Hanging always over the heads of the board was the menace of a leather shortage, and its members lay awake nights devising plans by which such a calamity could be averted. To illustrate the seriousness of the situation, it was estimated in July, 1918, that in another twelvemonth something like 13,000,000 hides would be required for the use of the army alone. As this is the entire output of hides in the United States, it was realized that were the war to continue through the winter, there would be no leather left in the United States by spring. Faced by this critical situation, the board called to its aid the foremost tanners, shoe and harness manufacturers in the country, and it was due to their services in checking up the figures submitted by the trade, in keeping down the manufacture of non-essential articles, in unearthing thitherto unsuspected sources of leather supply, and in introducing more economical methods of cutting, that during the latter months of the war the army rarely lacked for leather equipment. I have already told how great economies in the consumption of leather were effected by the substitution of cotton webbing in the manufacture of certain articles. During the second spring of the war the women of America suddenly found that they were no longer able to obtain the extremely high-topped boots which were then the fashion, while men had to content themselves with plain instead of “wing” tipped shoes. The leather thus saved was used in the manufacture of footwear, gloves, and jerkins for the men who were offering their lives in the trenches in order that the people at home who wore the high-topped boots and the wing-tipped shoes might continue to live in safety. Many persons have wondered why officers serving in the United States were not authorized to wear the Sam Browne belt. I can give them one of the reasons. It was because the necessary leather could not be spared for a purpose which was, after all, purely ornamental. As a result of this admirable system of supervision and control the Quartermaster Corps was not only able to fill with reasonable promptness the requirements of our troops overseas, but when the Armistice was signed, it had enough leather equipment, either manufactured or in process of manufacture, to supply an army of 5,000,000 men.