Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-01-31
By HUGH S. JOHNSON

CECRETARY STIMSON says
- that one reason for buns
rushing the increasingly dis
credited "lease-lend' bill is that
it will cure the disorder which
has existed for nearly two years
in the manufacture of NUM-
tons"
His point is that the President
must purchase all supplies for
our several defense departments
and also for any allies because,
otherwise. they could compete
with each other. raise prices
and create confusion.
Whatever confusion has
EXISTED" is not traceable TO any
lack of executive authority.
Up to the middle of last year,
our government had no plans
whatever for adequate defense
and then. in a moment of panic.
dumped indigeStiblc billions of
dollars of totally unco=ordinatcd
orders into the lap of an I'M
warned industry. 1t is due also
to the long and ineXcusable lag
in setting up any single author
lied and intelligent control.
That hasn't been done yet. The
knudSen commission is still a
mess.
1t was not because govern
ment had not been warned by
the voice of intense and highly
successful experience. b. NJ.
Baruch warned it over and over
again as TO precisely what was
wrong and what was necessary
TO cure IT.
COMPLETE coordination Of
~ allied purchasing with our
own and of the purchasing of
our own hydra-headed purchas-
ing departments was accom-
plished in 1918 without any
congressional enactment what
, ever. II was done, as 10 our
government, by an intelligent
use of the normal powers in
vested in the executive and the
appointment OF Mr.. BaruCh as
co-ordinator with power to act.
As to ptr allies fwc called
ti1rr1T dgSOCIatcS J NfT BaruCh
did that by making the Abraham
Lincoln of that effort - old
Cowboy Legge-head of the
, Allied Purchasing Commission.
To use the excuse that Mr..
StimSon thus advanced for the
passage Of this totalitarian bill
this gratuitous American as
sumption Of responsibility for
the worldwide conduct of this
warts either a confession OF
ignorance or 1t is an attempt 10
brighten this nation into such
an abandonment of democratic
and constitutional processes as
is neither necessary nor deslr-
able.
T1lE second and only other
L point OF Mr.. Stmson'S argu-
ment is that the barter process
OF "leaSe-lend' or otherwise
dispose Q5, our weapons IS
/ more flexible than the adj
vance Of credit or a donation of
hard cash.
More flexible" for whom ?
Money and credit were invented
and over the ages have proved
TO be the most flexible of all
methods of exchange of goods
between nations Dne-ef- ctr
chief complaints against Hitler
is his design to substitute barter
in kind for money transactions.
The Sccretary'S testimony IL
solf-contradictory and aStoniSh-
inglv absurd.
He seems somehow 10 have
given the House foreign affairs
committee an impression that,
by what he proposes. our pro-
Fl. duction facilities can be made
more useful 10 us because our
designs Of aircraft and artillery
can thus be made uniform with
British designs.
Any man who knows molasses
from tar about that problem
knows that this testimony is
equally cquivocal. British mill
tary problems require one type
Of naval, aerial and ground
equipment. Ours require another
kind.
T1IE caliber of their guns and
methods of fire control arc
at off 4feFeHt. We have no business
= Ia impose upon the British our
ideas of the design of lcthal
weapons nor they 10 impose
theirs on us.
The truth is that very reck-
loss statements of fact are being
used 10 bulldoze this bill. Let
us do what is prudent or ncccS-