"The Government of the United States is the only great government now engaged in the war which has not already assumed control of this sort. It was thought to be in the spirit of American institutions to attempt to do everything that was necessary through private management, and if zeal and ability and patriotic motive could have accomplished the necessary unification of administration, it would certainly have been accomplished; but no zeal or ability could overcome insuperable obstacles, and I have deemed it my duty to recognize that fact in all candor now that it is demonstrated and to use without reserve the great authority reposed in me. A great national necessity dictated the action, and I was therefore not at liberty to abstain from it." The Government undertook to guarantee to each company such net earnings as would amount to the ascertained average of the three-year period ending with June, 1917. The rights of stockholders and bondholders and other creditors of the railroads were not to be impaired by the change in control, and the roads were to be kept in as good repair and equipment as when taken over. For their upkeep and betterment the President sought an appropriation of $500,000,000 from Congress. The Secretary of the Treasury, William G. McAdoo, was appointed director general. His first act was to order that all terminals, ports, locomotives, rolling stock and other transportation facilities be utilized in the common cause of serving the country. By this course he ended all railroad compacts apportioning the distribution of traffic, and pooled the terminals for the common use of all carriers whose lines or cars could reach them. Meantime a coal famine, due to freight congestion of unexampled proportions, had been gradually developing. At the beginning of December the country, except in the northwest, faced a serious shortage of fuel, not through lack of coal, but through lack of means to transport it. Dr. H. A. Garfield, the Federal Fuel Administrator, took steps to have coal and coke given the right of way over general freight, which in turn was subordinate to the transit of actual war supplies. Traffic priority of coal shipments was the remedy sought to loosen the congestion of coal cars at mines and terminals. But sufficient coal did not reach the various points of distribution for normal winter use, nor, what was as serious, for war purposes. It was solely a transportation problem, involving a general freight problem, and its solution would also solve the fuel problem. The navy and factories alone required 100,000,000 tons more than they needed before, and could get little above half that quantity. There came an imperative call for fuel economy from Dr. Garfield, who warned the country that unless it could save 50,000,000 tons by retrenchment, the Government would have to stop the operation of nonessential industries where coal was a big factor in order to apply the use of fuel so saved for essential war industries.