Evening star., 1943-07-23
Buruch Plan for otuI War;


insidious economic strangulation
and political isolation that we
can devise and administer.
The battlefield effort (while
now only q part Of what We
shall be called upon to do) has
become Of itself . monstrous
thing. Twentieth Century means
of transportation, communica-
ton and supply have made pos
sible-and therefore necessary
the massing of men in numbers
never before deemed possible.
Bulk Of Industry Needed.
The accelerating progress Of
science has created destructive
forces which require for their
use or for defense against them,
the products of practically the
whole of industry in quantities
many times those required for
the uses of peace. Thus war re-
quires that. at the very moment
when productive effort Is de-
prived of millions Of men for
military service, the country's
facilities for production must be
speeded up to disgorge unpre-
precedented volumes of supplies.
Civilian morale becomes as i'm
portant as military morale and
1t Is necessary to make this cos
mic change with the least prac-
ticable interference with the nor
NAL life of the Nation. Further
more, the increasing dependence
Of each principal nation on un-
interrupted contacts with prac-
tically all other nations entails
the necessity-for both offense
and defense-of an economic
strategy and intense economic
tactics which must include prac-
tically every other nation -
hostile or neutral-in its far
flung application.
No such results as these are
at all possible without a sane
ton, control, and leadership in
industry sufficient to organize
and deal with 1t as practically
a single unitary system instead
Of a highly competitive COM
munity.
Weapon Unparalleled.
Once this unity is attained,
however, experience has shown
beyond question that the mobil-
lied industry Of America is
weapon of offense or defense far
more potent than anything the
world has ever seen-more terri
BILE, I think, than the mind Of
any man has ever imagined.
War on this vast modern scale
has hitherto so violently dis
turbed the pattern of the normal
economic structure of 'belligerent
nations that, regardless of the
side with which rests military
victory, the aftermath of struggle
prostrates both the conqueror
and the conquered.
With these most serious con-
siderations, you must deal. They
depend on principles which we
seem loath even to talk about
much less to provide for. These
principles, while generally con-
ceded in a vague, Incompetence
ing way, are hardly understood at
all. Yet they are of such sinister
and overwhelming Importance
that the neglect Of them Is, in
my opinion at least, one of the
most threatening aspects Of our
governmental policy.
From my experience, am con-
vinced that it is quite possible to
prepare, in peace, plans that will
make the transition from peace
industry to war industry without
serious disruption, to carry on
the feverish industrial activity of
war with the least possible harm
to civilian morale, to accomplish
all in the economic struggle that
we shall ever need to accomplish
and, even with all this, to lessen
the destructive afteref7ects Of
major conflict.
1t is for these reasons that I
regard the work of this commits
sion very seriously and that I
am much gratified to be able to
lay before it the results OF the
experience Of the War Industries
Board in the World War.
CReleased BY the Bell Syndicate, Yne)