New York Times
PRESIDENT NAMES DEFENSE
ADVISERS.
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Board of Seven to Act with National Council Is Headed by Daniel Willard.
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SAMUEL GOMPERS A MEMBER
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Bernard Baruch and Julius Rosenwald Among others Appointed — Executive Explains
Their Duties.
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Special to The New York Times.
ON BOARD THE PRESIDENT’S TRAIN, HARRISBURG, Penn., October 11 — President Wilson made public tonight the names of seven men whom he has appointed members of an Advisory Commission to be associated with the Council of National Defense, created at the last session of Congress with an appropriation of $200,000. The men who make up the commission are distinguished in wholly different fields of activity, and it is known that the President had this in mind in naming them. The list follows:
Daniel Willard of Baltimore, President of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad.
Samuel Gompers of Washington, President of the American
Federation of Labor.
Dr. Franklin H. Martin of Chicago.
Howard E. Coffin of Detroit.
Bernard Baruch, the New York banker.
Dr. Hollis Godfrey of Philadelphia.
Julius Rosenwald of Chicago, President of Sears, Roebuck & Co.
Dr. Martin is a distinguished surgeon who was recommended by the Affiliated Medical Societies of the country. Howared E. Coffin has long been active in the American Automobile Association, and Mr. Wilson is known to regard him as a man who has done much toward co-ordinating the automobile industry for service in time of national emergency. Dr. Godfery is a prominent engineer, who gave up his private practice to assume the Presidency of Drexel Institute in Philadelphia.
In announcing the appointments, the President issued the following statement:
The Council of National Defense has been created because the Congress has realized that the country is best prepared for war when thoroughly prepared for peace. From an economic point of view there is now very little difference between the machinery required for commercial efficiency and that required for military purposes. In both cases the whole industrial mechanism must be organized in the most effective way. Upon this conception of the national welfare the council is organized, in the words of the act, for "the creation of relations which will render possible in time of need the immediate concentration and utilization of the resources of the nation."
The organization of the Council likewise opens up a new and direct channel of communication and co-operation between business and scientific men and all departments of the Government, and it is hoped that it will, in addition, become a rallying point for civic bodies working for the national defense. The Council’s chief functions are:
1. The co-ordination of all forms of transportation and the development of means of transportation to meet the military, industrial and commercial needs of the nation.
2. The extension of the industrial mobilization work of the Committee on Industrial Preparedness of the Naval Consulting Board. Complete information as to our present manufacturing and producing facilities adaptable to the many-sided uses of modern warfare will be procured, analyzed and made use of.
One of the objects of the council will be to inform American manufacturers as to the part they can and must play in national emergency. It is empowered to establish at once and maintain through subordinate bodies of specially qualified persons an auxiliary organization composed of men of the best creative and administrative capacity, capable of mobilizing to the utmost the resources of the country.
The personnel of the council’s advisor members, appointed without regard to party, marks the entrance of the non-partisan engineer and professional man into American governmental affairs on a wider scale than ever before. It is responsive to the increased demand for and need of business organization in public matters and for the presence there of the best specialists in their respective fields. In the present instance, the time of some of the members of the Advisory Board could not be purchased. They serve the Government without remuneration, efficiency being their sole object and Americanism their only motive.
