Men of trade, industry, engineering, of all manner of business and professional life willingly agreed to the curtailment, even the complete stopping of their own affairs if the Government needed their services, their supply of coal, or their raw materials for its war production, or turned to its uses the ships in which they were accustomed to import or export their goods. In and out of the various committees, boards and administrations that directed the country’s business life for war purposes went a constant stream of these men, anxious only to serve their country and ready to make any sacrifice for America’s sake. “Tell me what you want, let me know what I can do, and I’ll do it,” was their unvarying appeal. Every official and every civilian in the temporary service of the Government who came into contact with the business and professional men of the country will bear witness to the patriotic and self-sacrificing spirit that was shown by them from the moment the nation entered the war. Over and over again these officials, permanent and temporary, have said to the writer of this book, in answer to her inquiry as to the spirit of those of whom they had had to ask sacrifices of this sort: “They’ve been splendid”--“Their spirit couldn’t have been finer and more patriotic”--“My experiences with them have made me prouder than ever to be an American and a fellow citizen of such men.” Great numbers of these men, scores of them, leaders in all kinds of business, experts in technical and engineering fields, gave up their high-salaried positions or left their offices in charge of subordinates and offered their services to the Government. It was a war in which the scientific expert at home, the man of business, the engineer, was of equal consequence with the fighting man and the sum of the ability, the knowledge and the experience thus put into the hands of the Government could not have been purchased at its market value for millions of dollars. As the Government is forbidden to accept free service they were paid a nominal sum and were known as “The Government’s dollar-a-year men.” Putting their own affairs aside they worked with zeal, long hours and incessantly, drawing upon their knowledge and their connections, making engagements and holding conferences indifferently for noon or midnight, that the nation might get itself upon a war footing quickly and efficiently and make its war stroke mighty and decisive. The chairman of one of the Government boards who had come in contact with many of these men and was familiar with their private position and importance in the business world estimated that they were sacrificing profits and salaries that would aggregate as much as $30,000,000 per year.