The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-08-04
BENEFITS DERIVED
FROM THE WAR
VITAL SOUTHERN AND NATION
AL OPPORTUNITY TO BE
UTILIZED.
Manufacturers Record.)

business of the East and much of the
West is being lifted to a new plane
by the vast expansion of plants under
way in order to fill foreign war or
ders. When the war is over this
Country will be far better equipped
for the broadest development of the
widest range of iron and machinery
work than it has yer been. This
industry is nov passing through an
entirely new epoch. This is illus
trated in the magnitude of many of
the plants that are being built for the
established concerns which would not
have been built in the ordinary
course of business for many years to
come. For instance, the Baldwin
Locomotive Co., as a result of the
contract made with the Remington
Arms Co. and with another company
which has been organized to handle
war-munition orders, will secure, in
addition to the profit to be had on
this business, what will probably be
the largest and best equipped loco
motive plant in the world as one
phase of its profits out of this work.
The B~artlett-Hayward Company of
Baltimore, one of the long establish
ed and highly reputable iron-working
concers of the country, employing
about 1000 hands, will, as a result of
its war orders, build a plant which
for the future will. make it one of the
foremost iron-working c of
the country, employing many times
the number. of hands heretofore
worked.
Throughout New England develop
ments such as those of the Baldwin
Company and. the Bartlett Hayward
Company are in evidence in many
directions. To the country at large, as
well as to those individual concerns,
this development is of vital impor-
lance. It puts the country far and
away ahead of what it would have
been under ordinary conditions, not
only for the routine manufacturing
business of iron and steel, but for the
ability to produce war materials, and
in this respect our country has been
woefully, almost 'criminally, short.
A responsible authority has said to
the Manufacturers Record that there
is not enough powder in this country
for n days fighting in a big war,
and it is claimed by well-posted men
that Germany has in the last twelve
months used up 100 times as much
powder as the total annual capacity
Of all the powder factories of the
United States. In the making of
guns, large and small, we have been
as deficient as in the making of pow
der. In the building of ships, and
especially in docking facilities for re-
pairing warships, we have been about
as far behind Europe as we are in the
making of war munitions behind Ger
many.
1t is true that the Allies were in
a somewhat similar position-woe-
fully behind Germany, which for
more than a quarter of a century
had been specifically preparing for
the present conflict, while the Allies
were short in trained men, in NUM-
tons of war and, excepting Britain's
navy, in everything else that might
have saved them from the terrific
fight which they have made and must
continue to make to save Europe
from the military domination of the
Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs.
1t is pre-eminently important, from
a national as well as from a sectional
standpoint, that the South should
realize the present situation to dev-
elop to the very utmost its facilities
for the production of war materials,
and in doing this enlarge it's diversi-
fed iron and steel industry.
At present the entire war-muni-
ton industry of the country is prac-
tically centered within the radius of
100 OF 200 miles of New York. 1t
IS conceivable that this section of the
country might be captured and laid
waste by an invading army, leaving
the rest of our vast domain without
facilities for carrying on a war by
reason of the inability to produce
guns and ammunition. 1t should be
the policy of the National Govern
ment, in view of this situation and as
far as it may be feasible, to the
courage the South and West to de-
velop to the utmost their facilities
for filling orders from the Allies for
guns and war material. This is a