Show Some Diversification of Industry in I America Is Necessary for Security The Industrial council a group of chamber of commerce commerce commerce com com- merce officials in 17 cities In middle America from Minneapolis to Houston and from Denver to Little Rock is making making making mak mak- ing a bid for industry on the argument J that Americas arsenal belongs inland As might be expected this effort to attract industry on the basis of wartime security has brought a violent reaction from coastal areas Representative Sheppard of California for example called it a fantastic scheme which could virtually destroy the industrial power of this country He accused the area of trying to build an industrial economy at the expense of existing industry Plainly any effort to shift industry Inland for security purposes will ll meet with strenuous opposition from established established industrial centers whether they be on the Pacific coast in the east the south or anywhere else We Ve know how much opposition we in the west have met in the east in our efforts to develop our industry No one can blame established industrial industrial industrial indus indus- trial c centers for fighting a move which could do them considerable ble injury Yet there is sound sense in the proposal that there be at least some diversification tion of ess essential industry in America so that it is not concentrated overwhelmingly overwhelmingly overwhelmingly overwhelm overwhelm- in vulnerable areas We Ve in Utah must be sympathetic to tonny any such program because we have contended contended contended con con- tended for such diversification ourselves That is how we got our Geneva steel plant That is one of the main reasons why key military supply and storage depots were established here And we westill westill westill still believe that one of the best reasons industrial in industrial industrial in- in for the encouragement of western development in Utah is our relative invulnerability in the event of attack Our military experts tell us that one of off our greatest handicaps in the event of i a war with the Soviet Union would be bethe bethe bethe the diversification of Russian industry and the relative invulnerability of much of that industry deep in the heart of Russia and Siberia If such Russian di diversification diversification diversification di- di versification would be a handicap to us and therefore a strategic advantage to Russia certainly the reverse would be betrue betrue betrue true in America No one would argue that we ought to uproot established industries in wholesale wholesale wholesale whole whole- sale fashion and transport them to Utah or other inland states It might be advisable advisable advisable ad ad- to shift a few but most of the diversification could be achieved through the establishment of new industries in such a manner as to scatter them more widely around the country locating them in less vulnerable areas We Ve must not develop a scare psychology psychology psychology relative to the danger of war but certainly we ought to be realistic The combination of new submarine advances advances advances ad ad- vances guided missile developments ts and the atomic bomb makes the whole coastal area of this nation along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Gulf of Mexico vulnerable to attack I If we put all of our most vital vita industrial eggs in one basket or in several baskets along our vulnerable coasts an enemy might lay layone layone layone one more egg in them which would be disastrous |