The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-02-25


 lproduction will be indicated. The idea, of course, is to tell the gen. eral public just what is being done without revealing detailed military production secrets.
 This spring production drive, lcoupled with the first production report since Pearl Harbor, will give the real indication of how effective Nelson's one-man control and re- sponsibility for administration of war production has been going. It is just month since Nelson an- Inounced his reorganization. That isn't much time in which to convert the countrys economics from de- fense to offense, but it is possible even now to point out definite WPA accomplishments.
 j7 Most tangible is tie fact that Il. five major industries are being converted from civilian to war pro- duction-automobil radios, refri- geratorS, typeWriters and washing machines. The program in the auto industry calls for complete corver- ision and civilian production here has been stopped. Severe limitations have been put on civilian produc- tion in all the others, and WIPE, is working with War Department to assign these industries de- finite war production tasks. In re- frigefators and radios, dates have been set for complete conversion in April.
 , Nelson has completed his re- A' organization of the old OPM and has shown that the new WIPE is not just shift of names with the same old faces running the show under new billing. There is different attitude and new ap- preach to the war production job. This is perhaps intangible, but it can be pointed out that under the old OPM organization the brass hats were always trying to alibi inability to get anything done because their organization was faulty, or because they didn't have the authority to do the job, or becaure too many divis- ions shared or didn't know their responsibility. Nelson has changed all that. He has given the outfit a different tone, popped it Up, i'm proved morale. The word he passes on to his principa1 assistants now 1 is that if the organization goes sour from here on, no ore is to be blamed but the WIPE bosses them selves.
 IQ Procedure has been speeded up 1' and this has been passed on to other agencies of the govern ment cooperating with the WIPE. Just recently, Nelson decided to put in a new 12O0-ton blast furnace for ,pig iron production on the west coast, awarding the contract to the Henry J. Kaiser interests. The con- tract was cleared through the De- fenSe Plant corporation in 48 hours, a record that beat past perform ances not by days, but by weeks Contracts for new steel mill to use this pig iron are not on the heels of the blast furnace job. That is typical. It marks definite break with the old idea that present steel production capacity is adequate. I1 Nelson gets daily progress re- I' ports submitted to him every morning. If he sees schedules are not being maintained, call goes to the division head to make a per- sonal investigation ard report. Top men are kept jumping around the country taking corks out of bottle neckS
 r WIPES Planning division has c' just been organized with young Robert Nathan as chairman. The division has not had time to show its stuff, but it is apparently to be more than a mere brain trust, gag ing into the future. It is the in- tention to give this three-man com mittee specific problems of war pro- duction to think through and solve IR Nelson's recent action in giv- O' ing aircraft production Ala priorities rating, along with tanks, ordinance and shipping, while desig- mated as purely organizational matter to remove a psychological barrier for aircraft procurement men, was in reality the first step of much broader revision of the whole system of top ratings on ma- jterials priorities. Production sched- ules, in other words, are being com pletely recalculated to bring deliv- eries schedules on raw materials in- to line with military requirements on finished products for war.
 l7 William L. Batt's Material A' division will soon have new figures on the overall requirements ard production of aluminium and magnesium. These will be the first of completely new series of esti- mates on the ultimate demands for raw material needed to achieve the Presidents program for 185,00O iplanes, 10000 tanks, 55, 1000 ackack guns and SO on, in the next two lyears.
 When these new requirements figures are set, it will mark the first time that anyone will have had any definite idea of what it is going to take to outproduce the Axis and win this war. Heretofore, working from day to day. As a result, short ages kept developing and hitting the production men in the face.
 Now, however, the picture oi where the country is and where it's going is gradually taking shape That is Nelson's most important accOmnlishuent tO date