he War and Navy Departments, which
required not only the maximum production of existing munition-making
industries in the country, but the creation of new capacity for
production and its correlation with similar needs on the part of the
foreign governments. The work done by the General Munitions Board was
highly effective, but it was soon seen that its problem carried over
into the field of transportation, that it was bound up with the question
of priorities, and that it was itself divisible into the great and
separate fields of raw material supply and the production of finished
goods. With the growth of its necessary interests and the constant
discovery of new relations it became necessary so to reorganize the
General Munitions Board as both to enlarge its view and more definitely
recognize its widespread relations.

[Sidenote: The War Industries Board.]

[Sidenote: Knowledge of war needs of the United States and Allies.]

[Sidenote: The Council of National Defense a natural center.]

Upon the advice of the Council of National Defense, the General
Munitions Board was replaced by the War Industries Board, which consists
of a chairman, a representative of the Army, a representative of the
Navy, a representative of labor and the three members of the Allied
Purchasing Commission through whom, under arrangements made with foreign
Governments by the Secretary of the Treasury, the purchasing of allied
goods in the United States is effected. This purchasing commission
consists of three chairmen--one of priorities, one of raw materials, and
one of finished products. By the presence of Army and Navy
representatives, the needs of our own Government are brought to the
common council table of the War Industries Board. The board is thus
enabled to know all the war needs of our Government and the nations
associated with us in war, to measure their effect upon the industry of
the country, to assign relative priorities in the order of
serviceableness to the common cause, and to forecast both the supply of
raw material and our capacity for completing its manufacture in such a
way as to coordinate our entire industrial capacity, both with a view to
its maximum efficiency and to its permanent effect upon the industrial
condition of the country. Under legislation enacted by Congress, the
President has committed certain definite problems to special agencies.
The food administration, the fuel administration, and the shipping
problem bein