The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-03-28

put. Such information has never be- fore been collected by any department of the government.
 ''The form in the first instance will go to some O,OO0 concerns, and it calls for every bit of information necessary to the government in time of war. The form will go to the manufacturer throuhg the stated irectors, who will pass it to the best qualified en- gineer in the field, and will be known as a field aide, and will be held per- sonally responsible for the filling out of the form. This form has been passed upon by the army and navy auth critics, and the inventory will probably be made during the month of May. Nothing has been left to guess work. The program is the fruit of months of work and consultation with the best brains in the country. Ev- erything is now ready for rapid move ment.
 *'But-and here we come to the sec ong step-we will not stop at the mere gathering of this information. The detailed record of producing facilities for that is what it is called, will not be enough for our purpose. We have accepted in the gravest spirit the les son written in the industrial upheaval and in some instances the industrial paralysis that seized upon some of the nations at the start of the European war. We must not wait for WIZ be- fore we mobilize our resources There fore we have formulated a, specific feasible plan whereby the manufac- turers of the United States in times of peace shall maintain an annual mini mum production of that part of the munitions of war best suited to their respective outputs i
 'To illustrate, suppose that we go to a great automobile company with an order for ten 3-inch shell castings per year, to be produced at any time dur ing the year, the procedure that those castings must be delivered every year. Even an insignificant step like this will insure our purpose. The pur- chasing department of the company will learn how to handle them; it will become familiar with the necessary jig and tool equipment, and with the heat treatment and with the standard ment will have the up-to-date bI'1e prints and specifications on file, and all arguments will be gotten out of the way durfn. the period of peace
 This minimum annual production, in its nature educational to thousands of manufacturers, will be put through the factory in regular course and in such manner as not to disturb the or dinary flow of business. The pro- ducer will be kept attuned to the highest pitch of effectiveness, the men at. the works will know what. they are
  is capable of serving the government, and everything that goes into the common term munitions of war, will be co-ordinated, and a peaceful ma chine created which will require only the opening of the throttle to be set in motion on the outbreak of war. The minimum annual educational orders will be paid for by the government on the basis of a reasonable but not ex- cessive rate of profit to the nanufac- turer This is d matter of common national endeavor; it goes straight to the best, interests of manufac cturers and labofdng men alike, and in the United States, with the greatest pro ducing resources in the world, there can be no better national insurance against war.
 Let me also point out one very vital thing; this annual distribution of or ders, will develop our industrial re- sources for way nationally, in a geo graphic sense. It will bring to the support of the army and navy indus trial centres west of the A1leghanies and away from the exposed seaboards.
 and let me say, finally, that this plan will not only insure against the shutting down of pI~nts in time of war, but will give employment to the maximum number of working men throughout the country even under war conditions, and will prevent sui
 
 Bascom Little, President of the Cleveland, Ohio, Chamber of Com merce of the United States, in an in terview given out yesterday, states that his organizations are in thor ough accord and-co-operation with the work of the committee on industrial preparedness. Mr.. Little said:
 '@The work of MT. Coff1n's commit tee has seemed to us very fmpor- tant and so closely related, in such practical ways, to what the business organizations of the country are try ing to do to further national defense, that those with which I am connect ed immediately formed union with the committee on learning of its work.
 The thing that has stirred up the business men of the middle west dur ing the past eighteen months has been the lesson they have learned in the making of war materials. It people. It all looked very easy when it started year and a half ago. The plant with which am aSso- ciated in Cleveland got an order for 25O,0OO 3-inch high explosive shells. It was a simple enough looking job. just 8, question of nnachining. The forgings were shipped to us and we were to finish and deliver. It began to dawn on us when the forgings came that this whole order, that look ed so big to us, was less than one days supply of shells for France or England or Russia, and we felt that in eight months by turning our plant, which is frst-c1ass mklchine shop, onto this job we could fill the order. In a little while we got up against the process of hardening. That and mark what I say4-was fourteen months ago. To date we have ship ped and had accepted 13O,0o0 shells and those, about half our. order, are not complete. They still have to be fitted by the fuse maker, then fitted in the brass cartridge eases with the fpropelling charge, and somewhere, some time, maybe, they will ge on the battlefield of Europe. Up to the present none of them has arrived