Imperial Valley press. (El Centro, Calif.) 1907-current, 1941-03-04

wash M i'm, Hld'Ni T. .@oiiiS
fine spring day within the next
week. the Aluu'inum company OF
America will back taXicao or
Tuck UP 10 the doors I tie Oh: &c
of Production Management here in
Washington and unload its order
books.
1t won't mean that the govern
ment will have taken over the alum
mum company, but it will be darn
close to it. And it will mean that
o. P. NJ. will have taken over CON-
troll of every pound of aluminium the
company turns out, whether as III
got pigs or as sheets. bars, castings.
finished machined parts or pots
and pans.
Unloaded, the order books Of the
company will be taken up to the
offices of the prioritieS section OF
o. P. M and there, in some COM
plicated procedure not yet figured
out by either the government or
the company, the experts from both
will determine Just who gets how
much aluminium for what purpos-
eS.
In the ALLEGATION, airplane man
ufacturers will be allocated suffi-
Gent aluminium for their require
ments. Other defense industries
will get their share. If there is any
left over, it will be spread OUT
among private industries making
ice boxes. vacuum cleaners. door
stops, ash trays pots and pans.
If, however, an ice box manufac-
turer says, You've gotta give me
so many pounds or I'll have to lay
off my force" his plea will be
heard and he will be given enough
to keep running. But only for a
time. The ice box maker will be
told that he'll have to redesign his
product so that he'll use other ma
terials-other metals or even plas-
tics. Consequently, over the long
haul you may see some brand new
industrial design in articles of every
day life.
SOUNDS THICK,
AND 1T is
But the big idea will be to keep
individual industries from piling uD
reserves of stock for their own
business, shooting up the price and
creating scarcity and confusion all
over the country. Priorities certifi-
Gates will be issued to the manu-
facturers who get the major con-
signments of aluminium. These will
be graded under a code beginning
with AA, going through Al, Az,
Ala, A-2-a, and so on through
A-l0 Army and Navy Munitions
Board will grant these certificates
direct to prime contractors and first
SUBJ contraotorS The Priorities
section of o. P. M will pass them
out for all manufacturers below the
the first sub-contractor.
If all this sounds a bit thick and
complicated, you can be assured
that it is, but it's just the kind of
business you'll have to get used TO
as this defense speedup gets thick
er and thicker.
When the aluminium company
bookkeepers bring in their order
books, it will take eight good
strong men to lug them around
First time they come in, they may
not bring in the whole works, but
a preliminary abstract or sampling
just to see if it meets the Priorities
division requirements.
Once the routine is established
the inspection will have to be
made every month. Aluminium
Company of America now gets
some 10000 to $4,000 orders a
month, totaling 40 million pounds
a month. 1t sells for from II cents
a pound for ingots to 81 a pound
for finished machine parts, so the
business the government will be
overseeing will be some place be-
tween S680O,000 and $4,000 900
say S20000,000 a month, conserv-
atively.
Here is government stepping
into business in big constructive
way. You can't "list that on sheet
of paper" as one expert naively
suggested, and mail it in for a
checkup. 1t will take time TO ana.
lyze all this supply and demand
and if tnere be any excuse for the
existence of economists, this should
be it.
COOPERATE
OR ELSE