At this point the semi-governmental Council of National Defense stepped into the breach. Shorn of most of its purely industrial functions, the Council of National Defense had become largely an organ consolidating and directing all volunteer civilian effort in aid of the Government in its war and demobilization problems. It had built up a field service covering the entire United States, consisting principally of the state and local councils of national defense. Meanwhile, with the expansion of the United States Employment Service restricted by lack of money, the Secretary of War made plans to use some of the emergency war funds in the soldier-employment project and called to Washington Colonel Arthur Woods, the former police commissioner of New York City, making him an assistant to the Secretary of War in charge of all war department activities in reëstablishing service men in civil life. The Director of the Council of National Defense created, in March, 1919, its emergency committee on employment of soldiers and sailors, with Colonel Woods as chairman. The membership of the committee linked up the United States Employment Service and other interested governmental bodies in an emergency organization for Colonel Woods to command. The committee also tied in all state and municipal employment agencies, welfare societies everywhere that were taking part in the solution of the employment problem, and also the thousands of community councils of national defense. Thus was evolved in brief time a fairly efficient employment service of national scope. The success of the project was beyond question. The so-called bureaus for discharged soldiers, sailors, and marines were set up in practically every community in the United States. Since the work was so largely voluntary work, no strict system of reports was ever put in force, but the figures from 500 principal American cities and towns showed that when the year 1919 ended, 1,326,000 discharged service men had applied to the employment agencies, and more than 927,000 had been placed in jobs by the organization. A general survey in the autumn of 1919 disclosed only about 20,000 ex-service men out of work.