necessaries as wheat, flour, sugar, coffee, meat, and lard, but by various devices and appeals to public sentiment has brought about a voluntary reduction of consumption and a consequent great increase in the amounts of food which America has been able to send abroad.

FOOD PROBLEMS

When the present Food Administration was created in August, 1917, the 1917 crop, in so far as productiveness was concerned, had already been planted and partly harvested. The available foodstuffs it produced were not sufficient, on the basis of normal consumption, to feed the people dependent on it, and the question of conservation became paramount. So far, "wheatless days," "meatless days," and appeals for food conservation have tided the nation over a dangerous period. The fixing of prices under a Presidential proclamation has greatly aided, speculation in wheat has been wholly eliminated, and the prices of flour and bread have been stabilized at a reasonable level.

Hand in hand with food conservation has gone the gradual control of industry of all kinds in order to concentrate the nation's resources for the purposes of war. The prices of metals necessary to war industries have been brought down by negotiation. Coal and fuel oil are controlled by Government agents, and it is not believed that the suffering caused by the fuel scarcity during the Winter of 1917-18 can be repeated.

The Government has taken over control of the railways and a number of coastwise steamship lines. It now operates 260,000 miles of railway, employing 1,000,600 men, and representing investments of $17,500,000,000.

The War Trade Board, created for the purpose of cutting off supplies to Germany through the adjacent neutrals, has developed into a powerful economic weapon in the execution of the nation's war policy.

Five Million Soldiers' Garments Made by American Women

A recent bulletin of the American Red Cross contains a report showing that up to Feb. 1, 1918, this organization had supplied 3,431,067 sweaters, mufflers, wristlets, helmets, and socks to the soldiers and sailors of the United States. Of this total 1,189,469 articles were delivered to the fighting services in January of this year. Though official figures were not available for later months, it was estimated that the total to the end of March was in excess of 5,000,000 garments, all knit by American women for the Red Cross. The same bulletin reported the distribution of 5,000,000 francs contributed by Americans for the relief of those French soldier families which have suffered most from the war.

War Department's Improved System

Summary by Benedict Crowell

_Assistant Secretary of War_

_A year of war has changed the United States War Department from
a military group to a closely organized business concern. The
vast difference between its methods at the time of our entry
into the war and at the beginning of our second year of
hostilities is summarized in the appended statement and chart,
which were given to THE NEW YORK TIMES by Benedict Crowell, the
Assistant Secretary of War, in March, 1918. Mr. Crowell is one
of the business experts called into the department last Autumn
to reorganize it. In describing the changes made he said:_

A year ago there were eleven officers, all strictly military men, and about 1,000 privates in the aircraft work. Now in that branch of the war business we have thousands of officers and 100,000 men. But 96 per cent. of those officers are trained business men and engineers from big civil enterprises. Most of them are in military uniform, but that is merely a matter of form that does not go to the substance of the business.

The great military work of America, the work of the soldiers, is being done in France. In this country we have settled down to the purely business undertaking of producing men and material out of which to form the armies.

This chart (here reproduced) shows the latest readjustment of General Staff functions and activities. A very significant change from what used to be is indicated in that line of rectangles under the Chief of Staff, each one representing an Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of a major division of the war work. These divisions, indicated on the chart by the words "storage and traffic," "purchases and supplies," &c., used to be committees, in which every vital question had to be settled by a vote, with lesser officers having as much power in the matter as their chiefs. Now the Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of one of those divisions, which is no longer a committee, has power to act on his own initiative. His subordinates in the division are his expert advisers on the various problems which he must decide, thus eliminating criticisms in the earlier period of the war that too much time was lost in getting decisions.

One of the modifications that may be made in this chart of the General Staff in the near future will have to do with that division now in charge of General Pierce, the Assistant Chief of Staff, who is director of purchases and supplies and has authority over manufacturing priorities, purchases, and production based on estimates and requirements. That division, which now leads direct into the office of the Chief of Staff, may later on be short-circuited around the Chief of Staff direct to the office of a new Assistant Secretary of War in so far as its problems have to do with purchases or industrial facilities.

A bill creating two additional Secretaries of War has been passed by Congress. One of these assistants will have to do with social and welfare activities for the benefit of the troops. The other will deal exclusively with purchases and supplies, and the division of the General Staff now under General Pierce will be made a part of it.

The direct lines of connection on this chart are as interesting and as promising as anything else about it. They indicate smooth-working co-ordination and perfected team work. For example, the line of liaison from the division of purchases and supplies is to all supply bureaus and purchasing agencies of the army, to the War Industries Board, and all related Government agencies.

Further co-operation of the War Department, reorganized on a business basis, with those organizations vital to the movement of all equipment to troops here and abroad, is shown by the liaison line from the Director of Storage and Traffic. That line connects the storage and traffic business of the War Department directly with the Shipping Board, the Director General of Railways, and the Quartermaster General.

