Conditions dictating food control - Need of the Allies and friendly neutrals for food supplies - Necessity for pro- tecting our own people from excessive prices, profiteer- ing, and hoarding Voluntary coöperation the basis of the policy of control - Powers of enforcement derived from Congress - The Food Stimulation Act The Food and Fuel Control Act - Creation of the United States Food Administration under Herbert Hoover - Its func- tions as distinguished from those of the Department of Agriculture-Principles governing the Administration of the Food Administration Its activities and opera- tions In stimulating production In promoting econ- omy in consumption In controlling consumption and distribution through a licensing system - In controlling profits In fixing prices - In controlling imports and exports In coördinating purchases The problem of wheat-Basic guaranteed price fixed by the President The Food Administration Grain Corporation - Its organization, resources, and operations The problem of sugar Analysis of the fuel problem - First attempts to meet the situation by the Committee on Coal Production of the Council of National Defense - Repudiation of its price agreement by the Secretary of War- - Powers of control derived from Congress The Food and Fuel Control Act -Creation of the United States Fuel Administra- tion under Harry A. Garfield - Its functions and ac- tivities - In the stimulation of production - In the ad- justment of labor disputes In the fixing of prices through State Fuel Administrators and local coal com- mittees In the control of distribution and apportion- ment through zoning, priorities, and licensing-In the promotion of economy and efficiency in consumption — the problem - Seditious utterances. --- - enemy Registration and restriction of enemy aliens Enemy insurance, patents, and copyrights - Sequestra- tion of enemy property Creation of the Alien Prop- erty Custodian - His powers and functions under the Trading-with-the-Enemy Act Organization of his visory Committee for Aeronautics Its functions and services Joint Army and Navy Technical Aircraft Board Creation of the Aircraft Production Board by the Council of National Defense- - Creation of the Air- craft Board by Congress Its statutory powers functions and activities The Liberty Motor Air- Insurance Act of October 6, 1917 Allotments to de- pendents of soldiers and sailors- pendents of soldiers and sailors Compensation and in- demnity of soldiers and sailors for death or disability- Voluntary insurance of soldiers and sailors against death INTRODUCTION When I laid down the proof sheets of Mr. Willoughby's survey of our war-time administrative organization, I had, mingled with more agreeable emotions, that lost feeling which comes from a half-remembered quotation. Someone, somewhere, in reference to a wholly different matter, had put in a sentence or so the impression of the picture. Finally I found the sentences in Dr. E. E. Slosson's Great American Universities. It was a comment upon the organization of one of our educational institutions and reads as follows: It is like the British Constitution; it ought not to work, but it does. It is a complex congeries of provinces, allies, crown colonies, protectorates, residencies, and native states. If a herald with tabard and trumpet were to call out all of the president's official positions, the list would sound like the heralding of a Holy Roman Emperor. This, it seems to me, gives a pretty fair sketch of the whole vista. For our war work we created councils and boards, commissions and corporations, administrations and gentlemen's agreements, machinery for commandeering and for conciliation. The reference has the further merit of indicating the range and variety of the responsibilities of the President of the United States during the past two years. The first days of the war were ones of whirling confusion, colored by glowing forecasts. Then followed months of experimentation by trial and error, of hope deferred by long delays, of well meant but none the less embarrassing internal rivalries, of sudden spurts like that which followed the organization of the War Industries Board. Later came the days of the autumn of 1918, when the whole great machine was throbbing rhythmic ally and steadily with only a minor "knock" here and there a sure indication to the watchful enemy, who had had more than a taste of what the machine could produce, that the game was up-and finally the armistice and the order to reverse the engines. To one who was in Washington from the first the changes from the wild hurryings and shoutings of April, 1917, to the grim but ordered work of the tired men and women in November, 1918, came so gradually as to be unnoticeable; the men who were fighting our battles or preparing to fight them had little, if any, chance to know how things were going at the capital; and the whole body of citizens who paid the bills and suffered most acutely of all from our growing pains were almost equally in the dark. A picture of the various movements in perspective is therefore of real interest. I have seen models of mines made in glass which show in three dimensions the various shafts and chambers and connecting galleries. Some such device might help us to get the picture at any given moment, but it was above all a changing scene, and unless some one can invent a kaleidoscope in three dimensions, we shall have to seek our picture in the printed page. Mr. Willoughby's book is more than a record and comment upon the happenings of the last two years. It is a valuable collection of state papers. We Americans have a way of referring to such documents with the greatest assurance, but we are not so certain to keep the provisions fresh in our memories, and in some cases perhaps we have never read them at all. For that reason the reading or rereading of documents like the Food and Fuel Control Act and the President's order for the reorganization of the War Industries Board will be a very good thing for us. It is a striking commentary upon the dislocations that come in the train of modern warfare that so little of |