The Wilmington morning star., 1940-07-09
Editorial Comments
From Other Angles
RED TAPE
New Bedford, Mass, Standard-Times

Hitler in the event of Great Britain's defeat
and we are doing nothing about it-now.
Billions of dollars are being appropriated,
vast ornaments provided for. Plans for the
Army and Navy stagger the imagination by
their scope-For the future. But immediate
steps to ward off the immediate pressing dang
er of a Hitler attack are next to zero.
Unbelievable as it sounds, the reason we
are doing next to nothing now to meet the
immediate defense needs is the Army and the
Navy.
Although there is hardly a modern plane in
the United States Army today, few, if any,
have been ordered since the invasion of The
Netherlands and Belgium, since the President
demand for 80, 900 airplanes."
This is not because Of a shortage of machine
tools, vital materials or parts, nor because Of a
shortage of capacity in our plants.
The airplane industry today in the United
States has a present capacity of military
planes of 1000 per month.
At present manufacture is but 500 a month,
mostly for the Allies.
Responsibility for this delay in production
lies at the door of the Army and Navy whose
'.indecision, lack of Standardization, insistence
on odd sizes, on specifications which do not fit
the equipment of industry have made mass
production, or any other kind of production,
impossible so far.
In one plane factory the Army a year ago
ordered approximately 1000 planes Of a
type then and now unequaled, but not one
plane has been produced because it was i'm
possible to satisfy fantastic Army inspection
and production requirements. Nor has this
anything to do with that other and controver-
sial problem Of whe her standards should be
lowered to permit rapid and sudden mass pro-
duction, which accounts for the stupendous
pace of Killers plane supremacy.
The 500 or more military plane production
facilities now available in the United States
and unused cover present high standard pre-
cision planes.
But the Army and Navy cannot make up
their minds.
They tie with red tape the hands of hundreds
and thousands Of loyal and capable workers
and officials of the American aircraft indus
try. These are bewildered to see the crisis at
hand and their important tools of defense pro-
duction unused.
The situation is as bad, or worse, in the
fields of tanks, anti-aircraft guns, machine
guns, artillery and even rifles.
With hands tied by the frozen standards Of
the Army, it will be two years before produc.
ton will be sufficient to arm the minimum.
sized Army needed for defense with the type
of rifle that the Army staff is demanding. 9th.
er weapons nearly or actually as good can be
produced much quicker.
Knee-deep as both Army and Navy are in
traditions and technicalities, there is no agree
ment between them. Each has its own petty
opinions about scores of gingerbread items
Even the type Of gasoline specified by the
Navy is different from that demanded by the
Army.
Why this strange laundering? Why this
tragic Indifference? Why, of all parties, must
the Army and the Navy of this country stand
in the way of our immediate needs in defense?
The bald truth is that the Army and Navy,
like the American people themselves, have a
'peace-time psychology Their plans and sys-
TENS for procurement, (and both the Army
and Navy would deny this BITTERLY, were de-
veloped in and are adapted to peace, when
time is not the all-important factor. Both have
prided themselves on the quality of limited
equipment, rather than quantity-a few tailor
made units rather than quantity production.
Starved, as the Army and Navy have been
in years past. both have learned that there is
a feast or a famine under the democratic sys-
tenn. A period Of public defense anxiety to
them is an opportunity to get vast, long-delay-
ed appropriations, a chance to fill the sock
for a long time to come.
Judging by the orders, actually placed for
vital planes and anti-blitzkrieg equipment to
defend the country, the Army and Navy take
the peril of immediate military attack no more
seriously than might a farmer in the quiet
ude of the Missouri Ozarks.
Yet, if the danger of military attack on this
country is not immediate, it probably does not
exist at all.
The fact is, the plans for that attack already
are completed in the Hitler portfolio, as were
those for attacking Poland, Norway, Denmark,
The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Eng
land. We are having our our turn now at the
same peace propaganda which lulled these
nations into a false feeling Of security.
This country is the only country in the world
capable of successfully resisting Hitler. econo-
mically and in a military way. But Hitler
does not wait for an enemy to prepare.
If the United States is not attacked by the
armed forces of Hitler in a matter Of months,
it will be due to one Of two things-O Sue
cessful resistance by England; or 90 Axis war
with Russia.
The American people are not to blame for
the situation in which they find themselves.
They are willing to make whatever sacrifices
are necessary to defend their liberties and
their country.
They are not demanding long range so
cialized war planning nor do they want the
scourge Of war perfumed with words about
the abundant life.
They want the Army and Navy-to whom
they have given the task of their defense-to do
this job efficiently and in time; and they want
those they have chosen to represent them IN
government to see that this is done.
They will accept no explanations from army
and Navy or politicians.