Now it was realized, from the very beginning, that the success of our armies in France would depend upon transportation. And, thanks to the threats of Pancho Villa, we had at least the framework of a transportation organization, for when it became necessary to send troops to the Mexican border in 1916, the War Department had organized a transportation service of sorts and had placed Samuel M. Felton, president of the Chicago Great Western Railway, at the head of it. Thus it came about that upon our entrance into the Great War there devolved upon Mr. Felton and his staff the gigantic task of obtaining in the United States and shipping to Europe the enormous quantity of transportation equipment and supplies required for the use of our forces overseas. In order to ascertain just what was required in equipment and supplies, a commission, headed by Colonel William Barclay Parsons, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and Colonel (then Major) W. J. Wilgus, formerly vice-president of the New York Central system, was sent to Europe within less than thirty days after the declaration of war. Upon the completion of its preliminary survey of the situation the commission dispersed, leaving Colonel Wilgus as the sole nucleus of the American Transportation Service in France, with Captain L. A. Jenney, formerly chief draftsman of the New York Central, as his assistant. Sitting on soap-boxes in an office in the Boulevard Haussman in Paris, with packing-cases for desks, these two officers outlined the general policy with respect to military transportation for the A. E. F. which the conditions seemed to warrant, and which General Pershing later adopted, and drew up the first requisition for railway and port equipment, materials, and tools. Colonel Wilgus, himself a veteran railroad man, quickly realized the vastness of the problem which confronted us and the gravity of the situation resulting from the dilapidated condition of the French railways and the appalling shortage of French rolling-stock. He accordingly informed the War Department that the American Army must prepare to operate its own trains, made up of its own locomotives and cars, from the seaports to the front, over the French railways under trackage rights. I might add that the principle of trackage rights, so familiar in America, was entirely unknown in France, and at first the French railway officials did not know what Colonel Wilgus was talking about, for they found it difficult to understand how it was possible to operate two systems of transportation over the same tracks at the same time.