s and
determinations in enforcement of the agreement were made. The personnel
of this board was subsequently changed, and its activities associated
with a similar board appointed by the concurrent action of the Secretary
of the Navy and Mr. Gompers, but I need here refer only to the fact
that, by the device of this agreement, and through the instrumentality
of this board, labor difficulties and disputes were easily adjusted, and
the program of building has gone rapidly forward, with here and there
incidental delays due sometimes to delay in material, sometimes to
difficulties of the site, and doubtless to other incidental failures of
coordination, but in the main, the work has been thoroughly successful.
When its magnitude is appreciated, the draft it made upon the labor
market of the country, the speed with which it was accomplished, and the
necessity of assembling not only materials but men from practically all
over the country, it seems not too much to say that the work is out of
all proportion larger than any similar work ever undertaken in the
country, and that its completion substantially on time, is an evidence
of efficiency both on the part of those officers of the Government
charged with responsibility for the task and the contractors and men of
the trades and crafts employed to carry on the work.

[Sidenote: Camps for training military engineers.]

This great division of the War Department in times of peace devotes the
major part of its energy to works of internal improvements and to the
supervision of, improvement, and maintenance of navigable waters; but in
time of war it immediately becomes a fundamental part of the Military
Establishment. It was, therefore, called upon not only to render
assistance of an engineering kind in the establishment of training
camps, but had to establish camps for the rapid training in military
engineering of large additions to its own personnel, and to undertake
the rapid mobilization and training of additional engineer troops, of
which at the beginning of the war there were but two regiments.

[Sidenote: Importance of railroad transportation in war.]

[Sidenote: Regiments of engineers sent to France.]

One of the earliest opportunities for actual assistance to the countries
associated with us in this war was presented to this department. In the
war against Germany transportation, and particularly railroad
transportation, is of the utmost importance. It was easily foreseen t