The Carbon County news., 1931-07-30
POLITICAL OWNERSHIP
By George B. Lockwood

The New York Sun prints and account of Uncle
Sam venture INTO the manufacture of plate
which proves that politics and business will not mix sue
cessfuly. Senator Tlman put bill through Congress
III 1911 to erect government plate factory on the
plea that private companies charging much The
government boughea site at Charleston W. Va The cit
zens OF Charleston gave 205 for site paying ST 400
an acre; the government condemned land adjacent
and got it for $4,000 acre Congress authorized the
erection there also of proectile plant capable of turn
ing out small caber gun forgngs; later it was decided
to erect gun forging plant capable of manufacturing 90
inch guns The three plants grouped under the name
OF naval ordinance plant and effort was then made
to segreGate costs to know what the separate plants
We're costing.
Ihe government began construction truly maenf-
1cent scale All sorts of buildings, including houses
amusement halls and factory buildings were built at ire
mendous cost Stucco houses for employees cost 900
each What happended there is revealed in the sworn
testimony taken before the Graham investigating commit
ee Carloads OF material dumped into the KanaWha
River Rpening fields were burned as horses were
arriving to be fed New automobiles and motor trucks
were buried by steam hovels making excavations and
never dug out. Hundreds of men employed for two
days III carrying lumber off the spot the bic site
thought to be suitable for by Secretary of War Baker
III making speech, and the same then employed
III carrying the lumber back to its first position Il was
cost plus contract the the more plus The story
OF this and other government enterprises has never been
told the waste into bons what went on at Charles
Ton and other points where government war enterprises
We're carried the hair-rasing financial thriller
IN human history escaped notice in the war excitement
and President Hardings chartableness in covering no
resQlted III drawing to Washington new swarm Of would
be grafters who had the old get away with it.
and his troubles We're the result
When the first sheet of steel was run at South Charles
ton only two of the wornen present had ever seen steel
run before. The projecle plant had theoretical capa
city of 23O 16inch piercing proectiles month
When the factory closed in 1922 had produced in all
242 such projectiles They cost the government 1890
apiece in labor and materials alone-about what thew
could have been bought for in the open market without
such vast investment being made.
The principal output Of the plant during the three and
oneha years OF activity 100 sets of 6nch gun forg
ngs lO per cent of which defective costing the gov
e1mnt in material and labor alone so cents a pound
whereas they could have been bought in the open mar
ket at the time at 81 cents per pound The armor plate
factory was SO slow starting that the government had
to order its a1mor plate esewhere by the time the plant
was ready to produce it's first plate the Washington
Naval Treaty signed and the plant closed throwing
2lOO men out of work For time the government spent
sloOOO year to keep watch the pant then it was
abandoned entirely and the machinery is going to rust
The entire ordnance plant cost $32, ,000O00
1t stands rotng the banks of the Kanawha as mon
ument to the folly Of polticaized industry