To be sure, the departmental heads might have adopted the policy of canceling the contracts outright; but such a course would have meant ruin for many manufacturers, it would have thrown into the courts a mass of litigation that would have congested them for the next two generations, and it would have shattered the faith of business in the Government and rendered difficult all governmental contracting in the future. Instead of that, the war department heads adopted the shrewd measure of requesting the producers to suspend work on their contracts. They made termination a voluntary act on the part of the contractor. It is obvious that it was fully as much to the interest of the producers as to that of the Government to liquidate the war business amicably and, it may be said, inexpensively, since these very men would be the ones called upon to contribute most heavily in taxes to the payment of the war debt. Nevertheless, it was greatly to the credit of American business men that their response to the general request to terminate war contracts was nearly unanimous. There was scarcely one who stood on his full legal rights. The business of industrial demobilization was largely that of negotiating with the individual producers as to the terms under which they would consent to terminate their contracts. When the terms were adopted, they were written into the original contracts as supplemental agreements and thus given legal force. The decision which resulted in this procedure was one of the great administrative acts of the War Government. It saved billions of dollars to the Government and it sent the war producers away fairly well content with the treatment they had received.