Some years before our entry into the war a parsimonious Congress reduced the appropriations for the manufacture of small arms and small-arms ammunition to such an extent that it was found necessary to shut down the rifle-plant at the Rock Island Arsenal and to greatly reduce the output of rifles at the Springfield Armory and of cartridges at the Frankford Arsenal. This resulted, as might have been foreseen, in the dispersion of the large force of highly skilled workmen who had been in government employ, most of them seeking occupation with private concerns or turning to other vocations. When, therefore, our entry into the Great War made it necessary to take up the manufacture of small arms and ammunition on an unprecedented scale, the War Department was dismayed to find that it did not have nearly enough workmen, and that, owing to the enormous wages which were then being paid in other industries, it could not get them. Thus it became necessary, in order to obtain an immediate and adequate supply of weapons for the great new armies which we were raising, to enlist the co-operation of private manufacturers. The three leading manufacturers of small arms in this country—the Winchester Repeating Fire Arms Company of New Haven, Conn., the Remington Arms-Union Metallic Cartridge Company of Ilion, N. Y., and the Remington Arms Company of Eddystone, Pa.—were devoting themselves at this time to the manufacture of the British .303 rifle, the production of which, however, due to the decrease in the requirements of the British Government, was gradually slowing down. But, though these plants had every facility for turning out in large quantities the British .303 Enfield, it would have required many months for them to alter their tools and machinery for the manufacture of the .30-calibre Springfield, which was the standard arm of the American service. The Ordnance Department found itself confronted, therefore, by three alternatives. It could change the equipment of these plants so as to permit of the manufacture of Springfield rifles—a proceeding which would have involved a delay of several months; it could adopt the British Enfield, which would also have necessitated the adoption of another calibre of ammunition—an unthinkable thing in time of war; or it could utilize the facilities of these three great plants by modifying the British rifle so that it would take American ammunition. The latter course was decided on.