From this outline it will be seen that the War Department, in striking a balance with war industry, set up within itself what was essentially a system of courts, with a regular procedure and process of appeal and--for such the decisions of the War Department Claims Board came to be--a body of laws and precedents. The court system, however, had the advantage of flexibility, simplicity, and rapidity of action, being hampered by none of the rules and customs that circumscribe the regular courts. The war department courts, if we may call the claims boards that, were courts of conciliation. The claimants partook of their benefits voluntarily. They might, under certain conditions, at any time appeal to the regular federal courts; but there they faced years of litigation before they could reach final settlement. This gave the war department system a great advantage, which the Department utilized to obtain advantageous terms for itself; yet it must be said that the entire liquidation was conducted in a spirit of desire to make the contractors whole for all their expenditures. We are now in a position to understand the unavoidable injury done to the holders of the informal contracts during the first months after the armistice. When the Comptroller of the Treasury ruled that the informal contracts were invalid, he foreclosed the War Department from making any advance settlement payments to these victims of patriotism and haste. Many of them were as heavily obligated financially as the holders of the valid contracts, and their solvency was equally precarious. Yet not a dollar of government money could they receive until the wheels of legislation had ground out authority for the settlement of their claims. Some of their circumstances were particularly distressing. Early in October, 1918, one of the war department bureaus ordered a certain manufacturer to produce 5,000 frames for army trucks on the security that “formal contract will follow.” He was awaiting the arrival of this document to justify him in making commitments for materials when he received an urgent message from Washington beseeching him to make early delivery of the frames. He yielded, and without waiting for the formal contract spent over $500,000 for machinery and materials. The armistice was signed before his formal contract was executed, and then, with his production stopped, he was unable to collect a penny of the money due him. Another man spent $400,000 in the prosecution of a contract, only to find after the armistice that his apparently valid contract had been improperly signed and therefore was classed among the invalid contracts.