The Director of the Council and Advisory Commission is Walter S. Gifford, and the Secretary of the Council and Advisory Commission is Grosvenor B. Clarkson. Director Gifford is the administrative unit of the entire organization. Wherever a particular activity is directed in special instances by a member of the Advisory Commission, or by some one selected for a particular task by the Advisory Commission or the Council, it is essential for proper administration, and especially for the proper co-ordination of activities, that the various agencies which are set in motion shall work immediately in touch with and under the supervision of the Director. Mr. Gifford is peculiarly fitted for his task. He is one of the officers of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and was a year ago "loaned" by his company to act as supervising director of the famous Committee on Industrial Preparedness of the Naval Consulting Board. That job finished, he returned to his desk in New York, but was again drafted into the government service, this time to make the preliminary organization of the Council of National Defense. War caught him, and he is now, at the express request of the Secretary of War, a permanent fixture. A product of New England, cool-headed, trained in one of the greatest corporations of the world to think in national terms, still in his thirties, Mr. Gifford is one of the interesting figures of war-time Washington.

Under both Council and Commission there have been created various boards, sections, and committees. The Council itself, meeting every day, hears reports from the Director and plans, directs, and refers matters for investigation to the boards and committees and Committees of the Council and of the Advisory Commission. The Advisory Commission and its co-operative committees report back with recommendations to the Council.

The chief war story of the hour is in many respects what America can do in the air. The Council has taken decisive action herein. It has created an Aircraft Production Board, headed by Howard E. Coffin, of Detroit, who, as chairman of the Committee on Industrial Preparedness of the Naval Consulting Board, conceived and drove through, without a cent of

Federal money, and with the aid of the engineers of the country, the inventory for military purposes of the 27,000 leading plants of the United States. All this highly valuable information is now locked up in the files of the Council of National Defense. Mr. Coffin, vice-president of the Hudson Motor Car Company, is one of the most brilliant engineers of America and for nearly two years has devoted his services to the government without a penny of return. He is a man of vision out of the West who has a very distinct power for getting action out of the people around him. He typifies the new impersonal type of public administrator who knows nothing of politics, thinks little or not at all of himself, and seeks only to get the job done. He is known as the father of standardization in the American automobile industry, the standardization which has made it possible for more than 3,000,000 motor-cars to be running on the roads of the United States against some 800,000 in the rest of the countries of the world put together. The point, of course, is that quantity production of aeroplanes must in the first instance flow from standardization of parts and types and in production.

Thus far on the Western front in Europe the supremacy of the air has moved back and forth between the Germans and the Allied forces, as each side has perfected a new type of war plane which could do things that the preceding type could not do. Neither side has been able to produce such a preponderance of planes as to make the control more than momentary. That is where America appears upon the stage.

It was not until after the battle of the Marne that the French understood the full importance of aviation. When the entire German army was headed for France through Belgium Marshal Joffre had only three army corps in Belgium; the larger part of his forces had been sent to the East. It was the aviators of France who discovered and reported the course of the German advance. Success in manœuvre still means success in war; but the eyes of an army are now its airmen, and that army which sweeps the air is the army which makes its movements in secrecy. Carry the thought still further: massed infantry attacks must now be made be

hind the advancing curtain of fire, which in turn must be controlled and directed from the air.

In the early days of the attack on Verdun the French lost a great many machines. When the battle of the Somme began she had such an enormous aviation superiority on the Somme front that for three weeks no German machine was able to fly. The result was that the artillery fire was splendidly conducted, no English movement was known to the Germans, and the Allied forces knew all about what was going on behind the German lines. In short, a manoeuvre is a surprise, and it is impossible to surprise while machines are in the air.

The French believe that if next year there are enough Allied machines, including American, on the Western front to stop the Germans from flying, thus allowing the Allied forces to manœuvre, the Germans will be very nearly beaten. If we put out the eyes of the beast it is a relatively simple matter to kill him afterward.

