William G. McAdoo to Woodrow Wilson

I have just received your letter of February 28th in which you say that you do not agree with me about the paragraph in the War Industries Board reorganization, referred to in my letter of February 27th.

If what you have in mind is the constitution of a committee which will determine the question of priority of deliveries as between the various governmental departments and agencies but will not determine priorities of transportation, I see no objection, but it will be impossible for me or anyone to run the railroads successfully if an outside committee undertakes to determine priorities of transportation, because that is the power to operate the railroads themselves. The railroads are suffering today from the effort of outside agencies to do this very thing.

I should be very happy, therefore, if you would modify the paragraph in the War Industries Board reorganization to which I have referred, so as to make it clear that after priorities of delivery have been determined upon, priorities of transportation must be dealt with by the Director General of Railroads. As the paragraph now stands I think it is susceptible to the construction that the proposed committee will determine priorities of transportation.

The plan will be workable if this is done.