The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1915-06-24
WAR MATERIAL

| an association of bankers, suggests
Caut on IL. ac,laiming the arrival OF
prosperity, inasmuch as the liveliest
trade impulse, just now, is the de-
mand for war material.
No country ever had this kind OF
boom OF the magnitude of the one
the United States Is enjoying. II Is
correspondingly difficult for expert
enced observers of trade movements
TO tell Just what to expect from 1t.
On the other hand, the immediate
benefit to national industry, COM
merce and finance Is Enthusiastically
widespread for the term war materi.
al comprehends an amazing variety
OF products.
he war demand Is by no meansiim-
tied to what are styled munitions. 1t
may even be believed that, both In
quantity and in value, the greater
commerce is in commodities OF every
day use and consumption-boots and
freight ears, foodstuffs and harnesses,
automobiles, mules and the best Of
horse flesh, articles in wood and the
metals, textile, chemical, electrical
and mechanical products-about ev.
erything it might be said, produced
on the farm in the mine or by the
factory, turns out to be war material.
There Is, perhaps, only a single strik'
ing exception to the universally Of
the demand, jewelry.
But even the sinister classification
munitions represents surprising di.
versity of industry Farm and mine
and factory contribute raw material
to the finished product OF the ammu.
milton makers. A feeting newspa-
per paragraph mentions a contract OF
some million pounds of alcohol for
a powder factory. 1t is more familiar
that cotton enters into the produc-
ton Of smokeless powder-in that
thousands of bales Of short staple are
being hurled from the warships and
So, also 1t Is stated that an order
for fifty.four thousand tons OF steel
has been placed by group OF manu-.
facturers under contract to deliver
FIVE million shrapnel shells. And our
peaceful barometer industry Is by no
means the only one to share In the
oh M ~
copper are required as we'll as steel
an estimated twenty million pounds
for this one contract, or four pounds
to every shell. In this connection,
II is interesting to recall that when
sudden paralysis struck all industry,
at the outbreak of the war. some OF
the copper interests implored Con-
gress to authorize large purchases by
the government at a price arbitrarily
fixed. Congress, as now appears,
would have been safe II 1t had thus
pegged the tumbling
quotations. For, soon after they be-
gan to mount. The richest of the
copper corporations has just announc-
ed that 1t will distribute half a mil !
lion dollars from the unlocked for
and in compensation for the loss of
wages due to the sudden Gripping of
industry last fall.
Into a shrapnel shell, too, goes sine,
with more copper, in the form of
brass. The elegant machine work on
this single item in the munitions list,
shrapnel calls for "a variety of skill
ed labor; and, back Of that, the ships
hat make the machines and tools that |
make the shrapnel are busily employ
ed.
What will follow when the boom
subsidies, how quickly, or easily, this
unexampled productive industry can
be readiusted to a normal bass, is
beyond telling. The subsistence will
not long anticipate the conclusion of
hostilities, but even that prayed for
event is beyond the range of present
speculation. Meanwhile, however, II
Is plain enough that the prosperity
created by the amazing emergency is
not detached, isolated, confined % a
bare few specialized industries. The
Connecticut arms factories are eX.
panding beyond all experience In any
industrial movement; but so, too, the
of Michigan are working ov.
ert'me, the zinc fields are no longer
desolate, wheat is holding we'll above
q dollar a bushel, cotton is near the
magic ten cent mark and, directly or
indirectly, vast volume of capital,
and multitude of wage earners, are
employed in supplying the demand
for war material. Providence, (R.
~ Journal.