Here again, in considering the war contracts, we stumble once more across the trail of this faulty organization. The war contracts were practically as diverse in their provisions and types as the Government’s contracting agencies were numerous; and here it should be noted that some of the main procurement bureaus were in turn subdivided into smaller purchasing agencies, each of which drew its war contracts according to its own lights. About all the early war contracts had in common were the legal provisions protecting the Government against fraud and graft. There was no such thing as a standard contract, and no uniformity anywhere. The Government was being obligated in contracts to the tune of billions by contracting officers almost out of touch with the responsible heads of the administration. The Government was soon forced to take cognizance of this state of affairs. In the spring of 1917 the Secretary of Commerce convened the so-called Interdepartmental Conference to consider the war contracts--the first attempt to bring harmony into the confused business situation. To the conference came the representatives of the various departments, boards, and administrations interested in contracts, and to the sessions of the conference also the opponents of the cost-plus contract brought their objections to it. There were those who held it almost solely responsible for the great increase in costs of all sorts during 1917. It was soon evident to the conferees, however, that the cost-plus contract had come to stay in the war business, regardless of its obvious dangers and disadvantages. If an evil, it was a necessary one. True, the Government could still go into fixed-price contracts for the procurement of many important war supplies. These were such supplies as food, clothing, and tools--commodities essentially like those produced and consumed in time of peace. The producers of these commodities were not perplexed by costs; their facilities and processes were ready to begin production; and therefore the War Department could, and did until the end of hostilities (except when shortages made it necessary to deal with single responsible manufacturers in order to gain early deliveries), procure such supplies on fixed-price contracts let after competitive bidding. But such supplies, although they bulked large in the cash balance, contributed little to the solution of the main munitions problem. It was in the production of artillery, of airplanes and airplane engines, of ammunition, of explosives, even of buildings in which to house the war department enterprises, that the cost-plus contract had become a necessity.