Major Gen. Goethals is the Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of storage and traffic, and, as such, has full control over all priority of both storage and traffic at and to inland, embarkation, and overseas points. General Goethals is also still acting as Quartermaster General, a place now not so vital under the reorganization as his office of Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of storage and traffic.

The War Council was created because it was necessary to have a group of experts in the War Department who would have time to study. Up to the time of its organization there had been little time to think about big problems and do nothing else. Everybody was rushed with some form of executive or administrative work.

This council is in session every day and is one of the most effective war agencies that the Government has. There is no man on it who does not bring to its deliberations and conclusions some vital contribution to the welfare of the country and the army. It consists of the Secretary of War, the Assistant Secretary of War, General March, Acting Chief of the General Staff; General Crowder, Judge Advocate General and Provost Marshal General of the Army, one of the nation's great lawyers, who is devoting his life to the military welfare of his country; Generals Crozier, Sharpe, Weaver, and Pierce, and Charles Day, an able engineer drafted from the Shipping Board to render expert counsel to the War Department as a member of its War Council.

The Surgeon General's Great Organization

By Caswell A. Mayo

[This account of the first year's work of the United States War
Department in mobilizing the medical talent of the nation was
prepared in March, 1918, for THE NEW YORK TIMES, publishers of
CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE]

In April, 1917, the executive offices of the Surgeon General of the United States Army occupied four rooms in the great War, State and Navy Building at Washington, and the functions of the office were performed by six officers and twenty clerks. Now there are attached to the Surgeon General's office 165 officers, who employ 545 clerks, and the staff fills five entire buildings and parts of other buildings, exclusive of the Surgeon General's library, the Army Medical Museum, and the Army Medical School. Within a day 6,000 telegrams and 5,000 other communications have been received, replied to, and filed. The latest and most approved systems of filing records and correspondence have been installed under expert supervision, for the Surgeon General has called to his aid specialists in other fields as well as in the field of medicine. He has called chemists and statisticians, bankers and efficiency engineers, sanitarians and electrical experts, architects and engineers, and assigned them to duty in his office.

The Surgeon General himself, Major Gen. W. C. Gorgas, was appointed to the office in recognition of the invaluable services rendered by him as Chief Sanitary Officer of the Panama Canal Zone. The story of his work there in protecting the laborers in the Panama Canal from infectious diseases is one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of American medicine. Without that work the efforts of Goethals would have been as fruitless and as costly in lives and money as those of De Lesseps. The Surgeon General's still greater task now is to provide against every emergency which may affect the health and lives of millions of men taken from the fields, the farms, the factories, and the counting houses of the country, gathered into camps for organization and sent across 3,000 miles of ocean. He must know how many men will be taken sick, and where. He must know how many men will be wounded, and where, and he must have at those points adequate provision of expert surgeons and enlisted men, of medical and of surgical supplies, of food and of clothing, of housing and of transportation, so that at no time will any American soldier be sick without succor, or lie wounded without aid.

In carrying out this gigantic task the Surgeon General has mobilized the medical forces of the country, calling into his office the leaders in every specialty of medicine and of surgery. At their desks as early as 7 o'clock in the morning will be found medical specialists whose professional incomes are written in five and six figures, but who have abandoned these incomes for the modest pay of a Major, who have given up their luxurious homes for a Washington boarding house, and who, instead of enjoying a well-earned leisure, toil ceaselessly from early morning until late at night in their efforts to co-ordinate most effectively the work of the doctors in the war. It is for the purpose of doing justice to the attainments of these men that General Gorgas is advocating scores of new commissions of high rank in the national army.

Every morning at 7:30 the Surgeon General's truck delivers his mail at the Mills Building, at Seventeenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, in which are situated the central executive offices. The mail is distributed and on the desks of the officers for final disposition not later than 9:15. Within twelve working hours practically every communication received will have been acted upon and returned to permanent files. Here, as in every other phase of the work, a specialist has been employed, Captain J. L. Gooch having been called from his position as subscription manager for the Butterick Company to organize the office routine. The most approved mechanical devices, including statistical machines, have been installed under Captain Gooch's direction.

A complete medical history is kept of every soldier and of every officer from the time he enters the service until he retires, resigns, or dies. A special fireproof building is now being erected which will be devoted exclusively to the care of these records, the preservation of which may be a matter of vital importance fifty years hence.

Attached to the Surgeon General's office are three representatives of the Royal Army Medical Corps of Great Britain--Colonel T. H. Goodwin, C. M. G., D. S. O.; Captain John Gilmour of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and Lieut. Col. J. J. Aitken of the Royal Veterinary Corps--and two representatives of the French Army Medical Service--Colonel C. U. Dercle and Major Edouard Rist. These four surgeons act as liaison officers, keeping the Medical Department of the United States Army in touch with the medical services of Great Britain and France. They have made many informing addresses to medical societies all over the United States and have given lectures at the Army Medical School.

