Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1918-05-23
Standardized Equipment, Quality,
Efficiency, Determine Advan-
tage Over Enemy.
WORK OF ORDNANCE BRANCH
Department Sas In Washington Alone
5000 Officers With Thousands Of
Civilian Employees and Many
Being Added.
BY JAMES H. COLLINS,
IFrom tne Committee on Public lnfor-
nation washinoton D CT


is second largest in expenditure, being
exceeded only by the quartermaster
department. And as our war program
develops, ordnance might easily come
to be the largest single activity.
This department has the responsible
fly for furnishing artillery, rifles, am
munitiOn, motor transports, and prac-
tically all the fighting tools our army
needs. except aircraft. together with
means for assembling and storing
them in this country and deliver
Tug them on the fighting front in
France. with expenditures now APP
preaching twice what is called for by
our entire shlphullding program. the
operations of ordnance are naturally
Cf great magnitude, and its problems
are complex. for in furnishing the tools
If war It has to enlist enormous pro-
t,uctive capacity by converting old in
Ilustries and creating new ones, as well
as go back of the munitions factories
IN many instances and find enormous
supplies of raw materials.
During January the ordnance de-
,lrtment was thoroughly recognized.
30 II becomes interesting to observe
the workings of this department as
newly constituted.
Let us try TO look at the proposition
through the soldiers eyes, and see 1t
whole II we can. 1t may. be we'll to
begin at the A B c Of the subject and
ask ourselves: What is a soldier?
The answer TO this question might be:
A soldier is a man whose occupation
Is fighting. What does a soldier fight
with? He fights with tools. How do a
soldiers tools compare with tools used
by other craftsmen? They show prac-
tically the same characteristics as
those In any peaceful modern indus
try.
In the first place, they have been
wonderfully amplifed in recent years
by the use Of power. and increased in
compacity and complexity. Practically
every labor-saving contrivance invent
, ed for peaceful calling has been APP
piled to present-day war. The ma
chine excavator that vs. our water
and sewer pipe quickly in peace times
can be taken into the field to dig
trenches, and a battle front requires
construction work. power plants. tele-
phone and telegraph systems and rail-
road transportation far beyond peace
requirements for equal population,
md these requirements must be met
under the pressure of wars emer-
gencies.
Soldier Like Factory Workman.
Present-day war involves the organ
ization Of great communities back of
the fighting front, so that the soldier
may follow his actual trade of fight
ing with the greatest efficiency. And
when he actually reaches the fighting
front with his real fighting equipment
he is comparable to craftsmen in other
trades In that his fighting tools are
more or less standardized and that sue
cess or failure turns upon the quality
of his tools and improvements in de-
sign and efficiency which give him
definite advantage over the enemy for
the time heing.
The soldier on the fighting front is
not unlike a workman In a factory.
Modern Industrial production, under
competitive conditions, seeks advan-
tage by Standardization Of equipment,
large scale production and ceaseless
activity in the Improvement of tools
10 that little increase In output here
or a little increase In cost there
will enable given workman or fac
tory TO outstrip competitors. The tools
Of war are standardized. Every army
uses rifles, machine guns. fieldpieces,
heavy artillery. aircraft. Popular i'm
agination continually looks to some
novel and unheard-of invention as a
means Of settling the war. Actually,
modern war is made with tools as
standard as those Of shoe factory or
steel works, and most Of the inventive
ability conferred on those tools is d.
rected toward minor technical improve
ments which will place better appa-
ratus In the hands of the men on the
fighting front and give them an advan-
tage perhaps only temporary over
their competitors. the enemy. The en-
envy, OF course, is just as quick as an
Industrial competitor In catching up
with all advances in the art, and is
also an active inventor and imprOver
himself.
II was along this great general trend
Of modern war, the making of better
fighting tools, that the recent reorgan-
iEation In the ordnance department
was carried out. When war was de-
clared we had an establishment of mil
itary men whose business II was TO de-
sign tools of war. They not only knew
how these tools were used by the SOL
dier but kept track Of improvements
in fighting tools in every modern army,
and the almost daily changes in the
way lighting tools are used. That was
their Job, and highly technical pro-
fsssion. They correspondent In every