o
execute its conclusions. Whatever determination Congress may hereafter
reach with regard to the bestowal of additional executive power and the
creation of agencies for its exercise, the advisory function of the
Council of National Defense ought not to be impaired, nor ought its
usefulness to be left unrecognized. In the first place, the council
brings together the heads of the departments ordinarily concerned in the
industrial and commercial problems which affect the national defense and
undoubtedly prevents duplications of work and overlappings of
jurisdiction. It also makes available for the special problems of
individual departments the results attained in other departments which
have been called upon to examine the same problem from other points of
view. In the second place, the council supplements the activities of the
Cabinet under the direction of the President by bringing together in a
committee, as it were, members of the Cabinet for the consideration of
problems which, when maturely studied, can be presented for the
President's judgment.

[Sidenote: The council directs the aroused spirit of the nation.]

[Sidenote: The General Munitions Board.]

[Sidenote: Field of priorities in transportation and supplies.]

With the declaration of a state of war, however, the usefulness of the
Council of National Defense became instantly more obvious. The
peace-time activities and interests of our people throughout the country
surged toward Washington in an effort to assimilate themselves into the
new scheme of things which, it was recognized, would call for widespread
changes of occupation and interest. The Council of National Defense was
the only national agency at all equipped to receive and direct this
aroused spirit seeking appropriate modes of action, and it was admirably
adapted to the task because among the members of the council were those
Cabinet officers whose normal activities brought them into constant
contact with all the varied peace-time activities of the people and who
were, therefore, best qualified to judge the most useful opportunities
in the new state of things for men and interests of which they
respectively knew the normal relations. For the more specialized
problems of the national defense, notably those dealing with the
production of war materials, the council authorized the organization of
subordinate bodies of experts, and the General Munitions Board grew
naturally out of the necessities of t