The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-02-02
Of Fumbling and Pickering

The Office of War Information has re- buked Rubber Director Jeffers for his charges, made before Council of State Governments at Baltimore, that the vitally necessary production of synthetic rubber, 100-octane gasoline and escort vessels is being held up by Army and Navy "so-called expediters" in war pro- duction plants. MT. Jeffers declared that If we can keep the Army and Navy and these loafers (expediters) out and let the men in charge into the plants, we'll get the production we need out of them, and we will be able to keep the country on rubber" Whether or not these charges are true, there has been an alarming amount of confusion and delay in get ting production under way on all three of these critical war necessities. And whether or not the OWI objects to Mr. JefferS' public admission of this con- fusion, 1t is a situation with which the public should be acquainted and con- cerned. The whole trouble lies in the fight for priorities on certain types of machinery needed in the manufacture of all three of these apparently dissimilar products. The machinery has not been put into mass production; possibly it cannot be produced on that scale. Mean while the production heads of synthetic rubber, 100-octane gas and escort ships, convinced of the prime importance of their product, seem to be pulling and hauling in maze of conflicting de- ( IrandS with little discernible progress.
 Take the case of the Navy's convoy vessels. Although construction of 50 of them was authorized in November, 194l, not one is yet in service. A single vessel of this type was launched last April, but remains unfinished because it lacks cer- tain mechanical requirements. And ap- apaFently these escort ships are the best weapon in our losing war against the U- boat. They are said to be sturdy enough for transoceanic service (which corvettes faced submarine, and adequately armed to destroy it. It is pointed out that es- cort ships could change convoy service from defensive operation to an active submarine hunt, and that they could free for aggressive action our destroyers and larger Warcraft now on convoy duty. Something more constructive than fum- bling pickering and name-calling needs to be done about submarine attacks, and it needs doing quickly. It is true that, thanks to a magnificent production ef- fort, launOhings of merchant ships ex- ceeded sinEings in the closing months of 5. last year. But the Nazis, in one of those closing months, built more than IS times as many submarines as we were able 10 sink.
 We can't beat the axis until we stop the U-boatS. And we can't stop the U-boats without more effective means than we have now have. Certainly the Army and the Navy and the WIPE know this better than the civilian, and are taking steps to remedy the situation. The most recent of these steps is the WIPE proposal to assure more material for es- cort vessels by limiting construction ot synthetic rubber factories to 55 per cent of the plan. Mr. Jeffers, aware ol the urgent need of rubber, doesn't like this 55 per cent cut. He told the Baltimore forum that there was perfectly sim pie" answer to the problem: Lets have a little more practical thinking.' Well, that ought to help even if it isn't the whole answer. At least it should avoid repetitions of the recent incident in Gary, Ind, where, according to War Depart ment spokesman, a synthetic rubber plant was cancelled after $3,000,000 had been spent on it because it's construction involved excessive cost of critical mas ferial"