These district organizations, in immediate contact as they were with the producers, comprised an organization ready built for the delicate work of terminating war industry. Washington might fix policies and specify the classes of supplies the production of which was to be stopped and the sorts which were to be produced after the armistice in full or curtailed quantities. It was for the district administrations to say how the terminations and reductions should be carried out. Consequently, after the armistice the organizations in charge of the manufacturing districts were changed over into what were variously known as district claims boards and district boards of review. Whatever they were called by the bureaus creating them, their duties were essentially the same--to terminate contracts by mutual consent, to agree with the producers upon the terms of settlement, to take over in the name of the War Department such finished products, raw and semi-finished materials, machinery, buildings, and other equipment as became government property under the terms of the settlements, and to dispose of the materials thus taken over, some being selected for permanent retention among the nation’s war assets, some being turned over to other branches of the Government which could make use of them, and others being disposed of by sale. To assist it in this work, each district board maintained a subsidiary organization known as the district salvage board, which collected the government property and disposed of it. To supervise this field activity, each procurement bureau of the War Department established at headquarters in Washington a superior board known as the bureau claims board. Each of these supervisory boards, in turn, created as an adjunct to itself a bureau salvage board, which maintained executive control over the district salvage boards. For several weeks there was no specific executive agency to direct the work of this organization, except that all the bureau and district boards were under the general authority of the Director of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic. He unified and controlled their work through what were known as supply circulars, a medium of administration which had come into great importance after the creation of the Division of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic. Through the supply circulars the administration of war industry issued its general and class directions to the production bureaus. The standard contract provisions, for instance, had been brought to the attention of the contracting officers by publication in the supply circulars. The series of supply circulars thus came to be the code of unified army supply.