From June go, 1919, until the files were placed in the cus tody of the Archives, they shrank to less than a quarter of their former bulk — partly because of the ministrations of the Use less Papers Committee and partly for unexplained reasons. But the papers that remain — hundreds of thousands of them — provide an historical source of the first importance to the American people. Letters, memoranda, cablegrams, printed documents, Military and Naval Intelligence reports, slides, movie films, posters — all these are waiting to tell their story.