The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-12-18

of additional interest now as con- gress gives consideration to new ap- propriation bills, new tax bills, and listens to the demands for economy, economy and still more economy the election being just around the corner.
 The procurement services of the war agencies keep one eye on this demand from congress, too, mani- festing a commendable being-good- just before Christmas spirit. The Army has volunteered infor- nation that 1t will save some $13,- 000, 100000 on its budget, while the Navy will cut back some $4,00O, ,OOO. Budget Director Harold Smith ques- tionS the accuracy. of these esti- mates, but they are nevertheless im- posing sums and testimonials to a desire, some place in the heirarchy to run the war with semblance of efficiency and regard for the public purse.
 But the records of one senate committee, the Truman committee investigating the war effort, point to the scores of cases where, in the aggregate, equal sums might have been saved. These are the mistakes to paste in the hat, not as lot of second guessing, but as examples to profit by during what's left of the war:
 CAMP COST NEARLY DOUBLED
 It begins with the camp construc- tion program, the building of some 229 separate establishments for housing troops. The cost was to have been $5l5, 900 600. In May, 194l, when nearly all the projects were finished, the cost was found to be $828, 100000. In addition, another S236, GOO, 900 was required for extra facilities, so the total cost was over 8 billion, or nearly double the orig inal estimate.
 Parallel with this was the build ing of war plants. Throughout its activities, the Truman committee, having only limited staff, has delv- ed into only the more glaring cases of waste and inefficiency to point up the warning of Let's have no more of this" It would be close to an accounting impossibility to add up all the mistakes in the war plant program.
 One horrible example which the committee revealed was the Wolf's Creek shell loading plant at Milan, Tenn, where q $20,000,000 facility came out with a cost of $52,000, 900.
 There were bad procurement pro- jects, such as the Canal Oil develop ment in the Northwest Territory of Canada, which started out to cost a modest $25 ,000, ,000, and is ending up at a cost of $134,00O,0OO.
 There was the now famous Penta- gon building across the Potomac from Washington, which started out to cost $35,000,0O0 and ended up costing $63000,000, plus another ST. 000,000 for special installations for roads and water supply. From these bigger items the scandals run down to comparatively minor items in the war housing projects, such as that at Winfield Park, N. J., which was intended to cost only $3,000,000 but did cost $5,000,000.
 There are blots on the escutileon in shipbuilding, in spite of the fact that all records for shipbuilding have been broken time after time and costs cut again and again. Picking out one of the worst per- formers for the Maritime Commis- sion, Truman investigators probed the records of the South Portland (Me) Shipbuilding Corporation, where the first Liberty ships took a million and-a-half man-fours and cost $1 100000 each, against average of less than 600,000 man-hours and $800,000 at other yards.
 PROFIT TRIPLES
 INVESTMENT
 For the Navy, an investigation re- vealed that the Cramp Shipbuilding Company at Philadelphia stood to make $13,000, 900 fixed fee on $3OO,- 100000 worth of cruisers and subma- rines, after an initial investment of only $4,000,000 of private funds by the company.
 Both have now been corrected by new contracts.
 There was the horrible fiasco of the concrete barge construction pro gram, now fortunately cut back from 115 hulls to about 10, but each of those 10 will cost nearly $2,0O0, ,O00 whereas the original estimate was $500, 900 each.
 The aircraft program had It's bad chapters, worst of which were ex- posed as the Wright Engine plant at Lockland, Ohio, and the Curtiss- Wright Helldiver program at St. Louis and Columbus, as result of which, the Truman committee re- ported, many tens of millions of dollars have been wasted"
 All this Is not brought up here just to throw cold water on the war production program, where new records of production are being made month after month. Most of the mistakes have been corrected. But there's plenty of war still ahead and other mistakes like them can still be made. And as experience shows, when we set out to make mistake, we don't monkey around