he Santa Fe. Specific duties were assigned to the various
members of this committee. Mr. Williams was to deal with the financial
problem; Mr. Holden to assume direction of committees and
sub-committees, and other phases of the work were allotted to other
members. Mr. Walter D. Hines was made assistant to the Director General.

Mr. McAdoo's first order was to pool all terminals, ports, locomotives,
rolling stock and other transportation facilities. Another order had as
its object to end the congestion of traffic in New York City and
Chicago. It gave all lines entering these centers equal rights in
trackage and water terminal facilities. This wiped out the identity of
the great Pennsylvania Terminal Station in New York, and gave all
railroads the use of the Pennsylvania tubes under the Hudson River.

The effect of government control of the railroads was felt from the very
first. Coal was given the right of way, giving great relief to such
sections as were suffering from fuel shortage. Many passenger trains
were taken off, more than two hundred and fifty of such trains being
dropped from the schedules of the eastern roads. This permitted a great
increase in the freight traffic. Orders were also given that all empty
box cars were to be sent to wheat-producing centers, so that wheat could
be moved to the Atlantic sea coasts for shipment to England and France.
These orders preceded the adoption of the railroad control bill, which
was not passed by Congress until March 14th. A feature of the bill is
the proviso that government control of the railroads shall not continue
more than twenty-one months after the war. After the passing of the
bill plans were made to make contracts with each railroad company for
government compensation on the basis provided in the bill.

The action of the government in thus assuming control of the railroads
very naturally led to wide differences of opinion, some of which were
sharply expressed in the Congress of the United States. On the whole,
however, public opinion decided that the government acted wisely.
Certain inconveniences to the traveling public were easily excused when
it was realized that the movement of troops throughout the country to
the camps, or from the camps to the ports which were to take them across
the sea, from "Texas to Toul," was being accomplished with great
success; that the movement of war material was now possible, and that
the gigantic railroad system was working withou