Evening star., 1941-08-17
Distribution of Defense Articles
Becomes Question Of Priorities
Officials Estimate Up to 100000 Men May
Be Thrown Out of Jobs This Fall as
Result of Material Shortages.
By Marqnis ". CMIds.

the stock of all manufacturers. Plants
were shut down, and men thrown out
of work who may or may not be given
jobs in defense industries.
Dispute over where the blame lies Is
more or less futile. The Army and the
Navy say they had no funds to carry out
the silk project. o. P. M. says that no
direct request for silk was ever made by
the military establishment. The impor-
tant fact is that with responsibility
scattered among four or five agencies
there is no real assurance that such vital
jobs will be carried to completion. The
President has never delegated to a single
agency authority to plan and carry out
the Nations defense effort
The PrioritieS Division of o. P NJ. has
applied industry-wide mandatory con-
troll over 20 different commodities. This
means that orders from o. P. NJ regulate
the entire distribution and fabrication
of these materials which include several
vital to virtually all industrial pro-
cesses
Mandatory List.
oSSNi anu pig AOll NCLC Ilc ldNSL
to be added The other commodities on
the mandatory list are: Aluminium mag
nesium, nickel, nickel-steel, ferro-tungs-
ten highspeed steel. machine tools, syn
thetic rubber, copper, cork, borax, poly
vlnyl chloride, zinc, rubber chromium,
silk, cutting tools and calcium -silicate.
Important additions to this list are
expected shortly. Wool, it is probable.
will soon be put on the mandatory
priority list. So will certain chemicals
and other minerals. A critical short
age Of manganese is in sight with hemi-
sphere production of half million tons
insufficient TO insure even present steel
production to say nothing of the ex-
pansion that has been talked about.
Besides the mandatory list, o. P. NJ.
has six other priority ratings Of varying
degrees of stringency. mild form of
inventory control" is exerted over IA
metals such as mercury. molybdenum
and antimony. A priorities critical list
contains approximately 300 items on
which Army and Navy orders can auto
matlcally be given priority
There are the necessary priorities for
making tanks, binoculars. tents. Bren
guns-the million and one things
modern army needs The manufacturer
who has no defense status for his orders
can only hope TO obtain a B rating or at
best low A rsting-Say an A-l0-for his
needs. Like the defense manufacturer.
he must apply to o. P. NJ bait his request
VIII also be cleared through Opacs. Wfricn
Is Leon Henderson's Once of Price Ad-
mlnlstration and Civilian Supply. If his
task is considered essential to civilian
morale and the general defense picture,
then he will get B status for his orders.
Priorities Being Violated.
Already o. P. M. has discovered that
it is one thing to establish priority regu-
lations and another thing to enforce
them. Reports have reached o. P. M,
officials that priority regulations are be-
ing violated on rather wide scale Steel
companies, according to these reports,
are using various devices to get around
priority restrictions. One way is TO de-
NA'e oiOitI az AS tIIdC part VI d QeIenSe
shipment is bad order" and will not
meet specifications This bad order"
steel can then be used to meet the nom
defense plea of an old and valued GUS
toner.
The Priorities Division has not been
content merely to put out regulations,
A flrst-hand effort has been made to
see that defense orders are given priority,
For example, it was found that MANY
firms had on their order books an orig.
inal batch of defense orders: then they
put on the books non-defense orders
from old customers they wanted to ac-
commodate and after that came a new
flood of defense contracts What many
firms were doing was to fill the orders in
this sequence-the first defense orders
first, non-defense next and. when they
got around to it. the later set of defense
orders. But priority officials are now
compelling firms to move all defense
orders up to the front of the book re-
Sardless of when they were received.
This will tend sharply to accentuate al.
ready acute material shortages.