Evening star., 1940-05-28
Munitions Agency
With Single Head
Urged by Hoover
Keep-Off-G Grass Sign,
With Fierce Dog in
Sight, Declared Need
BY the Associated Press.

| BY the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, May 2S.-Former
President Hoover says the Nations s
preparedness should be entrusted to
a single-headed munitions admin
istration.
The head of such an administra-
ton, he said in nationally broad
cast speech last night. should be an
industrialist and not a politician.
He should be assisted by q non-p par
tisan advisory board and sub-direc-
tors for agriculture, labor and in
dustry, the former President de-
clared.
"The whole Of the purchasing and
manufacturing for the Army and
Navy from private industry should
be done by this administration" Mr..
Hoover said. THE business Of the
Army and Navy is to state what
they want. 1t is for the munitions
administrator to deliver it."
What the country needs, Mr..
Hoover said, is a sign Of Keep on
the grass, with q fierce dog plainly
in sight"
Implication Criticized.
The former President was critical
of what he described as the impli-
cation in Mr.. Roosevelt's Monday
address that previous administra-
tions had been derelict in providing
national defense"
These statements have a partisan
flavor" said Mr.. Hoover.
Declaring he could challenge the
implications Of Mr.. Roosevelt's fig
ures" on what had been accom-
plished toward preparedness under
the New Deal, Mr.. Hoover said that
national defense was a. relative"
thing-"relative to the military
menace in the rest of the world
Up till the end of his administra-
tion, he said, the world was kept
turned toward peace" adding:
"The suggestion we should have
armed against menaces that had
not been born seems overdone."
During the last five years the
country has been warned often of
impending warlike events, yet we
obviously have not gotten prepared
ness"
Single Handed Responsibility.
Mr.. Hoover said that the job of
building up defenses could not be
done by political coalitions" nor
could such operations be controlled
by boards or councils or confer
ences."
THE whole genius of the Amer
lean people has demonstrated over
$50 years that when we come to ex-
ecutive action. including the ONCE
Of the President of the United
States, we must have single-handed
responsibility.
"Centralization of executive re-
sponsibility for the production of
munitions does not require clothing
any man with autocratic powers.
This form Of organization can and
should be based on organized CO.
operation"
Mr.. Hoover said his conception of
preparedness was q strong Navy, a
skeletonized but more flexible Army,
additions Of skilled personnel in the
Reserve, air pilots, tank drivers and
| gunners.
Plane Maintenance Costly.
He expressed belief it was not the
Presidents proposal to produce 50,-
600 planes to be put away in
hangers"
I'm the face of constantly advanc-
ing science and invention it would
be folly to have $4,000 planes in
peacetime. It would require more
than q half-million men to look
after them and to fly them. It
would require more than . billion
dollars q year to support them"
Asserting that Americans have
mo good reason to be discouraged
or fearful" Mr.. Hoover said:
"Once we convince the world that
our capacities are organized no ma
ton will have any desire to establish
bases on the Western Hemisphere or
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