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Show Reconversion No Great ? ... Obstacle to Industry r - 1 ' ! 1 Many Factories Making Consumers Goods -; 4 ' it ; For Services; Numerous Others to f V j Require Only Minor Changes. $ By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. WNU Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, I). C. Reconversion has beun and it looks as if one prediction, made back when conversion had been accomplished ac-complished with many an ache and groan, would come true. Then the experts predicted that reconversion reconver-sion would be easier than conversion. Eighty per cent of the factories, we are now told by ofliciols of the department of commerce, will not have to do a major reconversion job. This is largely because many industries indus-tries now furnishing supplies to the military will continue to manufacture manufac-ture the same supplies for civilians tlothing, food, printing, electrical appliances you can think of a whole lot of others yourself. It will be no great problem for the makers of such products to shift from one market mar-ket to another from Uncle Sam to John Q: Consumer. Some industries whose present final product differs considerably from the civilian goods they make won't have such major difficulties either. It will please the ladies to learn that even the folks who have been making parachutes will have little or no trouble changing back to stockings. The nylon people simply sim-ply have to change spools. There are a number of other predictions pre-dictions concerning the future of businesses, big and little, and one of them is that 40 per cent of the industries, although they won't do the business they are doing today with Uncle Sam as a customer, will have a bigger demand to meet than they had in the boom year of 1929. And this condition will continue, say the prophets of profits, for two or three years on the impetus of the present pent-up buying power of the nation. If we keep our heads meanwhile, there is no reason why the period of prosperity cannot be extended. But what about the other types of business which were expanded by (var demands for products which won't have any civilian market? Well, our American business ingenuity inge-nuity and our native mechanical inventive in-ventive genius, they tell us. are going go-ing to step into the piclure again. Then there will be the natural evolution evo-lution which will eliminate the be-, low-average business man and establish es-tablish a survival of the fittest. Yankee Ingenuity T o the Fore What started me off on this topic was a typical example of how this Inventive genius, stimulated by war demands, has laid the foundation for turning what started as a little two-room factory into a big, smalltown small-town business. The man with the Inventive genius is a frequent Washington Wash-ington visitor these days. His name Is Burl E. Sherrill. The name of the town is Peru, Ind., population 13.000. Sherrill is a modest Hoosier genius in his forties who managed to make a living from tinkering and selling the patents on the gadgets he invented. Then one day he made something he liked so well he didn't want to part with the idea behind it, so he decided to manufacture it himself. him-self. It was a popular-priced magnetic mag-netic compass for use in steel-bodied steel-bodied automobiles and trucks. Sherrill rented three offices right on the public square of Peru, turned them into his factory and started ut. Soon he began to expand, pushing push-ing lawyers, doctors, real estate men out of the way. But I am getting ahead of my story. Sherrill was a born inventor, although al-though he didn't realize it and started start-ed off to study law. After two years at the University of Chicago he found that his hunger for the law was appeased, his hunger for three meals a day was not. He went to work managing a little neighborhood shoe store in Chicago. This gave him a chance to tinker in the kitchen-laboratory in his flat. Then he got a chance at a job back In Indiana In-diana repairing radios in Peru. This gave him lots of opportunity to tinker and he patented inventions and sold them, which bolstered his income considerably. Finally he evolved the compass which he ttouldn't part with. He was able to hire a small staff of workers then came the war and no more civilian RUtOS. But there were lots of military vehicles ve-hicles and after our blind tanks had lost themselves in the African des erts, Washington found out about Sherrill and gave him the challenge of making a compass for use in motorized mo-torized equipment of various kinds. Sherrill went to work and produced his models. The Carnegiei Institute, the army engineers and the war college looked them over and put their okeh jn them. The inventor moved downstairs and took the' whole first floor of the building on Peru's public square. The 20 men who had assembled the auto compasses com-passes were increased to 125 working at a regular assembly line. Next came a call from the Maritime Mari-time commission. A compass for steel lifeboats was needed. Like the tanks, too many had been left to wander on the high seas blind. Further Fur-ther inventive genius was required for this job for a steel lifeboat passes much of its life on the steel deck of a ship. A few months ago the new compass was approved and production pro-duction is now under way. Some day, of course, the last war order will arrive at the factory in Peru, but because of the war-stimulated ingenuity of one man, a product prod-uct has been created, the demand for which will continue for such war machines as are still needed plus a demand for civilian use which will return the moment restrictions on motor travel and transportation are over. In addition, I understand from Sherrill, a new hearing-aid is in the making. War a Spur to Many Entrepreneurs To reconvert to the manufacture of eivilian products, no change of machinery or assembly line nor any retooling will be necessary at the Sherrill factory. Nor will the pnnMier of employees have to be reduced. re-duced. ui course, not many inventors are endowed with enough business sense to run plants of their own. Sherrill appears to be an exception. When he got his first army order, he was asked when he could deliver how many compasses. He named the figure fig-ure and the day and what is more he lived up to his promise, which was more than many manufacturers with less foresight and more unforeseen unfore-seen hurdles have been able to do. There are other inventors and other oth-er business men who, like Sherrill, have received from war demands the stimulation which will push them ahead and carry them through the breakers of reconversion. Sherrill himself has no technical education. He calls himself a graduate from a junkpile. But he can talk with the scientists and the experts and, what is more, he makes the pictures he draws on his drawing board, sometimes some-times in the small hours in pajamas and slippers, work. He has the typical American ingenuity in-genuity shared by thousands of others oth-ers who helped win the war for us and who will keep us from losing the peace. - Recently a listener wrote in with a suggestion that a fitting memorial for the late President Roosevelt could be provided in a manner which would aid the bond drive. She suggested sug-gested that "if bonds were contributed contrib-uted fo a memorial commensurate with our sorrow and regret, by the time these bonds matured we would be able to buy the most magnificent magnif-icent memorial in the world in honor of our greatest President." Then she concludes: "I am one of the many 'little people' who would gladly contribute a small bond now, but may not be able to give anything later." The psychology of that suggestion is interesting. Regardless of what the purpose of a fund might be, what a splendid way of raising it and thus achieving exactly what the government govern-ment wishes to achieve by the sale of bonds: the double purpose of securing se-curing cash to defray war expenses and also reducing the amount of inflationary in-flationary pocket-money. It struck me as such a good idea that I sent it along to Ted Gamble who is in charge of such matters in connection with the Seventh War loan, ffext to making suggestions for selling bonds I suppose one of the best things one can do is buy them. Of course if everybody followed fol-lowed that horse-sense plan and bought, simply for the security of their own future, the treasury wouldn't need any suggestions. BARBS . . . by Baukhage An official navy bulletin included i this warning: "Navy personnel are not allowed to transport monkeys to or from India." The government has moved west from the Hudsoi., one congressman commented. Fine so long as it doesn't stop when it gets to the Mississippi. This is a very wide country Sale of horse meat is reported on the increase. If that's the case we'd better end this gasoline shortage soon. A medal was recently awarded tc a hih utlicer for saving the life ol a won: an by slopping a runa way horse 20 years ago. Which shows he was faster at catching up with what he was after than his medal |