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Show by JameS Preston Only a year ago on May 28 did the defense program really get under way with the creation of the National Defense Advisory commission. On the first anniversary anniver-sary of that event, many people in and out tf Washington are asking: ask-ing: "What have we accomplished? accomplish-ed? What lies ahead? The first question is easy to answer. ans-wer. The second is much more difficult. dif-ficult. Official figures tell the story of the remarkable progress since Messrs. Knudsen, Biggers, Stet-tinius, Stet-tinius, Batt, find other businessmen business-men came to Washington to organize or-ganize the defense production drive. Here are just a few: In the nine months ending in March, airplane production rose nearly 300 per cent; in the twelve months ending in May, tank production pro-duction has increased 600 per cent; powder production, 1,000 per cent; small arms ammunition, 1,200 per cent; Garand automatic rifles, 360 per cent; SO caliber machine guns, 400 per cent; 30 caliber machine guns, 300 per cent. Present plans call for an even greater expansion of production of military items. For example, present pres-ent tank production, which is 600 per cent greater than last year, Is to be quadrupled; present powder pow-der and small arms ammunition, trebled; machine, gun production, increased five times. In the year in which business leadership has accomplished these results and laid these plans for the future, the "planners" whom everybody knew have been in the background. But slowly and surely, sure-ly, they are moving again to the fore. The old National Defense Advisory Advis-ory commission is virtually gone. Nothing remains of it but a name and a telephone number. It has been replaced by the Office of Production Management, better known as the OPM. It is no longer a defense program pro-gram guided by businessmen. A labor leader, Sidney Hillman, has an equal voice with Knudsen even on problems which relate solely to production. Leon Henderson, a so-called so-called "New Dealer," has taken over price policing. The $l-a-year men who, official figures show, have done such a grand job, are under fire. But the production job is being done. How long it will be, if ever, before be-fore businessmen are completely subordinated to "planners" whose only experience has been graduating graduat-ing from a university and staying on the government payroll, is something no one dares predict. But the present trend is in that direction. At the same time, the strike problem remains. It has caused tremendous worry. It is getting worse instead of better. Yet while a "New Dealer" is supervising prices, the treasury is taxing away excess profits, and congressional investigations are closely scrutinizing scrutin-izing the activities of businessmen, not a thing except talk has been done about strikes. A Defense Mediation board has been created. But its present trend is to force manufacturers of defense de-fense goods whose plants have been closed by strikes to settle for what the union organizers will take. The result is that official war far this year more than 1,700,000 department figures show that so man-days have been lost through strikes in plants producing for the army. Applied in the proper spot, these lost man-days of work could have produced 40,000 Garand rifles, 1,000 light tanks, 200 Curtis-Wright Curtis-Wright pursuit planes, 30,000 antiaircraft anti-aircraft shells. The OPM recently published a pamphlet prepared by Sidney Hill-man Hill-man entitled "Labor Speeds Defense." De-fense." No similar publication has yet described industry's contribution contribu-tion to defense. The record shows that industry already has accomplished accom-plished wonders; it is ready to do more. Yet the strike organizers get praise for speeding defense, coupled cou-pled with a gentle slap on the wrist and the gentle reprimand: "You shouldn't be such a naughty boy!" |