"Place a Navy Order" was the direction, and the Navy secured its coal from mines that produced Navy coal at prices that were not excessive. At another time some oil operators, while selling oil to foreign ships, were refusing to deliver any oil to our ships on a naval order. "What shall we do?" asked the officer in charge. "Order the Marines to seize the oil," was the direction. The Marines had the reputation for carrying out orders. It was not necessary for them to take the oil by force, but they were ready to do it if the oil had not been furnished otherwise. These two cases were exceptional and they occurred after the armistice. As a rule, manufacturers and business men and bankers, as well as farmers and mechanics, showed from the moment war began that they, like our soldiers and sailors, had forgotten all selfish interests, all class interests of every kind. While the fighting men in the field gave the world a new conception of democracy, men of affairs were given the opportunity which, with few exceptions, they embraced, of showing to the world that the American's idea of his money, like his idea of his life, was something which was to be freely and ungrudgingly given for his ideals and his country whenever his country called. One of the early supplies that had to be husbanded was coal. At a conference of coal operators held in Washington in the spring of 1917, an agreement was made for Navy coal at reasonable prices, all operators to furnish their fair proportion to meet the needs. In 1916 a board of officers in the Navy Department was named which was an important step in preparedness. Its duties were to get together at frequent intervals, to compare notes, to place on record probable needs and then to find out definitely where the necessary supplies could be obtained, in what quantities and how soon. Its work was most helpful in securing active coöperation all along the line and also in pointing the path--in a very modest way--toward the successful accomplishment of the task which was soon to be faced by the War Industries Board. This commodity-section plan, according to which the War Industries Board effected its own first successful internal organization, originated for naval uses in the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, and, while the War Industries Board rendered most useful and invaluable service to the Navy, such help as was received related solely to priorities and to items of supplies and services of which there was a shortage. So long as supply exceeded or equalled demand and the usual orderly processes of business could consequently function, the Navy's long-established methods of procedure stood the test of war unchanged and unscathed.