There, very sketchily stated, is pretty much why America is going to try to help win the war in the air, in addition to the troops that she will send to the front. She has the money, she has the producing capacity, and she has the brains and the Aircraft Production Board is going ahead on this basis, in co-operation with the very efficient Signal Corps of the Army under Brigadier-General George O. Squier, and both getting their driving power from the progressive policy of the Secretary of War.

The problems are not simple, but they will be solved, and solved speedily. The best experts of the country are being brought into the task. The members of the Aircraft Production Board are:

Howard E. Coffin, Chairman.
Brigadier-General George O. Squier, Chief
Signal Officer United States Army.
Rear-Admiral David W. Taylor, Bureau
of Construction.

S. D. Waldon, ex-vice-president of the
Packard Motor Car Company.
E. A. Deeds, ex-general manager of the
National Cash Register Company and
later with the Dayton Engineering
Company.

R. L. Montgomery, Montgomery, Clothier & Tyler, bankers, Philadelphia, Pa. Arthur G. Cable, secretary.

Already the Aircraft Production Board has negotiated with leading aeroplanemakers to secure a basis for the settlement of the aeroplane patent situation; has evolved in co-operation with the chief signal officer of the Army a training plan for aviators; has assembled the presidents of six military engineering universities and assisted in starting six schools for the preliminary training of aviator cadets; has developed, in co-operation with the chief signal officer of the Army, a standard type of aviation school set of buildings; has arranged for complete working drawings and estimates of cost; has given material assistance to the Aeronautical Division in investigating sites for aviation schools; has arranged for the standardization of a type of training machine between the English, Canadian, and United States Service, and has developed plans and placed orders for the battle type of machine.

By the time this article will have appeared in print there will undoubtedly have been brought to this country the latest type of aircraft which has been developed on the fighting front, and there will have been instituted a co-operative organization here among our own engineers, designers, and construction men which will attack the problem of producing in quantities the highly specialized types needed. This work will probably be done by some centralized body and under governmental supervision. Every effort will be made to remove it as far as possible from commercialism on the part of individuals. This country probably, more than any other, is able to bring about a quantity production of any type of article which may be standardized. There have been brought to Washington for the purpose of developing the proper motor the best engineers in the country. This motor may be a four, six, eight, or twelve, depending upon the power desired, but the cylinders will all be alike, and so will the pistons, valves, and connecting-rods, so that the automobile or engine manufacturer whose plant may be called upon may get to

work at once. The making of an aeroplane in itself is not a complicated thing, although the original designing and engineering work is very highly technical. One part of the programme, at the present writing, is to take a standardized plane for our training work and put it into the manufacturing centres for duplication. There are a great number of mechanics in the United States trained to this work, but new sources of supply will undoubtedly have to be opened up. The chief demand, of course, will be made upon the automobile industry, perhaps to the extent of curtailing the production of pleasure vehicles. But it will be going into an industry the transformation of the work of which will not interfere with the building of guns and the making of munitions, nor with any other branch of the government service.

The general function of the Aircraft Production Board is to bring manufacturers together and help make their resources available to the government and assist the government in stimulating the production of better types and greater quantities of air-machines, to investigate and recommend manufacturing plants where orders are to be placed, to aid in arranging with American factories as to the kinds of machine best suited to their several organizations and facilities for manufacture, to advise as regards priority of deliveries of aircraft material in accordance with a general policy as determined by the Council of National Defense, and, following the selection of sites for aviation schools and supply depots by the Military Department, to advise in regard to buying or leasing the land, preparing it for use, and erecting all buildings.

