Seated--Secretary Daniels. Standing (left to right):--Maj. Gen. George Barnett, Commandant U. S. Marine Corps; Capt. W. C. Watts, Judge Advocate General; Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy; Rear Admiral Samuel McGowan, Paymaster General, Chief of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts; Rear Admiral Robert S. Griffin, Engineer-in-Chief, Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering; Rear Admiral David W. Taylor, Chief Constructor, Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair; Admiral William S. Benson, Chief of Naval Operations; Rear Admiral Ralph Earle, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance; Commander H. G. Sparrow, Naval Aide to the Secretary; Rear Admiral Charles W. Parks, Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks; Rear Admiral Leigh C. Palmer, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation; Rear Admiral William C. Braisted, Surgeon General, Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.] [Illustration: A FRIENDLY BOUT Spectators on the U. S. S. Bushnell are having as much fun as the boxers.] [Illustration: SCHOOL HOUR ABOARD A BATTLESHIP] It was in accordance with this policy, and at my direction, that the General Board developed the continuous building program, comprising 157 war vessels, later known as the "three-year program," which was authorized by Congress in the next naval appropriation act. Presented in my annual report for 1915, it was strongly urged by President Wilson in his message to Congress, and he sounded the keynote in his speech at St. Louis, February 3, 1916, when he declared: "There is no other Navy in the world that has to cover so great an area of defense as the American Navy, and it ought, in my judgment, to be incomparably the most adequate Navy in the world." With all the Navy striving to build up and expand the service, I turned attention to other forces that might be utilized. War had become a science; inventions were playing a vastly greater part than ever before, and on July 7, 1915, I wrote to Mr. Thomas A. Edison, suggesting the formation of a board of eminent inventors and scientists, and asking if he would consent to become its head. The idea appealed to Mr. Edison, as it did to the various scientific and engineering societies, and in a few weeks the Naval Consulting Board became a reality. Composed of men of eminence and distinction, this was the first of those organizations of patriotic civilians which, when war came, rendered such signal service to the nation. This board began in 1915 a survey of all the country's industries and resources which might be employed, in case of war, for the production of munitions and supplies, and the thousand and one things required by armies and navies.