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Show by JameS Preston Only time will tell whether the president's new board can keep strikes from hamstringing defense production,, just as time proved to Washington that something needed to be done about strikes. Some people in Washington, particularly congressmen who know what strikes are all about, feel rather dubious. They point out that the government has the power to crack down on defense industries, even to the point of taking them over and running them itself, but it does not have nor seek similar power over workers work-ers in the plants. They become especially pessimistic pessi-mistic when they see what they consider to be indications of the administration's attitude on the s-ituation. There was house debate recently over the following remark attributed' by one columnist to a high Washington official: "The right of the CIO to strike is paramount to the right of this country to have a national defense program, and prior to the safety and welfare of this nation." The official has not publicly disavowed dis-avowed this statement, so some legislators assume It is correct. And they object vigorously to letting let-ting any group declare that for any reason whatever they do not choose to make goods for defense. Less than two weeks ago, labor-ites labor-ites were successful with their propaganda to th effect that strikes weren't interfering with defense. Even the president said so. And then officials began to get curious. They found some astounding as-tounding facts. The over-all conclusion is that if foreign agents had deliberately set out to impede production with as few strikes as possible, they couldn't hope for better results than are being achieved. Here are some of the facts that were disclosed dis-closed : Powder for shells and bombs is a No. 1 need. Private industry is building a number of powder plants. One at Radford, Va., was opened with fanfare three months . ahead of schedule. Another at the open has been kept Iveated behind be-hind insulation because frozen steel cannot we worked satisfactorily. satisfac-torily. Even frozen earth is dug up, run through a heater, thawed out, replaced, and kept heated. But none of these remarkable things will do any good if, when these plants are completed, their supplies of raw materials are cut off or they are closed down directly di-rectly by strikes. American ingenuity in-genuity will fail because short-term short-term interests of individual groups are ranked ahead of the whole nation's safety. Charlestown, Ind., promises to he finished two months early. But the Radford plant can produce at only one-quarter of its capacity until the Allis-Chalmers plant catches up on time lost by strikes in making mak-ing generators. And the Charles-town Charles-town plant will be even in a worse spot. Fuses for explosives are "must." One concern has a contract for about a third of the fuses needed. It wants steel for them. But a CIO strike has stopped the flow of steel so that the fuse-maker has informed the government that he may have to shut down. Aluminum is so essential for defense de-fense planes,, shells, radios, and the like, that the government temporarily tem-porarily isn't even letting any aluminum be used to make pots and pans. Yet an aluminum strike in a key plant is delaying production produc-tion of millions of dollars worth of aluminum. The government's own arsenal at Frankford, Penn., is being delayed de-layed in its production of ammunition ammuni-tion for small arms because of a steel strike. Another strike is Impeding Im-peding Pennsylvania production of howitzers, the heavy guns now most favored by defense experts. Strikes caused by disputes as to which union should have its members mem-bers working on the job are slowing slow-ing construction in a number of places. But in general, the industrialists indus-trialists who are building these new plants are far ahead of schedule. sche-dule. One plant will be ready to make Rolls-Royce engines in 9 months when the government estimated es-timated it would take 12; two machine ma-chine gun factories will be ready months ahead of schedule; an aluminum foundry will be ready to produce in 6 weeks instead of an expected 12 weeks. Marvelous things have been done to achieve this record. Structural steel framework out in |