Arizona republican., 1921-09-26
FACES DIFFICULT TASK INV DISPOSIN(; OF SURPLUS WAR STOCKS TO RAISE LARGEST POSSIBLE SUM AND NOT LNJURE BUSINESS MEN

on nanus 1t was easy to find out what must be bought for the coming year. some or the departments had never really known that before Then. each cor-ordinating office, being armed with a knowledge Of what surplus his particular department lad on hand and what it. would need. Dawes created a general board at which these officers will meet to represent all the departments.
 Soldier vs. Sailor
 From now on money will be saved by the departments, at least as com pared With the former system. There was time when a sailor slept in one sort of a blanket and a soldier in another, and a.marine in still a third, A sailor would die rather than wear soldiers shoes. The two great lighting departments even had diff ferent sorts of small arms The navy could not buy rope in the open mar ket because it insisted on fussy little gaugets. Rope for navy must be twisted somewhat differently from rope for J. Smith. One rope was as good as the other rope. for all that. In the future the supplies for the two great departments shall be in Interchangeable Unless, of course, a general or an admiral manages to spike the Dawes program
 When one department has a Quan- tity of goods on hand that another department needs, an exchange will be made and book credit given That common sense way of doing business has never seeped through the departmental skullcap before. If the navy wanted shoes it went into the market and bought them, no mat ter if the army had eleven warehous- es full of shoes that were collecting blue mould The amount of credit to be given will be decided by the exer- else of common sense. That. again, is something that never has been departmental method. Until one gets first class look at Washington department one cannot realize how quickly a man-any man-can be de- partmentalized. It is the exceptional for two months and not lose hold of his gumption.
 New System of Credits
 Some credits will be given at the price originally paid by the govern ment," said one official. .and some at the present market price and some at a price arbitrarily fixed The purchase price was in all cases i false one, because of the stress Of war-buying. But we will try to fix a book price that will be fair to all" Where goods must be bought for the governments use during the coming year the general board will have charge of the buying, but will not actually buy If the board were to attempt to buy for all the goveIS- ment departments it would go smash The job is too big for single organ ization. The buying will be done by the buying officers of the different de- partments. but in cooperation with the general board In this way un- wise competition and needless pur- chasing will be avoided
 l In the selling the government must get the best price possible and yet avoid injuring American business IL is obvious that 340,0o0 tons or ni- trates-which the government holds --or a few thousand sets or artillery l harness, thrown on the market. would f1atten it out like an egg Dumping of this sort will not be per- mitted. Yet the stuff must be sold
 and as fair a price as possible realized. Somehow the irresistible l force must get on friendly terms with | the immovable post. Three billion dollars worth of material makes a
 pretty fair-sized bargain sale
 Why Dawes Isn't Talking I have said that Dawes is not Tn the publicity market The average hard shell clam is chatty by com harrison. It is not that he has any inherent dislike to publicity. He saws himself that 'he laps 1t up like
 a cat does cream" He is believer in plenty of publicity as fine cor rective for official stupidity. too. But he feels that if he were to talk at this time he would almost cer-
 tainly offend some one. though