_Cincinnati._ Southern Ohio, Indiana, and the South. Was the chief nitrogen-fixation district and the chief producer of smokeless powder. Included Dayton, with 200 factories exclusively engaged in munitions production. Produced tanks, shell, fuses, optical instruments, and machine tools for war factories. District chief, Mr. C. L. Harrison, a Cincinnati capitalist. _St. Louis._ Included southern Indiana and sixteen western states. Produced black walnut, toluol, and picric acid. Chief, Mr. Marvin E. Singleton, former president of the East St. Louis Cotton Oil Company. After the armistice the manufacturing committees in charge of the twelve American ordnance districts became, without essential change in their organization, the ordnance district claims boards. Each board consisted of seven members--business men and at least one lawyer--with such technical assistants as they needed. The first executive act in demobilization for these boards to make was to determine what war contracts were to be terminated immediately, what ones were to be tapered off with a minimum expense to the Government and a minimum disturbance to industry and labor, and what ones were to be carried through to completion. It was often advantageous to allow the contractors to proceed undisturbed. Some of these ordnance supplies, which would be valuable and essential items of our military equipment for years to come, were only just reaching the stage of production in the factories, after many months of costly experiment and preparation. It was obviously unwise to interrupt these projects with nothing to show for them except heavy bills of expenses. Then, too, it was sometimes of financial advantage to the Government to allow a contract to go through to completion. A contractor in the Chicago district, for example, had nearly completed the manufacture of several large machines for installation in an eastern munitions plant. To cancel the contract would have cost the Government $90,000 in a settlement and left on its hands a quantity of semi-finished materials having only junk value. The Government no longer had use for the finished machines; yet it would cost only $14,000 more to go on and complete them. This was done, and the Ordnance Department was later able to sell the machines to a private buyer for more than $100,000, thus recovering practically all the money it paid to the contractor.