The immediate staff of the Surgeon General comprises his personal aid, Major M. C. Furbush, M. R. C., of Philadelphia; Colonel George E. Bushnell, M. C., (Medical Corps of the regular army;) Colonel Deane C. Howard, M. C., and Lieut. Col. James V. Van Dusen, M. C. Colonel Bushnell, besides being chief assistant to the Surgeon General, has devoted his special attention to the field in which he has won a unique reputation, that of the treatment of tuberculosis.

General Gorgas has enlisted the co-operation of the leading surgeons of the United States as members of the "Rotary Surgical Staff." Among those Medical Reserve Corps officers who have already served for a period at the Surgeon General's office and who are still subject to call from time to time as occasion requires are Major William J. Mayo, former President, and his brother, Major Charles H. Mayo, now President of the American Medical Association.

The work of the Surgeon General's office is divided up among seventeen general main divisions. The work of each division is practically independent of the others, though the work of all is co-ordinated. At the head of each of these divisions is an expert in that particular field, usually a medical officer of the regular army, who has around him a group of expert associates, many of whom are drawn from civil life.

On April 1, 1917, there were 700 medical officers and about 10,000 enlisted men in the Medical Department of the United States Army. There are now more than 17,000 medical officers in active service and about 150,000 enlisted men in the Medical Department.

War Work of the American Red Cross

Summary of a Year's Activities

[Data Furnished by Red Cross Headquarters, Washington, D. C.]

President Wilson, as President of the American Red Cross, on May 10, 1917, appointed a War Council of seven members to direct the work of the organization in the extraordinary emergency created by the entrance of the United States into the war. The original appointees were Henry P. Davison, Chairman, of J. P. Morgan & Co., New York; Charles D. Norton, Vice President First National Bank, New York; Major Grayson M. P. Murphy, Vice President Guaranty Company, New York; Cornelius N. Bliss, Jr., of Bliss, Fabyan & Co., New York, and Edward N. Hurley, Chicago.

Mr. Hurley resigned from the War Council when he was appointed Chairman of the Shipping Board, and was succeeded by John D. Ryan, President of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Major Murphy, after organizing the Red Cross work in Europe, resigned to re-enter the United States Army, and was succeeded on the council by Harvey D. Gibson, President of the Liberty National Bank of New York, who has been the General Manager of the Red Cross since it began its war activities. Mr. Norton resigned in the Spring of 1918, and was succeeded by George B. Case of the law firm of White and Case, New York, who previously had been legal adviser to the War Council.

The first war fund campaign took place the week of June 18, 1917, which was designated "Red Cross Week" by a proclamation of President Wilson. The Finance Committee, which had charge of the campaign, was headed by Cleveland H. Dodge of New York; Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo was the fund Treasurer. One hundred million dollars was the mark set, and the week's contributions ran slightly above that figure.

At the establishment of the Red Cross organization on a war basis its membership was approximately 500,000. Six months later there were, in round numbers, 5,000,000 members, and the number of chapters had increased from 562 to 3,287. The "Christmas Membership Drive," during the week ended with Christmas Eve, 1917, swelled the membership rolls to more than 23,000,000.

In the period between the birthday anniversaries of Lincoln and Washington--Feb. 12-22, 1918--the school children of the country were brought into the Junior Red Cross organization.

Immediately following the war organization and the raising of the first war fund commissions were sent to the various countries in Europe where war was in progress. Major Grayson M. P. Murphy was appointed General Commissioner for Europe and assumed direct charge of the commission to France, where the greater burden of American Red Cross work has fallen. The commission to France reached Paris during June. Eighteen men constituted the original working force. From this nucleus there developed before the end of the year an organization that operated all the way from Sicily up the whole western front and into Great Britain.

MILLIONS FOR FRENCH RELIEF

Appropriations from the Red Cross war fund to March 1, 1918, including those to cover budgets to April 30, totaled $77,721,918.22. Of this amount sums aggregating $30,936,103.04 were for relief work in France. A chain of warehouses has been established behind the lines all the way across France, from the coast to Switzerland. The greatest motor transport organization there is in the world, outside of those actually operated by the armies, also has been developed. The workers actually engaged in the organization in France number more than 3,000, a large percentage of them being volunteers who are serving without financial compensation, and most of them paying their own expenses as well.

Relief work in France is divided between a Department of Military Affairs and a Department of Civil Affairs. The former department, in addition to maintaining a hospital supply service that provides for 3,800 hospitals, a surgical dressings service that turns out and distributes hundreds of thousands of dressings every week, and three American Red Cross military hospitals, has concentrated a large amount of attention on canteen work, in the interest of both the American and French Armies.

