Looking back at it now, the mere suggestion of waiving competition--and thereby striking at the very foundation of the system--brings a smile of incredulity. But it was no joke at the time. Scarcely had war been declared when requests came from a number of quarters for authority "to cut red tape" by doing away with competition, the argument being advanced that deliveries could thereby be expedited and important work accelerated. The idea was not easy to suppress, because its many advocates really believed they were right and insisted upon convincing superior authority. The answer was that competition was bound to speed things up rather than retard them and that, in any event, the responsible officials in Washington had given the matter due consideration and decided definitely and finally that competition must continue uninterruptedly, as to everything except where the demand so largely exceeded the supply as to compel priority orders. The record of the commissary branch--and this applies to the hundreds of thousands of soldiers transported overseas and back as well as the half-million men within the Navy itself--was one of unqualified success from first to last and one of which the service has good reason to be proud. Never were men in uniform so well fed or was so much attention paid to a balanced and abundant ration. "Only the best (with no substitute said to be 'equally as good'), is good enough for our fighting men," was the motto of Rear Admiral Samuel McGowan, Chief of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, and his capable assistants, who took the greatest pride in seeing that men in the service never even knew, except by reading in the papers, that Government restriction was put upon the quantity and kind of food for civilians. With respect to the forwarding of supplies of every description to the forces abroad, an intra-bureau order issued by Admiral McGowan in July, 1917, directed that every wish of the senior naval officer in European waters should be complied with on the same day that it became known--indeed that the discretion vested in the Chief of the Bureau of Supplies was already exercised when the needs of European forces were made known. When the armistice was signed and demobilization followed, there was on hand a quantity of supplies in excess of prospective needs. The same supply officers, who had so capably provided for the Navy's wants during hostilities, promptly inaugurated a selling campaign; and, on the first $70,000,000 worth of surplus thus disposed of, the Government realized a net profit of more than three millions.