e body but through five supply bureaus, which acted
independently and in competition with each other. Bids for materials from
the different bureaus conflicted with each other, with those of the navy,
and of the Allies. Not merely was it essential that such demands should
be cooerdinated, but that some central committee should be able to say how
large was the total supply of any sort of materials, how soon they could
be produced, and to prevent the waste of such materials in unessential
production. If the army was decentralized, American industry as a whole
was in a state of complete chaos, so far as any central organization was
concerned. On the side of business every firm in every line of production
was competing in the manufacture of essential and unessential articles,
in transportation, and in bidding for and holding the necessary labor.
Mr. Wilson set himself the task of evolving order out of this chaos.

The President, as in the purely military problem where he utilized the
General Staff as his instrument, prepared to adapt existing machinery,
rather than to create a completely new organization. For a time he seems
to have believed that his Cabinet might serve the function. But it was
ill-adapted to handle the sort of problems that must be solved. It was
composed of men chosen largely for political reasons, and despite much
public complaint it had not been strengthened after Wilson's reelection.
Franklin K. Lane, the Secretary of the Interior, was generally recognized
as a man of excellent business judgment, willing to listen to experts, and
capable of cooeperating effectively with the economic leaders of the
country. His influence with the President, however, seemed to be
overshadowed by that of Newton D. Baker and William G. McAdoo, Secretaries
of War and of the Treasury, who had inspired the distrust of most business
men. McAdoo in particular alienated financial circles because of his
apparent suspicion of banking interest, and both, by their appeals to
laboring men, laid themselves open to the charge of demagogic tactics.
Robert Lansing, the Secretary of State, had won recognition as an expert
international lawyer of long experience, but he could not be expected to
exercise great influence, inasmuch as the President obviously intended to
remain his own foreign secretary. Albert S. Burleson, Postmaster-General,
was a politician, expert in the minor tactics of party, whose conduct of
the postal and telegraphic syst