literally thousands of rail cars, which could not be unloaded for lack of space and labor or even located for lack of identification. A similar rail tie-up in New York had occurred just a year before.

The terminals in Philadelphia, for example, were filled with carloads of lumber from Washington and Oregon destined for the Navy's Hog Island site long before there were any rail facilities there for unloading the cars. In the end ships built with these materials were not completed until the war was

over. 52

For lack of adequate warehousing, wharves and docks were used, even ships, which were badly needed for transporting troops and supplies. Freight cars of coal, frozen or not, could not get through or were lost in the congestion, threatening paralysis of war industry and holding up bunkering of ships. By December more than 45,000 carloads were backed up as far as Pittsburgh and Buffalo.53

World War I: The March Period, 1918-1919

The crisis in December 1917 came at a time when Allied fortunes in Europe were at their lowest ebb. The British campaign in Flanders had bogged down ingloriously in mud. The Italian Army had suffered a disastrous defeat at Caporetto, the French Army was still recovering from the effects of the mutinies six months earlier, and the new Bolshevik regime in Russia was discussing peace terms with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk.

Industrialists, particularly those associated with the War Industries Board (WIB), continually warned President Wilson and others of impending disaster if firm controls over the economy were not established. Thomas N. Perkins, a Boston corporation lawyer serving with the WIB, in December wrote a memorandum calling for a civilian supply department, such

(1) Report of the Chief of Staff, 1919, pp. 246-47, 342. (2) Walker D. Hines, War History of American Railroads (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928), p. 13. (3) Albro Martin, Enterprise Denied: Origins of the Decline of American Railroads, 1897-1917 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 346.

53 (1) Memo, Wells for Historical Branch, PS&T, 7 Mar 19. (2) Benedict Crowell and Robert F. Wilson, The Road to France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921), p. 115.

as Britain had created, which would take over such functions from the War Department and other agencies.54

The paralysis of rail and ocean traffic in New York, the threat of war industry in the East shutting down for lack of coal, and similar evidence in December prompted Senator George E. Chamberlain, chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, to investigate the problem. His hearings uncovered evidence of much waste and inefficiency among the War Department bureaus, and he concluded, like Mr. Perkins of the War Industries Board, that a separate civilian supply department should be created on the British model. Senator James W. Wadsworth of New York summed up the attitude of his colleagues on the committee and of industrialists generally by asserting that "the bureaus' hide-bound traditions were fouled up in red-tape." Procurement and supply was not, he said, properly a military function at all and could not be performed adequately by military men. It was a job for businessmen.55

These events, particularly the Perkins recommendation for a separate supply department, finally prodded Baker into attempting to centralize control over the department's disparate and fragmented supply operations. The process had actually begun in the summer of 1917 when responsibility for construction and for ports of embarkation had been transferred from the Quartermaster Corps to two new agencies under the direct supervision of the War College Division.56 In November he replaced Assistant Secretary of War William M. Ingraham, a nonentity appointed in May 1916 along with Baker, by Benedict Crowell, a Cleveland industrialist with a Reserve Quartermaster commission and an exponent of firm executive control over the bureaus.57

Responding to pressure from Congress, the War Industries Board, and events themselves, Baker accepted a War College

(1) Beaver, "Newton D. Baker and the Genesis of the War Industries Board," p. 51. (2) The most sophisticated, detailed and thorough treatment of the WIB is Robert D. Cuff, The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations during World War I (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973).

55 Dickinson, The Building of an Army, quotation on p. 286.

56 (1) Risch, Quartermaster Support of the Army, pp. 605–09. (2) Report of the Chief of Staff, War Department Annual Report, 1919, pp. 347-49, 378-81, 420-21, 715. 57 Information on Mr. Ingraham indicates he was a deserving Democrat who had been elected mayor of Portland, Maine, in 1915. President Wilson in December 1917 appointed him Surveyor of Customs in Portland, a job he held until 1922.

proposal in December for centralizing the department's supply system along functional lines in the General Staff. His first act was to recall from retirement Maj. Gen. George W. Goethals of Panama Canal fame, making him Acting Quartermaster General on 20 December and a week later on 28 December also appointing him "director" of a new General Staff agency, the Storage and Traffic Division. The intent in creating this agency was to establish control over such functions among the bureaus along with the Embarkation Service which was placed under its direct supervision. Next on 11 January 1918 a separate Purchasing Service was created to co-ordinate these activities in the War Department.58

Mr. Crowell, Goethals' immediate superior, said, “When a nation is committed to a struggle for existence, only a man impatient of hampering actions is likely to carry a great project through to success." General Goethals was such a man, he thought, and his "lack of previous intimate contact with the red tape and machinery" of the bureaus plus his judgment and a determination to succeed made him a good executive. He readily accepted responsibility and did not drive his superiors "to distraction by continual requests for authority to act." 59

When Goethals first took charge of the Quartermaster Corps he thought the only way to control the disruptive, wasteful competition among the bureaus was to create a civilian supply department as Mr. Perkins of the WIB and Senator Chamberlain's committee recommended. Since President Wilson and Secretary Baker opposed this idea, Goethals determined to consolidate and integrate War Department purchases internally to eliminate competition.

