I take it for granted that the Congress will carry out the naval programme which was undertaken before we entered the war.  The Secretary of the Navy has submitted to your Committees for authorization that part of the programme which covers the building plans of the next three years.  These plans have been prepared along the lines and in accordance with the policy which the Congress established, not under the exceptional conditions of the war, but with the intention of adhering to a definite method of development for the navy.  I earnestly recommend the uninterrupted pursuit of that policy.  It would clearly be unwise for us to attempt to adjust our programmes to a future world policy as yet undetermined.

The question which causes me the greatest concern is the question of the policy to be adopted towards the railroads.  I frankly turn to you for counsel upon it.  I have no confident judgment of my own.  I do not see how any thoughtful man can have who knows anything of the complexity of the problem.  It is a problem which must be studied, studied immediately, and studied without bias or prejudice.  Nothing can be gained by becoming partisans of any particular plan of settlement.

It was necessary that the administration of the railways should be taken over by the Government so long as the war lasted.  It would have been impossible otherwise to establish and carry through under a single direction the necessary priorities of shipment.  It would have been impossible otherwise to combine maximum production at the factories and mines and farms with the maximum possible car supply to take the products to the ports and markets; impossible to route troop shipments and freight shipments without regard to the advantage or-disadvantage of the roads employed; impossible to subordinate, when necessary, all questions of convenience to the public necessity; impossible to give the necessary financial support to the roads from the public treasury.  But all these necessities have now been served, and the question is, What is best for the railroads and for the public in the future?

Exceptional circumstances and exceptional methods of administration were not needed to convince us that the railroads were not equal to the immense tasks of transportation imposed upon them by the rapid and continuous development of the industries of the country.  We knew that already.  And we knew that they were unequal to it partly because their full cooperation was rendered impossible by law and their competition made obligatory, so that it has been impossible to assign to them severally the traffic which could best be carried by their respective lines in the interest of expedition and national economy.