White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1926-04-23

After describing the important part
that the electrical public utilities In
the New York Metropolitan area are
scheduled to play in the War Depart
ment's program of Industrial prepar-
edness as an insurance against war;
Colonel Hanford MacNider, Assistant
Secretary of War Department declared
in an address before the New York
Electrical League here: 'The strong
er we can build up this insurance, the
stronger our voice is going to be in
the councils of the world. 1t means
that we can insure ourselves against
any aggression 1t is frank declara-
ton that we want peace and that we
intend to have INSURANCE of peace,
insurance against war;"
"Our major effort" Colonel Mac
Nider said, speaking to tn eprincipal
executives of the light and power COM
panies, the electric equipment manu-
featuring companies and of every 9th
er important branch Of the electrical
industry in the Metropolitan area, sis
the industrial mobilization planning
for emergency-someth which we
hope will never be called into action,
but which we feel and which we have
been instructed must be erected and
erected as fast, as efficiently as pos
sible, with such facilities as we have.
Certainly, it is the result Of very
bitter lesson, this command that has
come to us from Congress because we
were taught with vengeance in the
great war that no nation, no matter
how richly blessed with nStural re-
sources, with expert and willing la
Dor, with untold ready funds, with ey-
cry facility for rapid manufacture,
should wait until it is suddenly
plunged into war to do its thinking
and planning for such an emergency"
Speaking of the plan to allocate as
signments for the manufacture Of the
vast requirements of the War De-
partment in the event of an emergen-
cy, Colonel MacNider said: "You can
see how necessary it is that we have
every component that comes into that
picture all coordinated together, SO
that when the bell rings again, If it
ever does, it will mean that the manu-
facturer can go to his safe, take out
his contract, sign it, mail 1t, call in
his superintendent, call in his former,
pull out his plans, his specifications,
his dies, his castings, whatever is
necessary for him to have to meet
his part of the program, and start to
work instantly, should the Congress,
representing the people, declare the
emergency is upon us.
ut has a thousand and one rami-
fications and have no thought Of
going into it, and | have not the abil-
ity to tell you men, all active in the
electrical world and industry, where
you come in on it because your in
dustry is in every part of it; there is
no way of separating it from the
whole economic life of the nation.
But every time you make new tie-in
around the nation, every time there
is any new facility of distribution of
electric power, every time any i'm
provement in manufacture comes to
you, it means that you have added
something to the national insurance.
Whenever you simplify some process
of yours, it means you have released
labor, which adds again to the nation
al insurance.
ut is tremendously important, nat
interest in it because upon this now,
urally, and you all can well take an
and certainly in the future, is going
to depend more of the national de-
Tense perhaps than upon any other
part There is no use in our calling
forth men to the colors unless we can
arm them, clothe them, feed them, I'M