on emergency construction and contracts, a subcommittee of the
Munitions Board of the Council of National Defense:
Major W. A. Starrett, chairman; Major William Kelly; C. M. Lundoff; M.
C. Tuttle; F. L. Olmsted; J. B. Talmadge, secretary.
[Sidenote: Specialists in purchasing and constructing secured.]
Inquiries were immediately made and all available means used by
telegraph, correspondence, and consultation to get in touch with the
ablest constructors, engineers, draftsmen, purchasing agents, and other
specialists of broad experience in their respective vocations from which
an efficient and experienced organization could be selected.
All of those selected who became attached to the organization in an
official capacity gave up responsible and remunerative positions to give
the Government the benefit of their services. They all being over the
draft-age limit and representative technical men of repute and standing
in their community, a splendid precedent of patriotism was established.
The assembling of an organization and the planning and execution of the
work was undertaken with a view of accomplishing all that human
ingenuity, engineering, and constructing skill could devise in the brief
time available.
[Sidenote: The plans formulated.]
[Sidenote: Magnitude of the task.]
Plans were formulated by engineers, architects, and town planners who
had given much thought to the particular problems involved. Camp sites
comprising from 2,000 to 11,000 acres each were selected by a board of
Army officers under the direction of the department commanders. Names of
responsible contracting firms were secured and every effort made to
perfect an organization competent to carry out the work of completing
the camps at the earliest possible moment. The magnitude of assembling
an organization for carrying on the work and securing the labor and
materials therefor can in some measure be realized by reference to the
following table, showing quantities of the principal materials
estimated to be used in the construction of the National Army
cantonments.
[Sidenote: Approximate quantities of materials.]
The approximate quantities of principal materials used in the
construction of the various National Army camps are shown in the
following tables. This does not include National Guard, embarkation, or
training camps.
Quantity.
Lumber (feet b. m.) 450,000,000
Roofing paper (square feet) 76,000,000
Doors 140,000
Window sash 700,000
Wall board (square feet) 29,500,000
Shower heads 40,000
Water-closet bowls 54,000
Tank heaters and tanks 11,000
Heating boilers 1,800
Radiation (square feet) 4,200,000
Cannon stoves 20,000
Room heaters 20,000
Kitchen stoves and ranges 10,000
Wood pipe for water supply (feet) 1,000,000
Cast-iron supply pipe (feet) 470,000
Wire, all kinds and sizes (miles) 5,500
Wood tanks (aggregate capacity) 8,300,000
Hose carts 600
Fire engines 90
Fire extinguishers 4,700
Fire hose (feet) 392,500
Fire hydrants 3,600
Hand-pump tanks 12,700
Fire pails 163,000
Cots 721,000
Sixteen National Army camps were constructed in various parts of the
United States at points selected by the War Department. The camps were
carefully laid out by experienced town planners and engineers to give
best results considering all viewpoints.
[Sidenote: Extent of a typical National Army cantonment.]
[Sidenote: Roads constructed and improvements installed.]
A typical cantonment city will house 40,000 men. Each barrack building
will house 150 men and provide 500 cubic feet of air space per man. Such
a cantonment complete contains between 1,000 and 1,200 buildings and
covers about 2,000 acres. In addition, each cantonment has a rifle
range, drill, parade, and maneuver grounds of about 2,000 acres. In many
cases all or a large part of the entire site had to be cleared of woods
and stumps. The various military units were located on principal or
primary roads--a regiment being treated as a primary unit. About 25
miles of roads were constructed at each cantonment, and sewers, water
supply, lighting facilities, and other improvements installed.
[Sidenote: The special buildings required.]
An infantry regiment requires 22 barrack buildings, 6 for officers'
quarters, 2 storehouses, 1 infirmary building, 28 lavatories, with hot
and cold shower baths, or a total of 59 buildings. In addition to the
buildings necessary for the regimental units, each cantonment has
buildings for divisional headquarters, quartermaster depots, laundry
receiving and distributing stations, base hospitals having 1,000 beds,
post exchanges, and other buildings for general use.
[Sidenote: Remount stations.]
At several of the cantonments remount stations have been provided, some
of them having a capacity to maintain 12,000 horses.
[Sidenote: Other necessary camps.]
In addition to the National Army camps, plans were made for the
construction of 16 National Guard, two embarkation and one quartermaster
training camp, but the construction of these items did not involve so
large an expenditure as the National Army camps, as provision was made
for fewer units and only tentage quarters for the men in the National
Guard camps was provided. Modern storehouses, kitchens, mess shelters,
lavatories, shower baths, base hospitals, and remount depots were
built, and water, sewerage, heating, and light systems installed at an
expenditure of about $1,900,000 for each camp.
