"All that must be rebuilt, and to carry out that kind of reconstruction only, there will be a need of over 2,000,000 tons of pig iron, nearly 4,000,000 tons of steel--not to mention the replenishing of stocks and of raw materials which must of necessity be supplied to the plants during the first year of resumed activity. If we take into account these different items, we reach as regards industrial needs a total of 25,000,000,000 francs. To resurrect these regions, to reconstruct these factories, raw materials are not now sufficient; we need means of transportation. The enemy has destroyed our railroad tracks, our railroad equipment, and our rolling stock, which, in the first month of the war, in 1914, reduced by 50,000 cars, has undergone the wear and tear of fifty months of war. "Our merchant fleet, on the other hand, has lost more than a million tons through submarine warfare. Our shipyards during the last four years have not built any ships. For they have produced for us and for our Allies cannon, ammunition, and tanks. Here, again, for this item alone of means of transportation we must figure on an expense of 2,500,000,000 francs. This makes, if I sum up these different items, a need of raw material which represents in cost, at the present rate of prices in France, not less than 50,000,000,000 francs." IV--GOVERNMENT CONTROL Wartime Nationalization of Railways and Shipping--Ship-building at High Speed--Trade Licensing, Etc. On April 5, 1917, the day before war was declared, Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, introduced and had passed by the Council of National Defense the following resolution: _Resolved_, That Commissioner Willard be requested to call upon the railroads to organize their business so as to lead to the greatest expedition in the movement of freight. Acting in accordance with this resolution, the principal railroad executives of the country met in Washington on April 11, 1917, and resolved that during the war they would coördinate their operations in a continental railway system, merging during such period all their merely individual and competitive activities in the effort to produce a maximum of national transportation efficiency. The direction of the continental railway system thus organized was placed by the railroads in the hands of the executive committee of the Special Committee on National Defense of the American Railway Association. This executive committee was also known as the Railroads' War Board. Under this resolution the railroads of the United States continued to be operated under private ownership and private management until December 28, 1917. On that date President Wilson, exercising his war-time prerogative, took control of the railways of the country and appointed W. G. McAdoo Director General. 2. Congress in January passed a railroad-control bill.