Twelve canteens at the front have been in operation for the French Army, and recently the same service was installed to supply coffee and refreshments to American soldiers in the trenches. It is likely that the twelve canteens will be increased to forty. The record of the front line canteens for a five month period was 700,000 soldiers served. In line of communication canteens, located at railroad junction points, eighty-eight American women workers have served an average of 20,000 soldiers daily. At the metropolitan canteens, in Paris, more than 3,000,000 soldiers have been served since the American Red Cross entered this field of work.

Preliminary to the arrival of the American expeditionary force in France, the American Red Cross did important work in improving the sanitary conditions in the zone which the United States troops were to occupy. This work is constantly kept up to meet the situation as the army abroad increases in size.

CIVILIAN RELIEF WORK

Civilian relief work in France has embraced a campaign against tuberculosis, care of refugees and repatriés, care of children, reconstruction and repair work in devastated areas and home service among the families of French soldiers. While much of the work in behalf of refugees has been done in the zones of comparative safety to which people have fled from the war areas, the German offensive launched in March found American Red Cross men in large numbers performing actual rescue work in villages that were under fire of the enemy. With the aid of the motor transport service, hundreds of noncombatants were removed to places of safety.

At Evian, on the Swiss border, a corps of workers has been maintained for several months, together with a children's hospital, disinfecting plant, &c., for the care and relief of the children and aged and infirm persons who have been sent back by the Germans from the occupied portions of France and Belgium at the rate of 1,000 or more a day.

Relief for the families of French soldiers has had for its object the double purpose of providing for the wants of the sick and destitute, and strengthening the morale of men at the front. In respect to the latter objective a success has been achieved which has called forth many expressions of praise from the highest French military and civil authorities. A gift of a lump sum of $1,000,000 for distribution among 50,000 needy families was one of the initial acts in this particular line of relief.

FOR WOUNDED AND PRISONERS

Minor Red Cross activities in France have included assistance in the care of mutilated soldiers, aid in re-educational work and care of the blind, and maintenance of plants for the manufacture of splints, anaesthetic, &c. An important work in connection with the prosecution of medical research has been the carrying on of experiments to ascertain the cause of trench fever, which in point of wastage is responsible for more than any other sickness.

Since air raids on Paris and other French cities have become a regular feature, the American Red Cross has established a day-and-night service to respond to air raid alarms, perform rescue work, and remove the injured to the hospitals. On many occasions the effectiveness of this work has commanded widespread interest.

Among the newer developments is the establishment of a casualty service, for the gathering of detail information regarding American soldiers who are killed in battle, sick or wounded in the hospitals or taken prisoner by the enemy. The information collected is transmitted to relatives at home.

Prisoner relief is administered through a central office at Berne, Switzerland, where ample supplies of food are stored for shipment to German prison camps as the need requires. Recently plans were started to have emergency rations stored in prison camps, so that American prisoners could have the benefit of them on their arrival there. Through the arrangements made all prisoners in enemy camps will receive rations in plenty at frequent intervals, and special rations will be provided for invalids.

IMPORTANT WORK IN ITALY

Appropriations for relief work in Italy have totaled $3,588,826. Emergency relief work, rendered at a time when no permanent commission had been established in Italy, stands among the most notable of the Red Cross achievements of the first year of the war. When the Teuton hordes swept into the plains of Northern Italy in October, 1917, driving thousands of panic-stricken men, women, and children before them, American Red Cross veterans from France rushed into the breach, helped to stop the rout, relieved the acute distress, and contributed in no small measure to the saving of the country from complete subjugation. What the American Red Cross did for Italy in this crisis was made the subject of official commendation on various occasions, and elicited thanks from the King, Prime Minister, and other dignitaries. A most important result accomplished was the cementing of friendship for America on the part of the Italian people, who previously, largely through German propaganda, had been skeptical of the good faith of the United States in the war.

At the outset the American Consuls throughout Italy were supplied with money to afford emergency relief. Forty-eight carloads of supplies were dispatched to the scene from storehouses in France. Several sections of ambulances also were started from France. Soup kitchens were opened, from which the refugees were given the first food they had received since the flight from their homes. Transportation for the refugees was arranged from the north, warehouses were opened at central points, manufacture of surgical dressings was undertaken on a mammoth scale, hospitals for the concentration of contagious diseases were opened, and then, four days after the United States declared war against Austria, the first Red Cross ambulances left Milan for the Italian front, cheered by thousands of persons there and at all towns through which they passed.

By the time the permanent commission reached Rome, in the early Winter, a complete survey of the whole Italian situation had been made by experts and all the more serious emergencies had been met. The American Red Cross was able to supply great quantities of equipment to replace the stores that were lost when the Teuton drive destroyed upward of a hundred hospitals. The present relief work is being continued along the lines of the work in France.

BELGIAN RELIEF WORK