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.