Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1943-06-18
On The Beam
By CLAYTON w. FOUNTAIN
THE WELKIN RINGS

THE WELklN RINGS
The welkin rings with the
racket of corporate backslapping.
On the pages of the public press
there appears an endless series
of gaudy advertisements acclaim
ing the patriotism and the in
dustrial efficiency of the manu-
featuring gentry. If commercial
blurbs and Autographs were half
as lethal as bombs and bullets,
the Axis would now be threshing
in the throes of defeat.
Where once the public was ex-
horted to buy bett'l gadgets
from Gilch and Company, Inc,
the body polite now is prevailed
upon to witness the superiority
of jeep and Tommy guns turned
out by the Gilch establishment.
1t is thus suggested that the big
business boys are busy beating
plowshares into swords because
of their love for Democracy
and for no other reason.
CONFLICTING TALES
But here and there on other
pages, especially in odd corners
near the want ads and the fun
nies, are buried little tales which
mar the magic of the full page
spreads. These little items, so
neatly obscured in small type
and soft-pedal headlines, tell of
treason in the testing rooms of
industry.
A Federal Grand Jury indicts
the Sandusky Foundry & Ma
chine Company for willfully fax
ing inspection tests and deliver
ing faulty bronze castings to
the United States Navy. The ed
itor of the big daily in which
this writer found the story,
deemed it worthy of six inches
of eight point type on page 19.
Neither in the main one-col-
umn headline nor in the SUBJ
head did there appear any indi-
cation that the indicted corpora
tion had in any way obstructed
or interfered with the war effort.
CARNEGIE-ILLINOIS CAUGHT
Not long ago another Fed
eral Grand Jury sitting in Pitts
burgh indicted the Carnegie-Illi-
nois Company, subsidiary of
the U. S. Steel Corporation, for
deliberately destroying records
related to an inquiry into the
manufacture of faulty steel ship
plates. Carnegie-Illinois officials
had already confessed to the
Truman Committee that $4,000
tons of inferior steel were
shipped out of its plants.
This leads US to wonder what
happened to the Anaconda Wire
& Gable Company, which was
indicted six months ago for man
ufacturing sub-standard war ma
terials. We haven't heard of any
corporate big shots from Ana
conda being tossed into the clink
for sabotage.
But a worker in Baltimore, re-
Gently convicted Of faulty work
manship on war job, was slap
ped into the hoosegow quicker
than Alfred P. Sloan could clip
a coupon.
PURSES NOT PATRIOTIC
All of which convinces us that
the corporate gentry profess
their patriotism too often and too
loudly. The evidence indicates,
in the cases of the few that have
been caught red-handed, that the
patriotism of the Upper Crust
tycoons does not prevent them
from packing their purses with
profits acquired by producing
phoney war materials.
1t would seem that justice is
not only blind, as the old saying
goes, but that she has her tongue
in her judicial cheek, when a
rich industrialist is hailed into
court for putting profits ahead
of the safety of our fighting
men. Instead of locking up the
culprits, the court
slaps them on the wrist and
mildly admonishes them to be
good.
The spectacle of few coupon
clippers sitting on the inside
out would do the war ef-
fort a world of good-not to
making Democracy a
little safer at home.