The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-05-24
Iust be where continuous year around

every Tying HelQ nortn OF the MIS-
sissippi river was@frozen in tight for
more than three months this last win
ter, and this same condition will pre-
sent itself next winter unless author
ity is invested in some one to create
these fields in the extreme south i'm
mediately. ~
The Liberty Motor is the best en-
CINE ever CONSTRUCTED up to the pre-
sent time for heavy continuous work,
for service, and reliability; for horse
power a pound and a dollar cost to
the United States Government. Doz-
ems of the best informed mechanics
and automobile engineers in America
have examined this product and have
| found that it compared favorably with
the best English, French and German
machines, and this only makes more
deplorable the publicity and criticism
which is delaying by weeks the air
plane division, from the oiler to the
chief signal corps heads.
An investigation of profteering will
unquestionably show great waste and
great losses in the airplane produc-
ton department, just as it would show
great wastes and great losses in any
other department of the United States
government or in any automobile
manufacturing plant, in any gun car
riage plant, in any harness making
plant, in any good working plant, or
in any chewing gum plant for that
matter, in the United States. The
writer of this article in talking to a
prominent manufacturer a few days
ago of mistakes and wastes in Great
ing, under high pressure, new de-
signs and new equipment, said that
| in his own experience covering the
f, last fifteen years, his wastes account,
his mistake and loss account, through
haste, through accident, through in
competence of subordinates and
through the necessity of quick
changes to meet emergency cases,
added from fifteen to twenty per cent
to his cost of production, and this
was easily double his net profit,
It will not be a great task for an
investigating committee to audit the
bills of millions of dollars already
spent, some good many come from
this investigation, but I doubt it very
much. If the aviation program is de-
layed by these investigations and by
the designating of the present or
ganization, the result will be the loss
of thousands of lives and ten times
the amount of money that the in
vestigation might save. 1t will be just
as easy to investigate every depart
ment of the airplane corps after the
war as it is ,now-in fact, it will be
much better to do so, and we will
have plenty of laws onl our statute
books to take care of grafters and
profiteers.
Some of the greatest mechanical
brains of the nation have been under
high pressure on the aviation pro-
gram for months. Some Of these men
have left positions of $4,000, $4,000,
$780, 900 and $4,000 a year to give
their services to the government for
nothing, even paying their own ex-
enses. In addition to working night
and day, they have, through their
large acquaintance with other engin-
GERS and men of their own ability
reached out in all directions and call
ed for assistance, and this assistance
has been given freely and in thous-
ands of cases gratuitously to the gov
eminent. The American people can
not help but realize that is unfair to
have this class of men attacked and
accused of petty graft, petty waste
by mistakes of non-creative and non
combative individuals, who, in a great
many cases, are without adequate
understanding of the enormous task
that has been attempted and that is
being rapidly worked into shape.
The members of the present engin-
eering and manufacturing organrza-
ton of the signal corps if taken from
the red tape and permitted to pro-
coed as they have been accustomed
to work in positions they have for
merly held, can deliver the $4,000
airplanes needed as quickly, or more
quickly, than they could be delivered
with a new start by the combined ma
lions of the earth. Internationally q
Reorganization of the debating heads
of the department should be made
and each department should have full
land complete authority in a definite
program to be determined at once
This program should be so planned
that every thirty days each of these
departments would have full an6
complete information on the progress
OIL every OLuGI uSpdL lLIlOILs AACI
Ishould be one real executive at the
entire head of the airplane program
who can, on receiving definite report:
and definite requests, say Immediately
Eyes, or mo- or ''go ahead"
These changes in directing the pre-
Isent orgaization are needed just a.
they would be needed if the task were
that of making $4,000 Pullman car!
4 to meet a special or unique service
or Is, 900 newly designed railway en-
gines with a new and complicated Sc
) of requirements.
At present we have possibly one
hundred square miles of aviation
fields and hangers, students, quar-
tiers, training quarters, officers quar-
!. tiers, machine shops, experimental
shops, repair shops, hundreds of car
loads of material delivered daily tt
!, manufacturing plants. At least tive
hundred thousand men and wome1
are working in the various plant
making, fitting, trying the various
parts that will be assembled into Lib
: erty Airplanes; They will be the bes
planes for their work that have eve
) been produced and this organization
: up to the present moment, in spit
5 of the red tape, profteering, delay
, graft, mistakes and waste, never ha
been equaled and could not now b
: duplicated by any nation on earth!
/ the present organization under i'm
= mediate competent direction is per
t mitted to proceed more, airplanes ca
: be delivered to our Government il
: the next two years than have bee
: fhui1t all together by the English Ger
: man, French and italian countries.