The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-04-07
.COST-PLUS PLAN
 IS DEFENDED BY
 REP.F. ). GARRETT
Says Government Would Have Lost Time and Mon |,
 ey Otherwise.

Washington, April 7.-Representa- tive FTnis J. Garrett, of Tennessee, has checkmated the attempts of Re- publican mem bers of the House to make political capital out of the emergency cost-plus contracts let during the war by the War and Navy Departments. MT. Garrett, present ing the cost-plus system as business proposition, demonstrates that the government would have lost both money and time had it put out it's war contracts on any other basis dur ing the emergency.
 Under the cost-pIus plan, contracts were let for the construction of can comments and other great war pro jects on the basis of a percentage of profit to the contractor above the cost of labor and materials. Why such contracts were necessary is shown by Representative Garrett as follows:
 t"The fact is that these great con sruction companies were absolutely unable to determine a. basis upon which they could bid for government ] work Take these cantonments, these immense plants costing millions and millions of dollars, like the nitrate plant at Muscle Shoals. What con tractor, what man, what builder in this country could have determined at that time a basis upon which to make a bid With the cost of ma teria1 changing every day, going up steadily in price, with the cost of la l bor changing every week, going up and up in price, no man could have made a contract-that is, one which he could have fulfilled after making ] it.
 'If he had based bids on the labor | prevailed in the early part of 1917, | or even the latter part of 1917, on 1 one of these great plants that could not be completed for eight or ten months, if he had made a straight 1 out bid on that basis he would have l gone into bankruptcy because of the ] increase in the cost of materials and ! labor. He would have been bankrup1 l and the government would have been | in the lurch, with it's war activities paralyzed.
 ''That much ought to be said. l think the people of this country i should be told the facts concerning it. While as normal proposition, where there is a safe basis upon which to estimate a bid, I do not be Heve in the soundness of the cost plus system yet I know that that was the only way during the times of stress and storm, with the constantly changing prices and condition, by | which it was possible for this govern
 ment to do the things necessary to ] win the war in which we were en- gagged.
 T am not willing that the great
 masses of the people of this country should have doubt aroused as to their
 country's administration when it was doing it's best under the great strain
 that confronted it"
 Representative Garrett said it had been charged by Representative
 Focht, Republican, of Pennsylvania
 that the letting of cost-plus con tracts was the outstanding 'tscanda
 of the war"
 'I do not believe that was any
 scandal" said Representative Gar
 rett. 'I think it should be em.
 phasized and the people should no
 be permitted to forget that that wa: the only way in most instance:
 whereby the department could secure
 the doing of the great work that hat
 to be done I do not believe tha
 the contractors desired to graft or the government; I do not aspers' them"
 Representative Garrett said that il time of peace and normal condition the judgment of men probably would be instinctively against the cost-plu system. But with the nation en gagged in world war, fighting for it
 self and the civilization of the world Representative Garrett pointed ou that conditions were most abnormal
 that prieas eG Ah4e and material