The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-22
GETTING THE
 FACTORIES IN Taking Inventory of Their
 Value in War. INDUSTRIAL
 READINESS. Statement of Committee of Naval Consulting Board of the United States.

America and the federal government | The information gathered is the first fruit of the work of the army of 30,- i 900 American engineers, members of five eminent scientific bodies, who form i the field force of the committee or i ganized to find out for the government i the real industrial resources of the nation in time of For this sweeping canvass, which is 1 headed by Howard E. Coffin, chairman and w. s. Clifford, supervising direc- 1 tor, the whole country has been highly | systematized, with directing boards of the leading engineers in every state, i the District of Columbia and Alaska. await has not yet been organized but prominent business men and engineers i of that distant possession are writing the committee that Hawaii, too, has in dustrial resources available for Uncle Sam and would like to play her part. Many of the states have been split up into counties with chief field aides | in charge. This marvellous smooth | working organization of unpaid ex- perts has already accomplished defn- 1 ite results and the great inventory, as shown by the reports of state chair
 men now being received, is moving | swiftly and satisfactorily to it's end. The manufacturers of the nation, recognizing the highly qualified and non-partisan personnel of this move ment, which has the strong support of
 
 the Chamber of Commerce of the 1 United States have almost without ex- | ception responded with the most in telngent patriotism, and the deepest 1 interest in this close-knit, movement for a thorough-doing industrial pre- paredness. They were called upon to give very comprehensive information on the adaptability of their factories, l mills and mines to federal uses from the hour of military mobilization, the l a. 1@1 I'd, l fdence for the sole security and bene- | fit of the War and Navy Departments l of the United States. The business men have met the committee on indus i trial preparedness-who chairman, as vice president of the Hudson Motor
 Car Company is himself a business
 man-and the engineers at least half
 way in this far-hung effort to estab-
 fish a backbone for the national de-
 fense.
 A few manufacturers have doubted the ability of their plants to aid the government in wartime. They have
 almost invariably changed their views
 when show how little doubt there is that on the outbreak of war practi- caI1y all concerns not engaged in lines l of work essential to the national needs
 would be stripped of their labor, eith-
 CT for the army or for manning other industrial plants vital. for the supply l of such needs, and that in the event 1 of hosti1ities probably 80 per cent of the industries of America would of ne | cessity be concentrated producing the myriad elements of twentieth cen tury warfare It has been made very l clear to such business men that in the | last equation it will be to the material
 interest of every American manufactu-
 Ter to have determined now, in time l of peace and plenty, just what he can do for the republic, in time of emer-
 gency. Finally there has been made equally plain the necessity for having | the least possible shock to economic and labor conditions on the advent of
 war and the advantage therefore of
 having the greatest possible number of plants kept at work.
 In view of national defense legis1a- | ton now making in Washington. l Chairman Coffin calls attention to the reports of state directors to the effect l that all clements of business. life in their respective regions unite on the
 wisdom and practicability of the com | nittee's plans for establishing annual 1 educational orders in small quantities for the manufacture of munitions of
 war. The idea is to teach American manufacturers now producing, say,
 farm machinery, how to turn out some
 one war commodity best suited to their | output, and this in time of peace Mot on1y,'' said MT. Coffin, Twill
 the adoption of this plan be mighty
 protection to the nation, but, by ac- tually creating hundreds of new sour ces for the skilled, swift and abundant production of munitions of war, will lay for all time the ghost of a mu-
 nitions trust. And this program will | do more than that-it will spread the | munition on-pro oducing units, which one day will be vital to our continued existence as a republic, over the coun-
 try and away from the unprotected seaboards.
 stMnrQnxraT MT Coffin ''it is equally vital that Congressional Legislation for a sane and comprehen- sive industrial preparedness should 4 make mandatory that such work as 1 now being done voluntarily by the engineers should be carried on system 1 atically by the government in the flu 1 ture.'
 The great war has taught the as- 1 tonishing adaptability of national in
 dustries when properly inventoried
 and organized It has been learned
 for instance, that a dye factory may be transformed within a week or 10
 days into a plant for the production of high explosives. The Committee
 on Industria1 Preparedness, enltsting
 as it has the best scientific and com
 mercial brains in the country, thor 1 oughly understands all this and lis guiding it's lAbors thereby.
 In the state of New York alone
 some 35.000 firms are being invento- rleo- in no case so, Tar has the New 1 York board met with definite refusal
 to give the desired information. The f1led-in forms are already arriving at Chairmen J. G. Whites office at the rate of several hundred a day, all though this board asked many of the 1 larger firms to sacrifice speed to accu- | ra,:y.
 To gain preliminary information be- fore rhe actual inventory work began, | letters were addressed to $50 of the leading manufacturers of the state by 1 MT White, who has under him a corps 1 of several thousand civil mining, me 1 chanica1 and electrical engineers as l well as the total mem hersl1in in New