Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-08-01
No Wonder Germany Quit
Number Thirty-eight

I'VE always thought we were
great commercial nation and many
millions of our people firmly be-
lieved we could lick all Creation"
said Colonel ]. E. Kemper, of the
Army Recruiting Station, S25 Mar
ket street, Harrisburg. But these
were a lot of things we found we
were not quite so great in as we
thought. Take for instance the
question of powder. You have all
seen the advertisements of the big
powder companies FOR years and
no one dreamed before 1914 that
with our supposedly great powdei
production we would be so woefully
unprepared in that line for war.
Before we got into the war every
one had heard of the great fortunes
the powder people were making, of
the new powder plants and cities
being built, but when we got in and
began to really investigate we found
a sad condition of affairs. Now
powder is divided into two classes,
propellants and high explosives.
The propellants, smokeless powder,
are used in rifle cartridges and in
big guns behind the bullet or pro-
jectile to send it off merrily on
its way, while the second class, high
explosives, are loaded into shells,
grenades, bombs, and so forth as
the explosive charge that scatters
the death dealing fragments far
and wide. The propellant powder
burns more slowly and with less
sudden creation of gas than the
high explosive. If high explosive
were used as a propellant charge it
would blow the gun all to pieces.
If smokeless powder is used as an
explosive charge in a shell it does
not give nearly as violent an ex-
plosion as the H. E. (high eXplo-
sive), and is consequently not as
effective. When the war started
we were producing about eighteen
million pounds of smokeless powder
year. When the Foreign War
Missions got over here in May, 1917,
we soon found that we would need
about million pounds in the year
1919 If the war lasted that long
and it then seemed that it would.
From 5000 tons of smokeless pow-
der to 100000 tons is some little
Jump for an annual production
Well! we got busy. We built a
ninety million dollar Government
plant down in Tennessee that was
producing $4,000 pounds day
when the armistice was signed and
was to reach one million pounds
per day within a couple of months.
Another plant was built IN West
Virginia to have a capacity of 6o5,-
600 pounds per day but it was only
producing 100000 when the armis-
tice was signed. Those two new
CnNnrn M nj a 70
cuced more than half of the 500.-
00C tons for 1919, and the rest
would have come from increased
commercial plants. The Tennessee
plant would produce in IS DAYS
what the whole country had made
in a year, before the war started.
The most famous II. E. is COM
monty known as T. n. T. It became
particularly famous when a ship
load of it wrecked Halifax. When
the war started we were making
100000 pounds month and by
November, 1918, we were making
100000 pounds a month, and
had just gotten fairly started. T. n.
T. is made by treating a chemical
called toluol which is a by-product
from coke ovens. OF course there
wasn't nearly enough toluol so all
sorts of devices were worked on to
produce it. A way was found to
strip it out of coal gas, so during
the latter part of 1918 the people
of thirteen of our largest cities
were unconsciously contributing to
the T. N. T. program by using gas
from which the toluol had been re-
moved, thus reducing appreciably
the heating and lighting qualities of
the gas. A number of brand new
high explosives were developed dur
ing the war. to help out in the con-
stantly growing cry for explosives
But a curious thing about 1t all is
that due to the enormously in
creased production, in spite of in
creased wages and increase in the
cost of most materials. the price of
T. N. T. dropped from one dollar
pound to " cents pound:
smokeless powder for cannons drop
ped from SO cents a pound to AN,
and the powder for rifle cartridges
dropped from 80 cents a pound to
SO cents. Improved manufacturing
processes developed during the war
made this enormous saving to the
people.