In May, 1918, Major-General William L. Sibert, Corps of Engineers, who had commanded the First Division in France, was appointed by the President as director of the Gas Service for the express purpose of reorganizing that service and placing it on a footing commensurate with the importance it was now realized to have. General Sibert promptly took the position that, if he was to assume this responsibility, there could be no further divided control; all gas production and all research work must be in his hands. Ensued then lengthy discussions between the War Department and the Department of the Interior, enlivened by newspaper articles and speeches in Congress, as to whether the research chemists of the Bureau of Mines should pass under military control, but General Sibert’s attitude remained unshaken and, on July 13, 1918, all branches of the work connected with gas warfare were placed under his control as chief of the Chemical Warfare Service, henceforward a complete and separate branch of the army. When the United States entered the war, none of the toxic-gases used by the warring nations, with the exception of chlorine, had been prepared in this country except on a very small scale and as laboratory experiments. The War Department was faced, therefore, with the immediate problem, not only of developing methods for the manufacture of these gases on a large scale, but also of putting these methods into execution. Gases, the preparation of which even in very small quantities was prohibited in many laboratories on account of their highly dangerous character and which, for the same reason, the Railroad Administration refused to transport except by special trains, were now to be produced by the thousands of tons. But how? There was no suitable machinery for the purpose to be had in the United States; everything must be designed and built to order. And where were the thousands of workmen who would be required to come from? Why should a man exchange the safety of a shipyard, where he was getting undreamed-of wages, for the perils of making poison-gas? It was indeed a stupendous problem which the government was facing. Yet there was no time to mull the question over, as a judge mulls over a point of law, for every day brought word of an increasing use of gas by the Germans.