ear. Altogether, during the crop year of
1918, America doubled the average amount of food sent to Europe
immediately before the war, notwithstanding unfavorable weather
conditions and the congestion of freight that resulted from other war
necessities. The total contribution in foodstuffs exported to Europe
that year amounted to a value of about two billion dollars. This was done
without food cards and with a minimum of edicts. It was the work of
education and conscience.

Fuel like food was a war necessity and there was equal need of
stimulating production by assuring a fair profit and of eliminating all
possible waste. Without the steam power provided by coal, raw materials
could not be transformed into the manufactured articles demanded by
military necessity, nor distributed by the railroads and steamships. Soon
after the declaration of war, a committee of coal operators, meeting
under the authorization of the Council of National Defense, drew up a
plan for the stimulation of coal production and its more economical
distribution. This committee voluntarily set a price for coal lower than
the current market price, in order to prevent a rise in manufacturing
costs; it was approved by the Secretary of the Interior, who warmly
praised the spirit of sacrifice displayed by the operators. Unfortunately
the Secretary of War, as chairman of the Council of National Defense,
repudiated the arrangement, on the ground that the price agreed upon was
too high. The operators were discouraged, because of the difficulty of
stimulating production under the lower price which Secretary Baker
insisted upon; they were further disappointed at the postponement of
plans for a zone system and an elimination of long cross hauls, designed
to relieve the load that would be thrown upon railroad transportation in
the coming winter.

In August, Wilson was empowered by the Lever Act to appoint a Fuel
Administrator and chose Harry A. Garfield, President of Williams College.
Conditions, however, became more confused. The fuel problem was one of
transportation quite as much as of production; the railroads were unable
to furnish the needed coal-cars, and because of an expensive and possibly
unfair system of car allotment, coal distribution was hampered. Add to
this the fact that numerous orders for coal shipments had been deferred
until autumn, in the belief that the Administration, which in the person
of Baker was not believed to look on the coal operato