increase in the
number of grain-carrying cars alone, from July to November, was 135,000
over the same period of the previous year.

Unquestionably the Government's administration of the railroads has a
darker side. Complaints were frequent that the Railroad Administration
sacrificed other interests for its own advantage. The future of the roads
was said not to be carefully safeguarded, and equipment and rolling stock
mishandled and allowed to deteriorate. Above all, at the moment when it
was quite as essential to preserve the morale of labor on the home front
as that of the troops in France, McAdoo made concessions to labor that
were more apt to destroy discipline and _esprit de corps_ than to
maintain them. The authority given for the unionization of railroad
employees, the stopping of piecework, the creation of shop committees,
weakened the control of the foremen and led to a loss of shop efficiency
which has been estimated at thirty per cent. Government control was
necessary, but in the form in which it came it proved costly.

During the months when manufacturing plants were built and their output
speeded up, when fuel and food were being produced in growing amounts,
when the stalled freight trains were being disentangled, there was
unceasing call for ocean-going tonnage. Food and war materials would be
of little use unless the United States had the ships in which to
transport them across the Atlantic. The Allies sorely needed American
help to replace the tonnage sunk by German submarines; during some
months, Allied shipping was being destroyed at the rate of six million
tons a year. Furthermore if an effective military force were to be
transported to France, according to the plans that germinated in the
summer of 1917, there would be need of every possible cubic inch of
tonnage. The entire military situation hinged upon the shipping problem.
Yet when the United States joined in war on Germany there was not a
shipyard in the country which would accept a new order; every inch of
available space was taken by the navy or private business.

In September, 1916, the United States Shipping Board had been organized
to operate the Emergency Fleet Corporation, which had been set up
primarily to develop trade with South America. This body now prepared a
gigantic programme of shipbuilding, which expanded as the need for
tonnage became more evident. By November 15, 1917, the Board planned for
1200 ships with dead weight tonnage