Evening star., 1943-07-07
MR.. WALLACE


First of all I desire to discuss
quinine. Brig. Gen. H. c. Minton
has informed us that: "Antimalarial
preparations derived from cinchona
are, of course. essential to adequate
control and treatment of malaria, in
conjunction with the accepted syn
thetic antimalarials."
Far East cinchona bark contains
to 10 per cent quinine sulphate; {;
Latin America bark about per cent.
On April IA. 1912, Gen. Douglas
Macarthur wired Washington that
100000 seeds of a high grade
strain had been brought out of the
Philippines ton one of the last
planes leaving for Australia. add
ing that they must be planted
without delay"
I am sorry to have to inform this
committee that Jesse Jones and
Will Clayton stalled for months on
this program. AS I indicated to the
Senate Banking and Currency Com
mittee last December, there are
times when what we need is more
fights and fewer shortages.
Brought to u. S. by Fischer.
Lit. COL Arthur F.. Fischer, who
brought those seeds from the Philip
pines to the United States, came to
the Board of Economic Warfare
with his proposal-to plant the seeds
in Costa Rica-on August "a. 1912.
Within three weeks, the Board of
Economic Warfare had worked out
detailed plan and submitted it to
the other interested agencies. Re-
construction Finance Corp. repre-
sentatives at first acquiesced in the
proposal when it was discussed with
them on September IL and 20. Un-
dersecretary of War Patterson ap-
proved it formally on October 7, 1912
Then, on October 10. the Recon-
struction Finance Corp notified the
Board of Economic Warfare that
the matter requires further consid-
eration" Those considerations
continued for four months. Mr..
Jones said that our proposal was
postwar planning because of the
time it takes for cinchona trees to
come to full maturity for profitable
stripping. The Fischer trees couldn't
be harvested for 2la years. at the
earliest; normally. seven years pass
before stripping of the bark begins
During 1941. Mr. Jones may have
felt that this would be a short war
in which we wouldn't become in
volved; in any event he did not buy
quinine during that period in ade-
quate amounts for Government
stockpiles; during 1912 he acted as
though the war might be over by
1914 if we can take his attitude
toward this quinine project as a
criterion.
Quotes News Story.
United Press Story in the New
York journal of Commerce of Febru-
ary 3, 1912, quotes Jesse Jones as
follows: Secretary of Commerce
Jesse H. Jones told the House Bank
ing Committee today that he believed
the United States will be getting
all the rubber we need from the
Dutch East Indies by the end OF
l943 despite the present japanese
threat to that area" Mr.. Jones
may be right, but we dare not take
chances and base our imports work
on any such optimistic estimate.
AS a matter of fact, Mr.. Jones
may have been considering some
thing else. He takes great pride in
the profits of the Reconstruction
Finance Corp. and some of its sub
salaries, as evidenced by his recent
testimony before the Byrd Commit
tee. II the cinchona trees which we
have been discussing have to be
stripped after ~ years because of
desperate military needs for quinine.
they will yield about 10000 ounces of
oinine-and a $125 900 loss to the
RFC. That will mean red ink on
the books of the RFC.
l do not like to assign motives,
but it is difficult to escape the con-
clusion that possible dollar loss
held up this production project. Like
many things in total war this pro-
ject, may, of course. prove to be an
expensive undertaking in terms of
dollars 1t seems to us to be wise
investment in terms of saving lives,
however.
Disregarded Proddings
Whatever his reasons may have
been, the facts are that Mr.. Jones
disregarded the constant proddings
by the Board of Economic Warfare,
and for a while he ignored the fact
that I, AS chairman of the Board of
Economic Warfare. had personally
investigated the matter and recon-
mended immediate action. His
considerations" continued right on
through the battle-with malaria
and with the Japs-at GuadalcanaI.
1t was not until late January, 1943.
that the RFC finally announced that
it would spend some money for this
quinine project For all the full
power the President has given the
Board of Economic Warfare over
imports, we are helpless when Jesse
Jones, as our banker, refuses to sign
checks in accordance with our di-
receives. Finally, we have won out
in all such cases, but the time lost
has been precious time which there
was no excuse for losing.
There have been many other times,
of course, when personnel down the
line in both the Reconstruction
Finance Corp. and the Board Of
Economic Warfare have found them
selves in complete agreement and
have moved forward together with
speed. The situation is better than
it was q while back. and Mr.. Perkins
milo Perkins, executive director of
the BEW emphasized this fact in
his recent testimony before the