ersity laboratories.
Everywhere and in all lines experience and brains were sought and
utilized. State Councils of Defense were created to oversee the work of
smaller units and to establish an effective means of communication between
the individual and the national Government. Naturally much
over-organization resulted and some waste of time and energy; but the
universal spirit of voluntary cooeperation evoked by the Councils
overbalanced this loss and aided greatly in putting the country on an
effective war basis. As Wilson said, "beyond all question the highest and
best form of efficiency is the spontaneous cooeperation of a free people."
In return for their efforts the people received an education in public
spirit and civic consciousness such as could have come in no other way.

Of the committees of the Council, that on munitions developed along the
most elaborate lines, becoming of such importance that on July 28, 1917,
it was reorganized as the War Industries Board. As such it gradually
absorbed most of the functions of the Council which were not transferred
to other agencies of the Government. During the autumn of 1917 the
activities of the Board underwent rapid extension, but it lacked the
power to enforce its decisions. As in the case of the General Staff, it
was important that it should have authority not merely to plan but also
to supervise and execute. Such a development was foreshadowed in the
reorganization of the Board in March, 1918, under the chairmanship of
Bernard M. Baruch, and when the President received the blanket authority
conferred by the Overman Act, he immediately invested the War Industries
Board with the centralizing power which seemed so necessary. Henceforth
it exercised an increasingly strict control over all the industries of
the country.

The purpose of the Board was, generally speaking, to secure for the
Government and the Allies the goods essential for making war
successfully, and to protect the civil needs of the country. The supply
of raw materials to the manufacturer as well as the delivery of finished
products was closely regulated by a system of priorities. The power of
the Board in its later development was dictatorial, inasmuch as it might
discipline any refractory producer or manufacturer by the withdrawal of
the assignments he expected. The leaders of each of the more important
industries were called into council, in order to determine resources and
needs, and the degree of pr