[Sidenote: The demand for construction and supplies.]
[Sidenote: Savings effected by standardization.]
With the advent of the United States into the war, there has appeared
not only one of the world's greatest builders, but the world's greatest
customer for supplies and human necessaries. We have not only to equip,
house, and supply our own army, but meet the demands arising from the
drainage of the resources of the entente allies. Small shopping and
bargaining are out of the question. Enormous savings were, however,
effected, due to the fact that materials were purchased in large
quantities and consequently at a much reduced price. Standardization of
sizes saved from $5 to $6 per thousand feet b. m. on lumber, and a
further saving of from $3 to $11 over prevailing prices was effected by
the lumber subcommittee of the Council of National Defense. The Raw
Materials Committee effected similar savings in prepared roofing, nails,
and other construction materials. The lead subcommittee procured 500
tons of lead for caulking pipe at 3 cents less than market price. When
it is considered that this construction work is, next to the Panama
Canal, the largest ever undertaken by the United States, the country is
to be congratulated on having available the men and materials to
accomplish the feat of providing for the maintenance of the newly
organized army in so short a period.
[Sidenote: Extensive construction work for National Army.]
I have described at length the work of building necessary for the
National Army camps, but at the same time extensive building was
necessary at the 16 sites selected for the mobilization and training of
the National Guard. While the National Guard troops were themselves
quartered under canvas, many wooden buildings and storehouses had to be
constructed for their use and, of course, the important problems of
water supply, sewage, and hospital accommodations required substantially
as much provision upon these subjects as upon those selected for the
National Army.
[Sidenote: Labor assembled from great distances.]
[Sidenote: The assistance rendered by Mr. Gompers.]
At the very outset of this hurried and vast program, it became apparent
that labor would have to be assembled from great distances, and in
wholly unaccustomed numbers, that the laboring men would be required to
separate themselves from home and family and to live under unusual and
less comfortable circumstances than was their habit. It was also clear
that no interruption or stoppage of the work could be permitted. I
therefore took up with Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the American
Federation of Labor, the question of a general agreement which would
cover all trades to be employed in assuring continuity of work, provide
just conditions of pay, recognize the inequalities which exist
throughout the country, and yet avoid controversy as between the
contractor and his employees, which, wherever the justice of the dispute
might lie, could have only a prejudicial effect upon the interests of
the Government, by delaying the progress necessary to be made. Mr.
Gompers and those associated with him in the building trades promptly
and loyally entered into a consideration of the whole subject, with the
result that the following agreement was made:
[Sidenote: Commission for labor adjustment.]
"WASHINGTON, D. C., June 19, 1917.
"For the adjustment and control of wages, hours, and conditions of labor
in the construction of cantonments, there shall be created an adjustment
commission of three persons, appointed by the Secretary of War; one to
represent the Army, one the public, and one labor; the last to be
nominated by Samuel Gompers, member of the Advisory Commission of the
Council of National Defense, and President of the American Federation of
Labor.
[Sidenote: Consideration given to scales in locality.]
"As basic standards with reference to each cantonment, such commission
shall use the main scales of wages, hours, and conditions in force on
June 1, 1917, in the locality where such cantonment is situated.
Consideration shall be given to special circumstances, if any arising
after said date which may require particular advances in wages or
changes in other standards. Adjustments of wages, hours, or conditions
made by such board are to be treated as binding by all parties."
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Labor difficulties easily adjusted.]
[Sidenote: Early completion of cantonments.]
The contractors throughout the country were notified of the existence of
this agreement and of the determination of the Government to carry it
out faithfully. The scope of the agreement was subsequently enlarged so
as to include other emergency construction done by the War Department,
and a board of adjustment was appointed which, at the beginning,
consisted of General E. A. Garlington, formerly General Inspector of the
Army, Mr. Walter Lippmann, and Mr. John R. Alpine, to whom all
complaints were referred, and by whom all investigations and
determinations in enforcement of the agreement were made. The personnel
of this board was subsequently changed, and its activities associated
with a similar board appointed by the concurrent action of the Secretary
of the Navy and Mr. Gompers, but I need here refer only to the fact
that, by the device of this agreement, and through the instrumentality
of this board, labor difficulties and disputes were easily adjusted, and
the program of building has gone rapidly forward, with here and there
incidental delays due sometimes to delay in material, sometimes to
difficulties of the site, and doubtless to other incidental failures of
coordination, but in the main, the work has been thoroughly successful.
When its magnitude is appreciated, the draft it made upon the labor
market of the country, the speed with which it was accomplished, and the
necessity of assembling not only materials but men from practically all
over the country, it seems not too much to say that the work is out of
all proportion larger than any similar work ever undertaken in the
country, and that its completion substantially on time, is an evidence
of efficiency both on the part of those officers of the Government
charged with responsibility for the task and the contractors and men of
the trades and crafts employed to carry on the work.
