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Show vvl OREvrPE arson 1,000 PLANES A MONTH WASHINGTON. The figure which defense commission experts have fixed privately for new factories for that new plane production program is $2,000,000,000. This is the program pro-gram recently announced by William Wil-liam S. Knudsen. Present plane deliveries to the army, navy and to the British are around 1,000 fighting ships per month. The army's production goal 3,000 planes a month by 1942, with a comparable increase in engine ! output obviously means an enor-; enor-; mous expansion of manufacturing j facilities. Some of the companies already ! are erecting new plants, in addition to. previous enlargements. Curtiss-j Curtiss-j Wright and Glenn Martin have new facilities under way; Bell Aircraft is ! adding 400,000 square feet of space near Buffalo; Boeing at Seattle re-, re-, ceived $7,368,000 for a new plant, ; and Vultee $4,294,000 for the same purpose. ! But all this is only a drop in the I bucket if 50,000 planes per year are actually to be turned out. Production Produc-tion facilities will have to be tripled, ; if more than 4,000 planes, engines j and armament for them are to come off the assembly lines each month. . PROBLEM TOWNS The defense commission is getting its noisiest headaches from the demand de-mand of inland communities for defense de-fense industries. Hardly a day passes without a bombardment of demands that plants be located in certain localities. To this din has now been added a barrage of new demands by towns that have already al-ready been favored. These defense boom towns, overrun over-run with thousands of new residents, are confronted with serious housing sanitation, police and other problems prob-lems and are hounding the commission commis-sion for help. In some places the problem is so serious that the commission com-mission is considering recommending recommend-ing to congress a public works program pro-gram which would give them the projects outright that is, 100 per cent free. An example of such a boom town is Charlestown, Ind., site of what may become the world's largest powder plant A sleepy hamlet of 800. overnight Charlestown was transformed into a seething city of 5.000. with perhaps 15,000 in prospect pros-pect by January as the new powder plant expands. Naturally this boom brought thousands thou-sands of workers, speculators, camp followers and others to Charlestown. Housing soon became non-existent prices skyrocketed, and one enterprising enter-prising realtor even started to subdivide sub-divide an ancient cemetery into town lots. The town has no sewer system, the tiny municipally-owned water plant is totally inadequate, and the community treasury is so broke that it can't even pay the salary of a town marshal, although a government govern-ment payroll of more than $75,000 is now cashed every week at the town's bank. The boom has spread to Jeflersonville, 12 miles away, and to New Albany, 18 miles distant where housing can't be had for love or money. In this dilemma the town fathers turned to Uncle Sam, to the WPA. the U. S. Housing authority, the Federal Housing administration, even the White House, and finally to Frank Bane, director of the state and locnl division of the defense commission. At the President's orders, a plan has been worked out under which the defense commission, the state of Indiana and the town will set up a joint planning body to transform Charlestown into a community capable capa-ble of meeting its problems. ... INAUGURATION STANDS The presidential inauguration Is nearly three months off but already whitc-overnlled carpenters are busy erecting stands and seats on Capitol Capi-tol Plaza. Reason for this unusual haste is the defense program. "If we wp'.tcd much longer." explains ex-plains David Lynn, veteran Cnpitol architect "we wouldn't bo able to get any lumber. The erection of the great camps for the selective service trainees has caused a shortage short-age In the lumber market. The government gov-ernment is buying up all the good lumber it can get for the cantonments." canton-ments." The lumber shortage also will affect af-fect the seating capacity. There will be room for only 12. MX) spectators 2.000 less than In 1937. Congress appropriated the same amount of money s four years ngo, but with increased material nnd lumber costs the $35,000 Isn't going as far. . HKK KY-GO-KOUNI) Tho expanding war department now occupies no less thnn 11 buildings, build-ings, or parts of them, in Washing-ton, Washing-ton, and a new big building Is going go-ing up. Commerce Secretary Jesse Jones Is planning to reorganise the Uusi. ness Advisory council he Inherited front Hurry Hopkins nnd l.uil- It a more forthright outfit. Jnssp plans to ndd a number of small IniFiucss men to the group. There is none on It now. |