Now, for instance, take this. All this is preliminary but it is very important. Let me talk about human nature in connection with this matter of taking order,—this matter of jealousy of prerogative. I sometimes think we ought all to take a course of study in human nature. I sometimes think that while in the A. E. F. charged by the Commander-in-Chief with this same job of coordinating separated services, the independent services of the Army in connection with the unified business plan of the A. E. F., and afterwards in trying to couple up the allies in the same line of endeavor, I had a better chance than most people to see in its full majesty,—if you choose to look at it that way—that desire for absolute independence,—that willingness to subordinate practically everything on earth to hold power which is characteristic of human nature. When you have to approach independent power, to induce voluntary surrender, I have found you might as well give it up in advance. There is nothing a man holds to like this right to exercise power, and the best illustration of that is shown by the fact that the greatest war of all ages was fought for four years without a central command. Napoleon’s 44th maxim in war was that nothing is more important in war than a unified command, under one chief. Everybody knew it, but it was not until the unnecessary loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars worth of material that Great Britain bent its pride and accepted that plain, common-sense provision of unified command of the allies under Foch. Not until the fourth year of the war when the allied cause faced annihilation was such a plain, common-sense provision as that for central command possible to be made for the allies, and the certainty of annihilation alone made it possible. Now do you think it is any different in connection with the independent jurisdiction of these Government Departments, from the independent services of the Army? They talked in the past about Interdepartmental Boards, to correct this old chaos, when they had no Executive leadership. An effort was made from time to time by Interdepartmental Boards, acting as a committee without relinquishment of the independent authority represented to undertake some of these reforms, the necessity of which everybody saw. Nothing was ever done to amount to anything. Why? They would meet together and talk and outline the situation and necessity for action until some question came up where somebody was going to lose control of something or a part of his jurisdiction by some coordinated action for the benefit of the whole Government. Then immediately the whole thing died out and nothing was accomplished practically by any Interdepartmental Board, where anything vital had to be given up by one of the independent members of it, whose jurisdiction and power would be cut down in the interest of the common plan of the Government.