Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, Volume XII

by Unknown

The only federal agency in existence on April 7, 1917, capable of the elasticity to mobilize industry, labor, and science for the national defense was the United States Council of National Defense. This body, composed of the Secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, had providentially been created by Congress eight months before. It was charged by Congress with "the coördination of industries and resources for the national security and welfare" and "the creation of relations which will render possible in time of need the immediate concentration and utilization of the resources of the nation." With it was to act an advisory commission of seven men, each to have expert knowledge of some special industry, public utility, or the development of some natural resource.

The Council was further charged with the following particular duties:

1. To supervise and direct investigations and make recommendations to the President and the heads of Executive Departments as to:
   1. The location of railroads with reference to the frontier of the United States, so as to render possible expeditious concentration of troops and supplies to points of defense.
   2. The coördination of military, industrial, and commercial purposes in the location of extensive highways and branch lines of railroads.
   3. The utilization of waterways.
   4. The mobilization of military and naval resources for defense.
   5. The increase of domestic production of articles and materials essential to the support of the armies and of the people during the interruption of foreign commerce.
   6. The development of sea-going transportation.
   7. Data as to amounts, location, methods and means of production and availability of military supplies.
   8. The giving of information to producers and manufacturers as to the class of supplies needed by the military and other services of the Government, the requirements relating thereto, and the creation of relations which will render possible in time of need the immediate concentration and utilization of the resources of the nation.
2. To report to the President or to the heads of Executive Departments upon special inquiries or subjects appropriate thereto.
3. To submit an annual report to Congress, through the President, giving as full a statement of the activities of the Council and the agencies subordinate to it as is consistent with the public interest, including an itemized account of the expenditures made by the Council or authorized by it, in as full detail as the public interest will permit, providing, however, that when deemed proper the President may authorize, in amounts stipulated by him, unvouchered expenditures and report the gross so authorized not itemized.

PERSONNEL OF THE COUNCIL

Save for preliminary meetings late in the winter of 1916, the Council and Advisory Commission did not get under way to any appreciable degree until February, 1917, when both bodies began to meet separately and jointly with the primary purpose of taking the national balance, chiefly with regard to industrial resources. The permanent organization of both bodies was made on March 3, 1917.

The Council of National Defense was composed as follows:

Secretary of War	Newton D. Baker, Chairman.
Secretary of the Navy	Josephus Daniels.
Secretary of the Interior	Franklin K. Lane.
Secretary of Agriculture	David F. Houston.
Secretary of Commerce	William C. Redfield.
Secretary of Labor	William B. Wilson.

The members of the Advisory Commission were:

Transportation and Communication: Daniel Willard, Chairman, President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Munitions and Manufacturing, including Standardization and Industrial Relations: Howard E. Coffin, Vice-President of the Hudson Motor Car Company. Supplies, including Food and Clothing: Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, Roebuck & Company. Raw Materials, Minerals and Metals: Bernard M. Baruch, financier. Engineering and Education: Doctor Hollis Godfrey, President of the Drexel Institute. Labor, including Conservation of Health and Welfare of Workers: Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor. Medicine and Surgery, including General Sanitation: Doctor Franklin Martin, Secretary-General of the American College of Surgeons.

The Director of the Council and the Advisory Commission during the greater part of the war was Walter S. Gifford, now Vice-President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, a most capable organizer, who with the writer had been closely associated with Howard Coffin in a pioneer industrial preparedness movement inaugurated in the spring of 1916 to examine into the capacity of industrial plants for military purposes. This was an entirely volunteer movement of business men and industrial engineers under the Naval Consulting Board of the United States, acting with the full approval of the President and the War and Navy Departments. Mr. Coffin's Committee on Industrial Preparedness did a remarkable job in a very short space of time, and the creation of the Council of National Defense was the logical sequence of the Committee's work, its records being turned over to the Council. The writer was the Secretary of the Council and the Advisory Commission throughout until the early summer of 1918, when he became Acting Director, succeeding Mr. Gifford shortly after the signing of the armistice.