On April 7, 1917, the Council directed Chairman Willard of the Advisory Commission to call upon the railroads so to organize their business as to lead to the greatest expedition in the movement of freight and troops. The response of the railroads was literally splendid. Their executives came to Washington, conferred with Mr. Willard, and passed the following resolution: RESOLVED, That the railroads of the United States, acting through their chief executive officers here and now assembled and stirred by a high sense of their opportunity to be of the greatest service to their country in the present national crisis, do hereby pledge themselves, with the Government of the United States, with the governments of the several States, and one with another, that during the present war they will 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. To this end they hereby agree to create an organization which shall have general authority to formulate in detail and from time to time a policy of operation of all or any of the railways, which policy, when and as announced by such temporary organization, shall be accepted and earnestly made effective by the several managements of the individual railroad companies here represented. COÖPERATING COMMITTEES The first of July, 1917, found the Council and Advisory Commission directing the operation of the following boards and committees: Aircraft Production Board. Committee on Coal Production. Commercial Economy Board. Woman's Committee. General Munitions Board with its sub-committees on Army Vehicles, Armored Cars, Emergency Construction and Contracts, Optical Glass, Storage Facilities, Machine Guns, Priority, and Accounting. Munitions Standards Board with its sub-committees on Gauges and Dies, Army and Navy Artillery, Fuses and Detonators, Small Arms and Munitions, Optical Instruments, and Army and Navy Projectiles. Section on Coöperation with States. Committee on Inland Waterways. Committee on Telegraphs and Telephones. Committee on Railroad Transportation, with which acted an executive committee made up of leading railroad presidents and six departmental committees composed likewise of railroad executives and paralleling the military departments over the country, and sub-committees on Express, Car Service, Military Equipment Standards, Military Transportation Accounting, Military Passenger Tariffs, Military Freight Tariffs, and Materials and Supplies.