Evening star., 1945-03-11


that any of the new crop of industrial
lists have become multimillionaires in
terms of cash. Surtaxes have seen to
that. In order to pocket $4,000 per
year, an industrialist must net 81 900 900.
Put differently, he would have had to
earn $2,500, 900 yearly for the four years
OF the war to end the period with
81 ,000, 900 in clear cash income.
That is not to say, however, that a
man cannot become a war millionaire
in terms Of assets In stock or capital
goods. Undoubtedly most of the big
war contractors have. Too, they can
look forward to a 10 per cent refund
on excess profits after the war is over.
That will mean hundreds of thousands
for some of them.
1t is impossible to check the income
of Americas big wartime industrialists
from public records. Although the law
provides that incomes received as COM
pensation for services in excess of s75,-
600 shall be made public, the term in
cludes only salaries, commissions and
bonuses-not income on stock invest
ments-and hence gives no index Of
total profits. For instance, the name
of Henry j. Kaiser, one of the top
war producers, does not appear on the
tax list for either 1941 or 1912.
Five names stand out conspicuously
in the list of men raised to the first
rank of American industry on the crest
of war production: Mr.. Kaiser, who
made Liberty and Victory ships, escort
carriers and other vessels roll off his
production lines like 10-cent gadgets;
Andrew J. Higgins, the builder of thou
sands of PIT and landing craft as
we'll as big Army transport planes;
r. S. Reynolds, who successfully chal-
lenged the ancient monopoly of the
Aluminium Co. of America in the field
of light metals, and William S. Jack
and Ralph M. Heintz Of the Cleveland
firm of Jack A Heintz, who set the
industrial world astir with production
miracles.
All expect to become big peacetime
producers. Some have in mind tre-
mendous projects-thousands of COM
houses, for example.
Novice at Shipbuilding.
In one sense, Mr.. Kaiser cannot be
classed as new big-scale industrialist,
for long before the war he had demon
strated miraculous ability to master
production problems with novel speed.
He was one of the participants in the
Six Companies, Inc, which built Boul-
der Dam, finishing it in 1885, two years
ahead of schedule. He also built the
San Francisco Bay Bridge.
But with the coming of war he en-
tered fields entirely new to him-and so
qualities for this list. The 62-year-old
shipbuilder, native of Canojaharie,
N. Y, had never seen vessel launched
until 1910. Marine engineers laughed
when they heard him refer to the prov
as the front end" of vessel But he
believed that the same production tech
niques he had used so successfully in
the building of dams and bridges could
be applied to ships
With a $5000O,0O0 Reconstruction FIJI
nance Corp. loan he set up his own steel
facilities at Fontana, Calf, and started
to prove to the Government that he
could build Liberty ships faster than
they had ever been turned out before.
In 1912 Mr.. Kaiser's Portland, Oreg.,
yard built 10,500-ton Liberty ship in
10 days II hours and SIS minutes, or IA
days under the record at that time
But six weeks later his Richmond,
Calf, yard far eclipsed that record,
launching freighter of the same tom
mage in days, Is hours and 80 minutes
after its kell was laid.
THE shipway is the bottleneck," he
once told reporters. III " have enough