The chairman of the General Munitions Board of the Council is Frank A. Scott, vice-president of the Warner and Swasey Company, of Cleveland, Ohio, and an acknowledged authority on the production of munitions for the uses of modern war. Mr. Scott came to Washington to stay three days, was drafted into the service, and was told to be prepared to remain for three years. He is serving without compensation. His board, composed of high officers of the Army and Navy, meets every morning at a quarter past eight and is saving the government millions of dol

lars daily in the co-ordination of purchases for the War and Navy Departments. This board, in its brief career, has developed the capacity to supply a million men with rifles and is delving deeply and in the most efficient way into matters of artillery and ammunition therefor-gun-forgings, gun-carriages, limbers, caissons, and forge wagons-and is seeing to it that the necessary raw materials, including wood for spokes on wheels, are had; and it is dealing in the most concentrated fashion with problems concerning military vehicles, machine guns, armor-piercing shells, cotton duck for tentage, optical glass for military instruments, and a thousand and one things which go to make up the munitions demands of a nation at war to-day. The board has, of course, been closely in touch with the French and British Commissioners.

Mr. Scott is also chairman of the Munitions Standards Board, of which the other members are as follows:

W. H. Vandervoort, of Root and Vandervoort, builders of special machine tools, and president of the Moline Automobile Company;

E. A. Deeds, formerly general manager of the National Cash Register Company, president of the Dayton Engineering Company, and interested in many industrial activities;

Frank Pratt, of the General Electric Company, Schenectady;

Samuel Vauclain, of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, Remington and Westinghouse Companies; and

John E. Otterson, vice-president of the Winchester Arms Company.

The purpose of the Munitions Standards Board is to standardize munitions specifications in so far as possible to permit of quantity production of munitions at the most reasonable prices obtainable.

Under Doctor Franklin H. Martin, of the Advisory Commission, and in the immediate charge of Doctor F. F. Simpson, is the medical section of the Council. This body has done magnificent work in ascertaining the civilian medical resources of the country and comparing them with the actual resources and personnel of the

medical department of the United States Army, Navy, Public Health Service, and the American Red Cross. The prime need was the careful selection from the civilian medical profession of thoroughly qualified doctors who could be recommended to the Army and Navy as members of the medical officers' reserve corps. So far the names of 21,000 competent physicians have been furnished to the surgeons-general. The deans of the various medical schools were summoned to Washington to the end of making available the 3,500 medical students graduating in June for service as medical officers in the regular Army and Navy Medical Corps. This action has resulted in materially filling the gaps in the regular services of men of the most desirable type. The medical section has carried far forward the standardization of instruments, supplies, and equipment common to the Army, Navy, Public Health Service, and Red Cross, co-ordinating them with the needs of the civilian medical profession. The necessity for this is obvious when it is known that a large percentage of medical instruments and other supplies is manufactured in Germany, and it is vital to obtain suitable instruments from American manufacturers.

A General Medical Board, composed of civilian medical men of the highest rank, has been formed and meets in Washington at stated intervals. This board, working through highly organized subcommittees, is in a position to furnish the very latest information on medical and surgical experience in the European war and from the principal laboratories and research organizations of America. At the instance of this board, the Council of National Defense has taken decisive steps for the hygienic and moral welfare of the soldiers and sailors of the nation.

Acting as a Board of Inventions for the Council of National Defense is the Naval Consulting Board of the United States, headed by Thomas A. Edison and composed of such eminent inventors as Elmer A. Sperry and Peter Cooper Hewitt. This board has for some time been actively engaged in investigations of plans to combat the submarine.

To ascertain how commercial business may best meet the demands made upon

it by the war, and how men, supplies, and equipment now employed in trade can be made available for the needs of the government without impairing the essential services of trade and without unnecessary hardship to the public at large, the Council has formed a Commercial Economy Board. It is composed exclusively of experts in their respective fields. This board is taking up such matters as how the delivery service of retail stores may be curtailed during the war, investigations having already disclosed that many retail stores can arrange to release men and equipment from their delivery departments. It has discovered in numerous stores that twenty per cent of the merchandise sold is returned, and it is attempting to ameliorate the wide-spread abuse and money waste under this system. It has even cast its scrutiny on the practice among bakers to take back unsold bread from retailers, the bread thus being taken back being resold, in some cases to the poor, but frequently to the farmers for hog or chicken feed. It is seeking the right way in which to avoid the resulting waste of food in the vital bread trade.

