The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-08-30

propriated just Q year ago, OPM was told the goal was to have arms and supplies for 1900, 900 men by June of 1S42, but here it is only the end of August, 1041, the Army has 1,500, 900 men already and the lease lend program has been thrown on top of that. More than &48 billion worth of defense expenditures have been authorized, $8 billion have bee nactually spent, 2000 plants have been expanded, and 2,500, ,000 men are employed in defense in- dustries. While that's only about 6 or 2 per cent of the total non-agri- cultural employment, another l. 500,000 workers are undergoing de- fense labor training, so the force is really 100000.
 There is talk about recognizing OPM by presidential order, giving it more authority. That may come any day now, but when Knudsen was asked if OPM could do a better job if he had some real authority his answer was God only knows"
 A 30 per cent cut has already been levied against teh washing ma chine industry. Steel sheet aprons and shields have been eliminated. Plastics have been substituted where possible, but there's 8 shortage of plastics. All electric appliances shine !resplendently with chrome and nickel, but all the chrome and nickel that can be produced is ear- marked for defense. Steel furniture is now using 1,200,0 900 tons of steel 8 year, and that is needed for de- fense. And so it goes, right down the list.
 MORE AID
 FOR INDUSTRY
 The big job, of course, is to shift the plants that have been making these things and the men working in those plants over to defense m- dustry or to substitutes.
 It is to help in this reallocation the the OPM has reorganized its Defense Contract Service under Ro- bert L. Mehornay of Kansas City and William E. Lewis of Toledo. A genuine effort is to be made to help the little fellow, the sub-contractor and the independent manufacturer who face closing their shops because they can't get materials to con- tinue their normal business or be- cause they haven't been able to get 8 piece of the defense job. Some of the steps the new pcs will take to relieve the admittedly bad situation include non-opening of normal bids on Army or Navy contracts for IS days from date of call, instead of five days, in order to give more time for blueprints and specifications to be studied by the 36 branch offlces. Calls for bids for large quantities will be broken down to permit smaller concerns to, bid for appropriate quanG. ties. Bidders on contracts of more than $5O,000 value will be required to state minimum percentage of the job which they will sub-contract. Finally, no few machine tools will be given contractors as long as there are idle machine tools in plants able to handle sub-contract- ing, within a reasonable distance. THE RUB
 IN A MONTH
 Regardless of reorganization, the pinch of defense is going to start squeezing hard on civilian produc- tion within the next 30 days. It has been feared before, it can be pre- dicted with 8 certainty now. At least 10 industries are going the of the aluminium utensil indus try-which is to the scrap heap for duation of the emergency. There just doesn't seem to be any other way out.
 Listing the temporarily doomed industries brings you these common everyday things you'll have to learn to do without If you need new equipment or get by on with what you have:
 Washington machines, electrical household appliances, refrigerators commerscial laundry equipment, air conditioning equipment, heaters and ranges, light fixtures and ap- pliances, metal furniture, kitchen equipment, dry cleaners equipment
 You have to go into only a few oftho SC to see how continuation ot their production on a nrmal basis