Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-09-05
Action Now
Demanded Of
New Board
Saving Civilian Supplies
Is Tough Problem
BY HUGH s. JOHNSON

BY HUGH s. JOHNSON
THE RINGING opening state
l. ment of Vice President Wal
lace'S SPAB. or super duper
defense board the belated 1871
model Of the 1918 war industries
board was good oratory. But
il leaves room for a little ques-
tloning.
In the first place. what Is
most needed now is less rhetoric
and more action. fewer prom
Uses of what we're gonna do
and more records Of what we
actually have done.
In the second place, the an
nouncementS. almost as new
discoveries, Of policies effectively
and successfully applied in 1918
(such as conservation. stand
ardization, reclamation. plant
conversion and intelligent
prioritieS) raise some doubt
about whether these boys Yet
know or even suspect what il IS
all about.
In the third place. all the
emphasis here is how less eS-
Sential uses are TO be abSo-
lutely subordinated to military
requirements. But. when Mr..
Wallace was asked a few timid
questions about what The total
requirements are. he didn't have
any answers.
There is an old proverb about
cutting the coat 10 suit the
cloth" We are embarked on
an industrial military program
Of between 80 and go billion
dollars. That is more than the
the national industrial output
trxCFUdiug aTr1c ture and
transportation IN some OF the
depression years. OF course.
any such measure of production
in dollars is tricky and unrell-
able. because Of fuctuating
prices. But, it is the best yard
stick We have.
IF MILITARY production for
L ourselves. Britain. the Russian
Communists and The Chinese
neutrality-suspicious. is 10 take
absolute precedence. and If the
total equals a bad years entire
American industrial production.
what is going to be left for the
American people =? The maihe-
NAUTICAL answer is unity divided
by intinity or, in plain words,
zero.
I can't recall the 1918 war
board making any ringing an
nouncement whatever AZ its first
meeting II first made a kind
Of collection Of itself and took a
look around TO see what were
the controlling facts and figures
on requirements.
II was especially charged with
the duty Of conserving civilian
supply. That il did. and. while
II demanded great sacrifices
whore they were necessary. n
first made absolutely sure that
they were necessary and used
every ingenuity TO temper or
avoid their most painful bear
ing instead Of proceeding TO
them almost as a primary aim
and advertising them a. viz
tue of It's administration.
IL SOME kind OF a publicity
Il bulld-up IT is now being fire.
quently said that our present
defense effort exceeds in pro-
duCtion anything attained in
1918 In the first place. on the
available fragmentary compar-
able figures, l don't believe it is
true.
Considering the tremendous
increase in American industrial
capacity it is a reproach if it i
not true II is a further re-
proaCh. because the methods
that obtained that 1918 produc-
ton and the lessons thercfrom
were all written in the books
and have mostly been neglected
until Just now.
FINALLY, the World War
Il problem was entirely differ
emit The Allies had passed the
peak of their man-power. which
was declining. They had built
up the curve of their produc-
ton Of munitions. which was adj
vanclng beyond their needs. II
would have been folly for It's not
10 have utilized It which we
did.
BY mutual agreement. We let
them build for us guns, planes.
shells. for which we furnished
them the raw materials. For
these and other reasons We pur-
chased over half of our supplies
for our AEF abroad This con-
dition is today reversed. No
just comparison can be made.
This board would do well 10
get busy, stop making ringing
statements. and hunting alibis.
learn the true job and produce
results.