At the instance of the Council of National Defense, advisory committees of highly qualified business men have been appointed by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States to sit with the local quartermasters of the Army in various cities of the country. These committees have rendered extremely valuable aid in the economical and efficient purchase of supplies, their knowledge of local business and traffic conditions being of particularly good service to the government. In New York, for instance, a plan has been put into operation under the supervision of the depot quartermaster there for the purpose of co-ordinating the various railroad and shipping lines entering New York and the surrounding district, to the end of greatly facilitating the movement of products shipped through the port of New York en route to allied nations.

The Council has a Committee on Coal Production which, in co-operation with the Department of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, has given material assistance in settling serious difficulties which have arisen between operator and miner. This committee, under the

leadership of F. S. Peabody, one of the leading coal experts of the country, who is giving his services free to the government, has been of material assistance to the Navy Department in arranging for shipments of coal to the Pacific coast for battleship requirements, and repeated conferences with lake shippers of coal and ore and with transportation executives resulted in the ability of shippers, railroads and vessels, to carry to the head of the lakes some additional two and onehalf million tons of coal and bring in return the same tonnage of iron ore. It has done very many other things under the active leadership of Mr. Peabody.

The Council of National Defense, recognizing the essential part which woman now plays in war, recently formed a Committee on Women's Defense Work, headed by the venerable Doctor Anna Howard Shaw, the veteran of a thousand platforms and of many long campaigns in the interest of women of America. This committee is starting out to co-ordinate for the national defense the organized forces of the women of the country by working through State organizations now in process of formation. Permanent committees will be created in each State in the Union to serve for the duration of the war. The Committee on Women's Defense Work is going to take up such matters as registration of service, home relief, allied relief, production, conservation, and thrift; the protection of women workers; courses of instruction in current events concerning women's war work and in training classes in work for which the State furnishes a demand, such as motor service and wireless telegraphy; and the conservation of the moral and spiritual forces of the nation.

The National Research Council,* composed of many of the country's most eminent scientists, maintains in Washington an active committee for the purpose of co-operating with the Council of National Defense in matters pertaining to scientific research in the government's interest. Its chairman is George Ellery Hale and its secretary Cary T. HutchinThe National Research Council is at present engaged in such investigations

son.

*See "How Men of Science Will Help in Our War," by Dr. George Ellery Hale, in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE for June,

1917.

as the study of devices for detecting completely submerged submarines and mines; devices for detecting invisible aircraft and sapping parties; military photography; balloon fabrics; antitoxin and serums for diphtheria, tetanus, pneumonia; sterilization of drinking water, soldiers' clothing, and blankets; and the study of noxious gases and methods of protection against them. The country may be sure that the National Research Council's part of the job for the national defense will be well and thoroughly done.

Under the direction of Director Gifford, of the Council, and in the immediate charge of George F. Porter, a Chicagoan, who has separated himself from his business interests, an active department has been established which has for its purpose the co-ordination of State defense activities throughout the nation. Forty-four States of the Union, now working in cooperation with the Council of National Defense, have fully organized State councils of defense, called committees of public safety in some commonwealths.

Under the Advisory Commission is Commissioner Daniel Willard's Committee on Transportation and Communication. Mr. Willard has succeeded in bringing together the railroad executives of the country and in persuading them to organize and maintain in Washington a permanent executive committee made up of a number of railroad presidents. This committee has brought about the complete mobilization of the 262,000 miles of American railroads for the protection of the national government. Headed by Fairfax Harrison,* president of the Southern Railway, the executive committee exercises a benevolent and patriotic despotism over the railroads of the country to an extent which in many ways the Federal authorities themselves have never exercised. Behind this body is what is known as the Special Defense Committee of the American Railway Association, which has subdivided itself over the country into six departments, each to correspond to one of the military departments of the army. The personnel of these departmental bodies is made up in each case of from four to seven railroad executives.

The work of this committee will be described by Mr. Harrison in the September issue of the Magazine.