General Goethals also shared the views of industrialists and the War Industries Board that the Quartermaster Corps was essentially a huge purchasing organization and not a military operation. Consequently he proceeded to staff it with civilians who he thought knew more about purchasing than military men. One of his first appointments was Harry M. Adams, vice

58 (1) Benedict Crowell and Robert F. Wilson, The Armies of Industry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921), pp. 11-12. (2) Beaver, "Newton D. Baker and the Genesis of the War Industries Board," pp. 51-54. (3) Testimony of General Burr, Army Reorganization Hearings, p. 442. (4) War Department General Orders 159, 19 Dec 17, 167, 28 Dec 17, and 5, 11 Jan 18.

50 Crowell and Wilson, The Armies of Industry, pp. 237-38.

president in charge of traffic for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, whom he made Director of Inland Traffic, later called the Inland Traffic Service, on 11 January 1918. At about the same time Mr. Baker appointed Edward R. Stettinius, a partner in J. P. Morgan and Company. Surveyor of Supplies to work under Goethals.

Goethals most valuable civilian assistant was Robert J. Thorne, president of Montgomery Ward, who came to work on 1 January 1918 as a volunteer civilian aide to Goethals. On 8 March Goethals assigned him as Assistant to the Acting Quartermaster General. Instructions and directives from Mr. Thorne in performing his duties under General Goethals "will have the force and effect as if performed by the Acting Quartermaster General himself." 60

It would be difficult to overestimate the contribution made by representatives of industry and business, including those

(1) War Department General Order 24, 8 Mar 18. (2) In 1919 Thorne was awarded the DSM for "unusually meritorious services in the reorganization of the services of supply." War Department General Order 18, 27 Jan 19. (3) The best summary treatment of General Goethals' work as Acting Quartermaster General is in Risch, Quartermaster Support of the Army, pp. 630-36. There is a serious need for a detailed account of General Goethals' wartime activities. (4) Information on Mr. Adams is from Maj. W. M. Adriance, Capt. S. T. Dana, and 1st Lt. James R. Douglas, Draft History of the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division, circa March 1919. Manuscript in OCMH. In the final, much abbreviated form it became part of the Report of the Chief of Staff, 1919, pp. 388-449. A copy of this draft may be found in File 029 (Organization), PS&T Div., WDGS files, RG 165, NARS.

apostles of Frederick W. Taylor, the efficiency experts, in attempting to rationalize the Army's supply system. They infiltrated the department's supply organization at all levels of command, some in uniform, some not, some volunteer civilian advisers, others appointed officially. The War Industries Board, for example, loaned Mr. Baker's nemesis, Thomas N. Perkins, in April to Mr. Crowell who appointed him a member of a Committee of Three to plan a reorganization of the Army's supply system along rational businesslike lines."1

There were other military officers like General Goethals who believed the Army's supply system needed drastic reorganization. Brig. Gen. Robert E. Wood, an Engineer officer who had served as General Goethals' "good right arm" in building the Panama Canal, was one.62 At Goethals' request he was recalled from France and on 10 May made Acting Quartermaster General under General Goethals who had just become Director of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic. Wood left the Army on 1 March 1919 to join Mr. Thorne at Montgomery Ward as vice president and general merchandise manager.s

Another was Col. Hugh S. Johnson. As Deputy Provost Marshal General he had been responsible for planning and executing the Selective Service Act. In March 1918 Assistant Secretary Crowell appointed him chairman of the Committee of Three to devise a plan for reorganizing the Army's supply system. Promoted to brigadier general on 15 April, Johnson became Director of Purchase and Supplies under General Goethals with Gerard Swope, vice president of Western Electric, as his assistant director. Johnson, brilliant, young, impatient, and abrasive, was determined to consolidate and integrate the Army's supply system despite the opposition of

61 Draft Report of Committee Appointed by the Assistant Secretary of War to Plan an Organization for the Office of Director of Purchases and Supplies [hereafter referred to as Report of Committee of Three], undated [April 1919]. File 029 (PS&T), PS&T files, RG 165, NARS.

Chandler, Strategy and Structure, p. 233.

'(1) Ibid., p. 233. (2) Risch, Quartermaster Support of the Army, p. 633. (3) General Peyton C. March, The Nation at War (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Co., Inc., 1932), pp. 187-88. (4) War Department General Order 46, 9 May 18. (5) By War Department General Order 18 of 27 January 1919, Wood received the DSM for his work in "the reorganization and operation of the services of supply."