The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-04-23
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
FREDERIC }. HASKIN. Director.
Washington, D. c

Washington, d. c.. April 90
There is a good man with shovel
in the office of the quartermaster
general A decade ago he was en-
gagged upon the task of cutting two
continents apart and in SO doing
George w. Goethals is the name and
| in the army he ranks as major
general. By instinct and training he
iS-an autocrat.
There are jobs in the world which
require such men. Executing the
greatest engineering enterprise since
time began and in jungle land was
| one Roosevelt appreciated the need
and found the man. The Gar of
Panama got results. The canal is in
operation.
Then for a time. one of the best
executives in the world was out of
job. Last year the government at
tempted to use his talents in the vast
task of getting ships. But he shared
authority with another man. dead
lock ensued and the president re-
moved both men. Goethais, trained
as soldier, took his orders and said
nothing.
There was then chaos in the war
depa rtment among those agencies
which supplied the armies in training
and the ARMIES in France. Who
could penetrate this tangled jungle
of red tape, drain the miasmic swamps
of inaction, provide a clear channel
thru which purchases for the army
might flow?
Someone thought of Goethals. He
was made paymaster anu actlns
| quartermaster general with a degree
| of authority never before given man
| in those positions. To this assignment
were added the title and task of de-
! pot uuartermaster, and the new place
and title of director of storage and
| traffice for all the armies.
| General GoethalS now has task
| greater than that of digging Pana-
ma Canal In it's execution he spends
as much in month as he spends in
Panama in year.
And things are looking different
around the war department. Many
| official heads have fallen. The quar-
termasters corps has offered ref
uge, zone of safety. to so many men
who covet the distinction of military
| handle to their names but banker not
for the land of the whiz-bang and the
carry on. The Goethals regime is an
unhappy time for them.
| But to get at what Cocktails job is
like. In the first place he is pay
! master for more than million men.
He is also their grocer, baker. butcher,
cobbler. laundryman and tailor.
For maintenance alone he must
every year buy 100000 blankets, g.
| 900 900 breeches, 100000 coats, 34,-
| 600, 600 pairs of socks.
| Then. of course. a million men eat
| a lot of chow. 1t takes innalnerab BILE
| kettles in which to cook it, motors
to haul it, fuel to drive them. Alto
gether there are 5000 separate and
! distinct articles that must be bought
for the army. Goethals buys them all.
| This one-man purchasing plan is
| new. 1t was created by an executive
order of the 9th of February. Pre-
lxrio hot
corps, the engineering corps, the
| signal corps, the medical corps, and
the quartermaster corps, each bought
for itself. Each went into the mar
ket and bid against the other One
| bureau had been known to COM
mandeer supplies to prevent another
bureau in the same department from
| getting them. Congress had made the
bureaus Independent of each other
and the development of jealousies was
but natural. In buying independently
each bureau acted in accordance with
| the letter and intent of the legislation
| making it's appropriations. 1t was
this lack of coordination in purchas-
| ing that caused soldiers to go without
coats, citizens to protest and senators
| to investigate.
The method of purchase was pre-
scribed by law but the president of
| the United States, as commander in
chief of the army, may go a long way
| /
TINS situation the president delegated
authority to his secretary of war and
| that official again transferred it to
! the general staff as a military neces-
sity. So, on February 9. the whole
matter of control of buying for all
the bureaus was given to the general
staff which placed it in a division
under Gen. Palmer E. Pierce To this
division was brought Edward r.
Stetinius, formerly of Morgan & Co.
He was given the title of surveyor
general of purchases.
All Of this means that the war de-
partment now buys its supplies thru
the quartermaster general who has
the best civilian advice obtainable
Another rivalry that existed be-
tween the different bureaus of. the
army during the first eight. months
of the war, and which is being elm
mated by letting George Gin this case
Goethals) do it, is that of facilitating
the shipment and storage of supplies
for all. Formerly the bureaus ran
races with each other for cars and
promptly filled them and shuttled
them to terminal points. There might
or might not be warehouse capacity
many instances of cars standing on
side tracks, creating congestion. when
their contents were sorely needed
Here again the general staff was the
instrument of reform. The secretary
gave it power to represent him in the
control of storage and traffic General
, Goethals was member of the general
staff. He was made director of stor-
age and traffic
Whenever there is an elevator full
of wheat, or warehouse full of timed
meats, or a cantonment full of re-
cruits fit to fight, and General Perish
ing wants the material transferred
? from over here to over there. 1t is
: General Goethals who hires the rail-
road cars for the first stage of the
; journey and the ships for the second.
. Auxiliary to the task of moving all
these supplies is that of storing them
The army has a depot quartermaster
who is in charge of production depots
La he NJ 81