American Railway Association. Special Committee on National Defense.

With the entry of the United States into World War I, the American Railway Association established a Special Committee on National Defense to handle all relations between the railroad industry and the federal government. The management of the Special Committee was in turn entrusted to an Executive Committee consisting of Samuel Rea, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company; Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore ? Fairfax Harrison, president of the Southern Railway Company; Howard Elliott, president of the New Haven; Hale Holden, president of the Burlington; and Julius Kruttschnitt, chairman of the Southern Pacific. The committee struggled with the increased volume of traffic bound for Atlantic ports and other war-related dislocations. However, conditions worsened, and at the end of the year, the government took over the operations of the entire rail system through the United States Railroad Administration.