Harry A. Garfield, son of the Republican President, was made Fuel Administrator, and Mr. Herbert Hoover, now a candidate for President, on a platform, of unadulterated Republicanism, was nominated as head of the Food Administration. The Council of National Defense was an organization of high importance and one of tremendous influence from a partisan standpoint, yet its executive body was divided as follows: Republicans—Howard E. Coffin, Julius Rosenwald, Dr. Hollis Godfrey, Dr. Franklin Martin, Walter S. Gifford, Director; Democrats—Daniel Willard and Bernard M. Baruch; Independent—Samuel Gompers. No sooner had the war begun than the preliminary war work of the President began to bear fruit. Within a month from the declaration of war the traditional policy of the nation was reversed, by the enactment of the Selective Service Act. A vast machinery of registration was created that ran without a hitch, and on June 5th more than 10,000,000 men were registered quickly and efficiently. Thirty-two encampments—virtual cities, since each had to house 40,000 men—were built in ninety days from the driving of the first nail, complete in every municipal detail, a feat declared impossible, and which will stand for all time as a building miracle. In June, scarcely two months after the President's appearance before Congress, General Pershing and his staff reached France, and on July 3rd the last of four groups of transports landed American fighting men in the home of La Fayette and Rochambeau. On October 10th our soldiers went on the firing-line. Training camps for officers started in June, and in August there were graduated 27,341 successful aspirants, ready to assume the tasks of leadership. In a notable speech, confidential in character, the President on the 8th day of April, 1918, addressed the foreign correspondents at the White House concerning "our resolutions" and "actions in the war." The speech was as follows: I am very glad to have this opportunity to meet you. Some of you I have met before, but not all. In what I am going to say I would prefer that you take it in this way, as for the private information of your minds and not for transmission to anybody, because I just want, if I may, in a few words to create a background for you which may be serviceable to you. I speak in confidence.