The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-08-10

plenty of steel was no accident. If he had relied on the WIPE he would have got almost nothing.
 So in effect he resorted to "in- dustriaI bIackmaiP. He threat ened to build 8 $125, 100000 steel plant of his own in California un- less the industry supplied him with enough material. This scared big eastern steel men out of their wits. The last thing they wanted was western steel plant to cs.-:.:- pete with their operations in the east.
 So steel began to pour into Kaiser's yards from all over the country. And while other ship yards closed for lack of steel, Kaiser's kept working.
 It was this continuous supply of steel which permitted him to ap- plyy the assembly line system to building ships.
 NICE DONALD
 NELSON
 Real fact is that although many war industries are bowling for steel, there is probably enough to go around inside the country. The problem Is distribution, plus steel hoarding.
 This gets down to the basic fault of Donald Nelson. He is too nice. He can't say no. He trusts people too much. And like his chief in the White House, he likes his friends and can't fire them.
 Nelson is not tough enough to call in Eugene Grace, head of Bethlehem Steel, or Ben Fair less, head of Carnegie Illinois Steel, and tell them that he is sending his own men to make sure that steel does not go to private industry. F..
 Nelson never cracked any heads, neved made any enemies. Also, of course, 8 lot of steel leaked out into private ware houses before he took office.
 The railroads today are reported to have piles of steel stacked up for the future. Hotels, office build- ings, race-tracks, other favorite customers of the steel moguls, all got waited on-sometimes even be- fore the shipyards and the tank factories.
 And Don Nelson never called in the big steel men and said: I'm going to place my own house de- tectiyes inside your plants to see where the steel is going"
 WALL STREET CROWD
 Bernie Baruch, schrewd indus trial boss of the last war, has been doing his best to help Nelson be- hind the scenes, sometimes has taken him on weekend rests dur ing which he urged Don not to be so nice. But by the time Nelson got back to work on Monday, all the niceness had surged to the fore again, and the milk O human kindness was exuding toward his fellow men.
 Nelson works tremendously. He puts in terrific hours. No one is more loyal, more concerned over the war effort. But he is handt- capped, too, in being surrounded by weak men. A lot of the weak lings were there when he arrived and never got the gate. Still more have arrived since he took ofhce.
 Chief picker of these men Is Sidney Weinberg, head of Gold man, Sachs & Co.,, and . direc- tor of B. F. Goodrich, Continen- tai Can, General Cigar, National Dairy Products, McKessOn & Robbins, plus many others, among them Sears, ROebuck
 which is Donald NeIson's old firm.
 Sidney has picked his old cronies from Wall Street, plus a lot more who may become his
 cronies in Wall Street after the
 war, That is one reason why SO
 many of the same men who came down to Washington and
 ran the MIRA into the ground, are now back with the WIPE to-
 day.
 And unless there Is some cut- throat, house cleaning soon, the same old MIRA crowd may run the