[Sidenote: Camps for training military engineers.]
This great division of the War Department in times of peace devotes the
major part of its energy to works of internal improvements and to the
supervision of, improvement, and maintenance of navigable waters; but in
time of war it immediately becomes a fundamental part of the Military
Establishment. It was, therefore, called upon not only to render
assistance of an engineering kind in the establishment of training
camps, but had to establish camps for the rapid training in military
engineering of large additions to its own personnel, and to undertake
the rapid mobilization and training of additional engineer troops, of
which at the beginning of the war there were but two regiments.
[Sidenote: Importance of railroad transportation in war.]
[Sidenote: Regiments of engineers sent to France.]
One of the earliest opportunities for actual assistance to the countries
associated with us in this war was presented to this department. In the
war against Germany transportation, and particularly railroad
transportation, is of the utmost importance. It was easily foreseen that
our own army in France would require large railroad facilities both in
the operation of permanent railroads for the handling of our equipment
and supplies and in the construction and operation of temporary roads
behind our Army. In the meantime regiments of engineer troops, if
speedily organized and dispatched to Europe, could both render valuable
assistance to the British and French Armies and acquire the training and
experience which would make them valuable at a later stage to us.
Accordingly nine such regiments were organized and have for some months
been rendering active and important service along the actual battle
front. In addition to these, a tenth regiment, composed of men skilled
in forestry and lumbering, was organized and sent abroad, and is now
operating in a foreign forest cutting out lumber supplies for the use of
our associates and ourselves.
[Sidenote: Arrangements to operate our own railways in France.]
[Sidenote: Creation of entire transportation system.]
Concurrently with the formation of these special engineer troops the
department undertook the collection of material for the establishment
and operation of our own lines of supply abroad. The railways of France
have been maintained in a state of high efficiency by the French people,
and they are performing the tremendous transportation task imposed upon
them by the French and English military operations with complete
success; but in order not to impose a burden which they were not
designed to meet, by asking them to expand to the accommodation of our
services, it has been found necessary for us ourselves to undertake the
accumulation of railroad material for our own use in the theater of war.
This work is on a large and comprehensive scale. Any detailed
description of it would be inappropriate at this time, but it involves
the creation of entire transportation systems and the actual
construction and operation of railroads with the elaborate terminal
facilities needed for the rapid unloading and dispatch of supplies,
equipment, and troops.
[Sidenote: The Quartermaster General's problem.]
[Sidenote: Vast equipment needed.]
[Sidenote: Intensive production of food and clothing.]
[Sidenote: Associated nations must be supplied.]
[Sidenote: Emergency appropriation.]
[Sidenote: Great extent of purchases.]
The problem facing the Quartermaster General has been serious. For the
small Regular Army of the United States a well-defined and adequate
supply system had been created. It was large enough and flexible enough
to permit us to make gradual accumulations of reserve as Congress from
time to time provided the necessary money; but when the mobilization of
the National Guard on the Mexican frontier took place, such reserves as
we had were rapidly consumed, and the maintenance of the military
establishment on the border required an increase which quite equaled the
entire capacity of those industries ordinarily devoting themselves to
the production of military supplies. When the present enlarged military
establishment was authorized it involved an enlarged Regular Army, an
enlarged National Guard and the new National Army, thus bringing upon us
the problem of immediate supply with adequate reserves for an Army of
2,000,000 men; and these men were not to be stationed about in Army
posts, but mobilized into great camps under conditions which necessarily
increased the wear and tear upon clothing and equipment, and
correspondingly increased the reserves needed to keep up the supply. In
addition to this these troops were assembled for overseas use, and it
therefore became necessary to accumulate in France vast stores of
clothing and equipment in order to have the Army free from dependence,
by too narrow a margin, upon ocean transportation with its inevitable
delays. As a consequence the supply needs of the department were vastly
greater than the capacity of the industrial organization and facilities
normally devoted to their production, and the problem presented was to
divert workshops and factories from their peace-time output into the
intensive production of clothing and equipment for the Army. Due
consideration had to be given to the maintenance of the industrial
balance of the country. Industries already devoted to the manufacture of
supplies for the nations associated with us in the war had to be
conserved to that useful purpose. Perhaps some aid to the imagination
can be gotten from the fact that 2,000,000 men constitute about
one-fiftieth of the entire population of the United States. Supply
departments were, therefore, called upon to provide clothing, equipment,
and maintenance for about one-fiftieth of our entire people, and this in
articles of uniform and of standardized kinds. The great appropriations
made by Congress tell the story from the financial point of view. In
1917 the normal appropriation for the Quartermaster Department was
$186,305,000. The emergency appropriation for this department for the
year 1918 was $3,000,000,000; a sum greater than the normal annual
appropriation for the entire expenses of the Federal Government on all
accounts. Another illustration can be drawn from the mere numbers of
some familiar articles. Thus of shoes more than 20,000,000 pairs have
already been purchased and are in process of delivery; of blankets,
17,000,000; of flannel shirting, more than 33,000,000 yards; of melton
cloth, more than 50,000,000 yards; of various kinds of duck for shelter
tents and other necessary uses, more than 125,000,000 yards; and other
staple and useful articles of Army equipment have been needed in
proportion.
