| OCR Text |
Show Mt-GD-ROUND Md PRE PEARSON Washington, D. C. SCKAP IRON It may be that those who let millions mil-lions of tons of scrap iron go to Japan are not too anxious to advertise adver-tise our present dearth of scrap, but the real fact is that it is so serious as to cause the shutdown of nine blast furnaces in Youngs-town, Youngs-town, Ohio, alone. To meet the shortage, the OPM has been conducting an experimental experi-mental campaign to collect scrap iron in Erie, Pa., and is launching other campaigns in Boston, Pittsburgh, Pitts-burgh, Bridgeport and Akron. However, How-ever, the campaign is going very slowly. Chief trouble is that collections col-lections are made through the normal nor-mal scrap iron trade. Therefore, it looks as if the American Amer-ican public might have to take things in hand. A survey of Butler county, Ohio, shows that every farmer has an average of about 50 pounds of usable scrap iron and rubber rusting or rotting behind his barn. On this basis, the OPM estimates that it should be possible to collect 1,500,000 tons of . scrap from American farmers. Not many people realize the importance im-portance which scrap plays in the iron and steel industry. Ordinarily, steel is made 50 per cent from ore and 50 per cent from scrap iron. But today ordinary supplies of scrap iron are diminished, not only by previous sales to Japan but by the fact that war industries supply no scrap. Many tanks, guns, and military mili-tary motor trucks are shipped off to Egypt, Malaya or Russia. They never come back. Ordinarily, industry indus-try supplies its own scrap iron from junked automobiles, etc. But now there will be fewer automobiles to junk. So the scrap iron problem is one which will require every farmer and householder to look around behind be-hind his barn or in his basement to see what he can spare for war industries. in-dustries. You can check off lead as the next strategic material to be put under interdict for civilian use. OPM's banning order will be issued shortly. short-ly. That will mean the end of lead foil and numerous other items of norma everyday use. One possible exception may be lead for automobile automo-bile batteries, but even that will be under severe restrictions. Reason for the ban is inadequacy of domestic supply to meet the increasing need for bullets. War production tables call for a lead consumption con-sumption of 60,000 tons monthly by June; 100,000 tons monthly by next January. For military reasons, figures fig-ures on U. S. supply can not be disclosed, but it is below what is needed even with production increases in-creases now under way plus imports from Canada, Mexico and other foreign for-eign sources. So civilian use will be restricted for the duration. WLW ICELAND The largest standard-wave broadcasting broad-casting apparatus in the U.S.A. owned by WLW Cincinnati may be set up in Iceland to drown out Hitler's Hit-ler's rasping broadcasts to the German Ger-man people. For many years WLW. operated a 500,000 watt station in Cincinnati, but was forced by the Federal Communications Com-munications commission to reduce to 50,000 watts, which is the maximum for ordinary commercial stations in the U.S.A. Therefore, WLW has now offered its big 500,000 watt set to the government to be established in Iceland. Ice-land. Since Hitler's stations are nowhere no-where near as strong as 500,000 watts, WLW's beams from Iceland could drown out his voice every time he went on the air. Furthermore, WLW Iceland would not operate on short wave, which the German people are not permitted to hear. It would operate on a standard broadcasting beam and would come in over the ordinary German radio. By turning a button in the station in Iceland, the wavelength wave-length could be changed to cut in on any German program. There is one catch to the proposal, however. WLW Cincinnati wants to make a deal with the government whereby it would be permitted to set up another 500,000 watt station in the United States in return for sending its equipment to Iceland. CAPITAL CHAFF Secretary of War Stimson has been shaking up some of his generals, gen-erals, and has put Gen. Raymond Lee temporarily in charge of military mili-tary intelligence. Lee was former U. S. military attache in London and an A-l officer. Army people hope he stays in charge of the intelligence intelli-gence service. To make more office space in Washington, the Farm Credit administration ad-ministration is being moved to Chicago. Chi-cago. Through its nation-wide co-ops, Harry Slattery's Rural Electrification Electrifica-tion administration has erected more than 370,000 miles of transmission trans-mission lines. This w:as more than the 15 largest utility holding companies com-panies in the country combined. Over 1,250,000 farmers are benefiting benefit-ing from cheap electricity as a result re-sult of the REA system. Fifty per cent of our vitamin A is being sent to England. This, together to-gether with the shortage of fish livers liv-ers and oils from Norway and Japan, is causing a shortage of vitamins in the U.S.A. |
