_Assistant Secretary of War_
_A year of war has changed the United States War Department from
a military group to a closely organized business concern. The
vast difference between its methods at the time of our entry
into the war and at the beginning of our second year of
hostilities is summarized in the appended statement and chart,
which were given to THE NEW YORK TIMES by Benedict Crowell, the
Assistant Secretary of War, in March, 1918. Mr. Crowell is one
of the business experts called into the department last Autumn
to reorganize it. In describing the changes made he said:_
A year ago there were eleven officers, all strictly military men, and
about 1,000 privates in the aircraft work. Now in that branch of the war
business we have thousands of officers and 100,000 men. But 96 per cent.
of those officers are trained business men and engineers from big civil
enterprises. Most of them are in military uniform, but that is merely a
matter of form that does not go to the substance of the business.
The great military work of America, the work of the soldiers, is being
done in France. In this country we have settled down to the purely
business undertaking of producing men and material out of which to form
the armies.
This chart (here reproduced) shows the latest readjustment of General
Staff functions and activities. A very significant change from what used
to be is indicated in that line of rectangles under the Chief of Staff,
each one representing an Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of a major
division of the war work. These divisions, indicated on the chart by the
words "storage and traffic," "purchases and supplies," &c., used to be
committees, in which every vital question had to be settled by a vote,
with lesser officers having as much power in the matter as their chiefs.
Now the Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of one of those divisions,
which is no longer a committee, has power to act on his own initiative.
His subordinates in the division are his expert advisers on the various
problems which he must decide, thus eliminating criticisms in the
earlier period of the war that too much time was lost in getting
decisions.
One of the modifications that may be made in this chart of the General
Staff in the near future will have to do with that division now in
charge of General Pierce, the Assistant Chief of Staff, who is director
of purchases and supplies and has authority over manufacturing
priorities, purchases, and production based on estimates and
requirements. That division, which now leads direct into the office of
the Chief of Staff, may later on be short-circuited around the Chief of
Staff direct to the office of a new Assistant Secretary of War in so far
as its problems have to do with purchases or industrial facilities.
A bill creating two additional Secretaries of War has been passed by
Congress. One of these assistants will have to do with social and
welfare activities for the benefit of the troops. The other will deal
exclusively with purchases and supplies, and the division of the General
Staff now under General Pierce will be made a part of it.
The direct lines of connection on this chart are as interesting and as
promising as anything else about it. They indicate smooth-working
co-ordination and perfected team work. For example, the line of liaison
from the division of purchases and supplies is to all supply bureaus and
purchasing agencies of the army, to the War Industries Board, and all
related Government agencies.
Further co-operation of the War Department, reorganized on a business
basis, with those organizations vital to the movement of all equipment
to troops here and abroad, is shown by the liaison line from the
Director of Storage and Traffic. That line connects the storage and
traffic business of the War Department directly with the Shipping Board,
the Director General of Railways, and the Quartermaster General.
[Illustration: CHART OF UNITED STATES WAR DEPARTMENT'S SYSTEM OF
ORGANIZATION FOR WAR ACTIVITIES.]
Major Gen. Goethals is the Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of storage
and traffic, and, as such, has full control over all priority of both
storage and traffic at and to inland, embarkation, and overseas points.
General Goethals is also still acting as Quartermaster General, a place
now not so vital under the reorganization as his office of Assistant
Chief of Staff in charge of storage and traffic.
The War Council was created because it was necessary to have a group of
experts in the War Department who would have time to study. Up to the
time of its organization there had been little time to think about big
problems and do nothing else. Everybody was rushed with some form of
executive or administrative work.
This council is in session every day and is one of the most effective
war agencies that the Government has. There is no man on it who does not
bring to its deliberations and conclusions some vital contribution to
the welfare of the country and the army. It consists of the Secretary of
War, the Assistant Secretary of War, General March, Acting Chief of the
General Staff; General Crowder, Judge Advocate General and Provost
Marshal General of the Army, one of the nation's great lawyers, who is
devoting his life to the military welfare of his country; Generals
Crozier, Sharpe, Weaver, and Pierce, and Charles Day, an able engineer
drafted from the Shipping Board to render expert counsel to the War
Department as a member of its War Council.