And so it worked out. The market, indeed, proved itself to be able to absorb the surplus animals, and prices even grew better as the sales progressed. The average price paid was $111 a head, or about 57 per cent of the original average cost of $192. On the other hand, the Government escaped paying heavy maintenance charges. All the animals were sold at public auctions, 189 of which were held at thirty-nine different places. Great crowds of buyers attended the sales, most of which were held at camps where the animals were quartered. The local post exchanges sold sandwiches and other refreshments to the buyers. Although the Government guaranteed no animals, all of them were carefully examined for blemishes and defects before the sales, and their demerits were noted in the lists read by the auctioneers. The Government could not afford to gain a David Harum reputation as a horse trader, for it had too many animals to sell. If dissatisfaction arose from the earlier sales, it would adversely affect the later ones. Only five complaints from buyers were made after the sales. These were referred to the Purchase Claims Board for settlement. The Government invested $74,000,000 in animals bought in America during the war. Its net loss on animals sold was $22,000,000, and on animals that died, $6,000,000. The best of the animals on hand after the armistice were retained for use by the permanent Army. CHAPTER XVI BUILDINGS AND LANDS One of the major industrial activities conducted in the United States during the war was the construction of buildings for the Army. The Army’s physical plant, as it existed on the day war was declared, was entirely inadequate for the forces to be mobilized--so inadequate as to be of almost no use at all. Even the old headquarters of the War Department in Washington, which formerly had housed practically all the administrative offices, were none too large to accommodate merely the office staffs of the Secretary of War and his principal assistants, so great was the expansion of the central administration; and as for the tens of thousands of officers, clerks, stenographers, messengers, and other _personnel_ employed by the great producing and operating bureaus, they occupied literally miles of flimsy, unsightly “war buildings,” which spread out like a defacing rash over the fair open spaces of the capital city.