The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-02-24
Somewhere in America. 1a18.

If Somewhere in America, 1918.
 HAVE headed this letter some where in America" I might just
 as well head it everywhere in America" for the work of which I write is going on in twoscore or more of industrial centers all over the Uni ted States. That work is the making of guns. munitions and supplies for the United States navy. Under the promise of secrecy as to the character of the materials, the output and the details, have been able to visit some of these factories Everywhere the machinery is being speeded to highest E tension and tens of thousands of ex- pert employees are at work day and night. The product goes forth ill priority orders, crowding even the coal , and food to the sdetracks. Many of the cargoes are secret. They may go out labeled as ordinary freight or in packages that give no idea of their character, and under names that serve as camouflage to the spies. In some of these places they are making big guns, in some they are turning out j storpedoes for submarines, and in some they are making smokeless powders anu ICTElDle tADlOSlN6S, N@flDe QeaQly . chemical compositions of which are a secret.
 In one nest in the mountains more than 1000 miles from any seaport and in country almost as wild as it was when Columbus discovered America I found a dynamite plant covering acres. It was guarded by soldiers and sur rounded by fenes of barbed wire charged with electricity, and with {al, 41x. e. may bo located there on account of it's proximity to certain supplies.
 In the south there are plants manu- featuring explosives which use vast quantities of cotton, a whole bale of 5o0 pounds going, it is said, into one charge of single big gun. In every iron smelting center they are turning out shells or other projectiles, or the armor plate which protects our great ships of war. Here a little factory may make a single intricate part of some engine or intuition supply, while not far away may be a mighty steel works whose furnaces are manufacturing iron ore into the huge ingots needed for the great guns of our battleships.
 All this work is systematized and di- 7rected by the bureau of ordnance of the navy department at Washington
 
 on at each plant, what supplies there are there and how they may be taken most quickly to the places where they are needed. They have vast ware- houses of easy access to the sea- con- taining parts of every gun and piece of machinery used on the hundreds of vessels and these are so marked that they can be sent on cable orders to one establishment of that kind where they had S0000 different items in the storerooms and that factory was ship ping an average of 100 articles every s24 hours. Moreover, every one of the supply parts bears marks which show just where and when it was made and the inspectors through whose hands it has passed. If a defect occurs in any of the ordnance or munitions that so to the ships the part that fails can be easily traced back to the shop whefd it was made and to the very workmen who made it.
 The work I have seen is remarks ably efficient Many of the plants have been built up on orders given by France and England before we entered the war and since then they have been greatly increased. Some of them are turning out shells by the millions and small arms by the, hundreds of thousands They are making smokeless powder in vast quantities and munitions of all kinds as never before. Some of the factories cover many acres and there thousands of employees are at work night and day. The plant described in this letter is under the direct charge of the government. It is one that makes big guns and other equipment for the navy. Its departments embrace all sorts of industries and its machin- cry is such that it can make anything from brass rivet to flying machine, from screw weighing a small frac- ton of an ounce to a gun for a dread naught so big and so heavy that spe- cial freight cars will have to be built to carry it from one place to another.
 This big gun work cannot be stan dardized like that of a motor car fac- tory whose output is several thousand machines 8 day. It takes months to make big gun and the metal has to go through transformations which only time can produce. Shells and torpedoes cannot be ground out like grain from hopper. All of the work takes the greatest of care. Every piece of the ordnance has to fit to a fineness equal to cne-tenth the thick ness of a single. silky hair of a baby. and the parts must be analysed, as- saved and tested to know that each is according to specifications and will stand all the requirements. This re- quires alloys of steel, brass and cop per, and the amount of metal used is so great that the most of the special work is done with the scrap that is left from forging and chiseling out the big guns, and from the cuttings Machines Thof E1n,,r