GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION A SURVEY OF THE FEDERAL CIVIL AGENCIES BY WILLIAM FRANKLIN WILLOUGHBY DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH PREFACE A feature distinguishing the Great War from all other wars in which the United States has been engaged is that it necessitated the mobilization of practically the entire resources of the country for its successful prosecution. By "mobilization" is meant that the National Government was compelled, not merely to draft into its service all the manhood of the nation suitable for military operations, but to call upon, take over, direct, or control almost every element of the life of the people, industrial, commercial, scientific, and educational, to the end that all these activities might be brought to bear directly upon the prosecution of the war. To effect this mobilization the Congress had to pass a great body of special legislation extending the powers of the Government over these subjects and creating or making provision for the creation of a large number of special services through which these powers might be exercised. The present volume has for its purpose to attempt a methodical statement and description of these special war agencies and their operations. It has been necessary to restrict our attention to those agencies which represent distinct services specially created for the handling of matters connected with the prosecution of the war or the meeting of conditions engendered by the war. Only in an incidental way has an effort been made to consider the work done by the regular Departments and services of the Government. No account is thus given of the activities of the two most important war services of all, the War and Navy Departments. To have attempted such an account would have required another volume longer than the present one. Even with these limitations the task of presenting a connected account of the manner in which the National Government met the tremendously complicated problem of working out an effective organization for the administration of the new duties thrown upon it has been no slight one. Each service or group of services considered has presented features which alone would require a volume equal to the present one for their adequate treatment. What value the present work may have is thus that of furnishing a general survey or picture of the whole problem of organization for the prosecution of the war and the manner in which this problem was met by the Government. That this account might have the greatest value the attempt has been made to resolve the problem into its constituent elements, to state the nature of each and specifically the manner in, and organs through, which it was handled. The general procedure followed has been that of giving, in respect to each, first, an analysis of the nature of the problem and the conditions to be met; second, an account of the steps taken by the Government in meeting these conditions; and, finally, a statement of the conditions at the close of the war and the alternative lines of action open in respect to them. In describing the action of the Government the policy has been pursued of quoting largely from laws, executive orders, reports, and other official documents, to the end that the reader may get this authoritative statement of the character and purposes of the action taken. Although the treatment has been largely descriptive, failures and mistakes, as well as accomplishments, have been indicated. Although these errors of omission and commission were many, and constant changes in organization had to be made to correct them, it cannot be stated too emphatically that on the whole the Government met a situation of unexampled difficulty with a success that can fairly challenge comparison with the manner in which the same situation was met by any other country. W. F. WILLOUGHBY. |