The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-09-22

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 SS4S sM something has to I1 RAson be one in a hur- ry. There was, for instance, an emergency request for formaldehyde. It seems that the stuff has all kinds of defense uses, but 1t also goes into embalming fluid. And one manufacturer of em- balming fluid wrote in to tell the de- fense organization he wanted form aldehyde pretty quickly.
 Tn the information division of OPM there is a section of 35 people who do nothing but answer ques- tions that can't be referred to au- other section. Last February, 1t was getting only about 400 letters week. Today the information division gets 5000 letters e week. hnd this does not include OPMS regular business mail.
 PUTS TT
 POLITELY
 Only a small part of this general information mail can Dc answered by form letters. When requests are made for certain publications or or- ders, then standard forms can be used, but there are only about 10 of these and good many of them say No" in various polite ways They are used to answer the rec quests of people who want too much for nothing But at least half or 4.- 900 of these letters must be indi- vidually answered every week.
 Mailing lists OH oPMs's informa- ton sheets are tremendous. Four million pages of these information sheets are ground out from q bat tery Of duplicating machines every month, and they 90 to special and select lists containing in all nearly g 900 names of people or firms who are interested in some particular phase of the defense business. The standing order list alone has some 5000 names on 1t, ane' that takes in the manufacturers or dealers in some particular commodity like rub. Der or paper who have to be spe- cially notified whenever any defense organization takes any action af- fecting the price or priorities or sup- ply of whatever 1t is they're dealing in.
 Then there Is the list of nearly 5000 contract holders, ranging from the 45o0 who have contracts Of from $l to S50,000 up to the select list of 299 who have contracts of $i million or more. They have to be kept informed of changes In prior ities or methods Of handling con- tracts, or any changes in regulations for doing business with the govern ment. Also, they get special mailings of posters to put on their shop bull letin boards to keep up labor morale. THEY GET
 IT STRAIGHT
 More than 4,o0o weekly newspa- pers and 1900 daily pagers get direct mailtngS of defense information. Three hundred radio stations are given a similar news service, and about 800 people are kept advised Of the radio programs that deal with national defense subjects.
 Trade associations numbering 1850 organizations of furniture men, man, lumber men, household appli- ance people and the like are kept advised of what goes down their al- leys.
 Just keeping the big, sprawling, complex, defense organization in- formed of what its own departments are doing is one of OPM's meaneSt jobs. one Of It's recent ideas was to condense all the news about all the defense activities. and circulate this digest to more than 500 of it's top- flight executives.
 OPM's labor activities are spread through mailing list of nearly l. 900 union officials. labor newspapers labor contractors and personnel ofl- cers.
 Now you might well imagine that all this service of information costs money. It does. In all. there are 250 people working in this defense in- formation service, and their payroll is $57o,000 a year. On top of that add $S0,0o0 a year for travel eX- pense and sl50,000 year for mis- cellaneous expenses, and you have exactly three quarters of a million dollars just to answer the questions of people who want to know what's going on in national defense.