[Sidenote: Resources, industry and transportation mobilized.]
To all of this it has been necessary to add supplies not usual in our
Army which, in many cases, had to be devised to meet needs growing out
of the nature of the present warfare. It was necessary, therefore, to
mobilize the resources and industry, first to produce with the greatest
rapidity the initial equipment, and to follow that with a steady stream
of production for replacement and reserve; second, to organize adequate
transportation and storage for these great accumulations, and their
distribution throughout the country, and then to establish ports of
embarkation for men and supplies, assemble there in orderly fashion for
prompt ship-loading the tonnage for overseas; and to set up in France
facilities necessary to receive and distribute these efficiently.
[Sidenote: Civilian agencies cooperate with government.]
The Quartermaster General's Department was called upon to set up rapidly
a business greater than that carried on by the most thoroughly organized
and efficiently managed industrial organization in the country. It had
to consider the supply of raw materials, the diversion of industry, and
speed of production, and with its problem pressing for instant solution
it had to expand the slender peace-time organization of the
Quartermaster Department by the rapid addition of personnel and by the
employment and coordination of great civilian agencies which could be
helpful.
[Sidenote: The Council of National Defense is aided by men of great
ability.]
The Council of National Defense, through the supply committees organized
by it, afforded the immediate contact necessary with the world of
commerce and industry, while men of various branches of business and
production engineers brought their services freely to the assistance of
the Department. The dollar-a-year man has been a powerful aid, and when
this struggle is over, and the country undertakes to take stock of the
assets which it found ready to be used in the mobilization of its
powers, a large place will justly be given to these men who, without the
distinction of title or rank, and with no thought of compensation,
brought experience, knowledge, and trained ability to Washington in
order that they might serve with patriotic fervor in an inconspicuous
and self-sacrificing, but indispensably helpful way.
[Sidenote: Sound beginnings made.]
The problems of supply are not yet solved; but they are in the course of
solution. Sound beginnings have been made, and as the military effort of
the country grows the arrangements perfected and organizations created
will expand to meet it.
[Sidenote: The American Railway Association's special committee.]
In this general connection it seems appropriate to refer to the
effective cooperation between the department and the transportation
agencies of the country. For a number of years the Quartermaster
General's Department has maintained close relations with the executives
of the great railway systems of the country. In February, 1917, a
special committee of the American Railway Association was appointed to
deal with questions of national defense, and the cooperation between
this committee and the department has been most cordial and effective,
and but for some such arrangement the great transportation problem would
have been insoluble. I am happy, therefore, to join the Quartermaster
General in pointing out the extraordinary service rendered by the
transportation agencies of the country, and I concur also in his
statement that "of those who are now serving the Nation in this time of
stress, there are none who are doing so more whole-heartedly,
unselfishly, and efficiently than the railroad officials who are engaged
in this patriotic work."
[Sidenote: Codes established for the garment industry.]
One other aspect of the work of the Quartermaster General's Office has
engaged my particular attention, and seems to me to have been fruitful
of most excellent results. The garment working trades of the United
States are largely composed of women and children, and of men of foreign
extraction. More than any other industry in the United States it has
been menaced by the sweatshop system. The States have enacted codes and
established inspection agencies to enforce sanitary conditions for
these workers, and to relieve the evils which seem everywhere to spring
up about them. To some extent the factory system operated under rigid
inspection has replaced home work, and has improved conditions; but
garment making is an industry midway in its course of being removed from
the home to the factory, and under pressure of intensive production,
home work in congested tenements has been difficult to eradicate.
[Sidenote: Dangers in home work system.]
The vice of this system is not merely the invasion of the home of the
worker, and the consequent enfeeblement of the family and family life.
Work done under such circumstances escapes the inspector, and the
crowded workers in the tenement are helpless in their struggle for
subsistence under conditions which are unrelieved by an assertion of the
Government's interest in the condition under which these workers live.
Moreover, wide distribution of garments made under such conditions tends
to spread disease, and adds another menace from the public point of
view.
[Sidenote: Standards inserted in contracts.]