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Show by JameS Preston ! Washington offiicals - particu larly those connected with defense activities hope the nation got as much inspiration and comfort as they did out of a recent develop- ment which illustrates what a free nation can do. It involved steps necessary to call into full operation all of the nation's tremendous industrial productive capacity so the coun- try can be made so strong that no aggressor will dare attack it. The. "ism" method is to send a horde of agents from factory to factory. Many of these agents j know nothing about production j methods. But they give orders as to what the factories must make. One reason why American pro- duetlon In a few short months has speeded up as much as Germany's did in several years is that the United States method has- been different up to this point. The men who know what their factories and the men and machines in them can produce are still being consulted. con-sulted. The recent development is part of an interesting story which begins be-gins in 1919. In that year, the United States made plans for any future emregency which called for industrial mobilization. As part of that plan, government govern-ment officials made continuing surveys of some 20,000 major factories, fac-tories, to find out what defense goods they could turn out on short notice. Last summer, however, it became be-came appartent to some that In came apparent to some that in the 20,000 factories alone could not do the whole job. So the question ques-tion arose of what to do about getting more productive facilities. Government agents could not do the job. They did not have enough industrial experts to canvass the thousands of additional plants. They did not feel that questionnaires question-naires sent into these plants would produce results, because manufacturers manufac-turers already were getting questionnaire ques-tionnaire after questionnaire from the government. So the National Association of Manufacturers and some 150 national, na-tional, sta'te and local manufacturers' manufac-turers' associations affiliated in the N'ational Industrial council decided de-cided to do the job. After a necessarily long period in which all government agen-Icies agen-Icies were consulted about the in-! in-! formation they might want, and creation of the machinery necessary neces-sary to handle the inventory, the job was begun. And now the findings have been turned over to government officials. In brief, this survey has covered in less than five months 18,002 industrial plants. A great majority of these are not included in the 20,000 surveyed by the government gov-ernment since 1919. So that as of this moment, the government knows exactly what some 38,000 plants around the nation can produce, pro-duce, what machines they have, how many employees, etc. This material not only is available avail-able in Washington, but in the offices of-fices of the state and local organizations or-ganizations which cooperated in the survey. It also has been turned turn-ed over to scores of federal agents throughout the country who are placing government contracts and looking for sources of supply. Washington officials feel that since the information was supplied voluntarily by men who know their own plants it means first that it is sound information, and second that it indicates a willingness to produce for defense. A manufacturer manufac-turer would hardly supply the information in-formation without expecting that he might be called upon to produce. pro-duce. Such is the way of a free people. Congressmen, incidentally, are still waiting for demands for economy from back home. They don't want to vote the 3 billions in new taxes and also vote millions for non-defense items which could be cut. But so far, their constituents constitu-ents are silent, although they probably won't be when next year's tax bills come due. Meanwhile, the are appealing through Senator Reyburn to the president to take the lead in reducing re-ducing non-defense expenditures. |