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Show kA i Pi 4s) PREYTPEARSOH Washington, D. C. GUNPOWDER EMERGENCY In the public mind America's National Na-tional Defense Problem No. 1 is production pro-duction of airplanes. Actually, however, how-ever, it isn't. War department chiefs haven't been advertising it, but their greatest great-est worry is gunpowder. You can't fight a war without powder. And up until recently the annual powder production of all U. S. factories was only 12,000.000 pounds, which would last us a few short weeks in wartime. war-time. In comparison, the United States produced 500,000,000 pounds of powder pow-der at the end of the last war, and had partially built factories which . would have produced another 500,-000,000 500,-000,000 pounds a few months after the Armistice. ' It happens that nitrate is the key to gunpowder production. Manufacture Manufac-ture of powder is a simple and speedy process. But it is made from explosive nitrate, and nitrate production pro-duction is far more difficult. There are two kinds of nitrates, natural and synthetic. Major source of the natural is Chile. But it has two big drawbacks: (1) the desperate desper-ate shipping shortage; (2) the product's prod-uct's inferiority to synthetic nitrate for powder purposes, although good enough for fertilizer. Use of synthetic synthet-ic nitrate for explosives is far more efficient, less expensive and militarily mili-tarily more desirable. In the United States there are only two big producers of synthetic explosive ex-plosive nitrate Allied Chemical and Dye corporation, at its giant Hopewell, Hope-well, Va., plant; and duPont. First hitch was objection to the government's plan of importing Chilean Chil-ean nitrate, thus permitting Allied Chemical's Hopewell plant to stop making fertilizer and devote its entire en-tire capacity to explosive nitrates, if necessary. The chemical industry fell on this plan like a ton of brick. Backed by certain army officials, it hotly denied de-nied that the nation faced a nitrate shortage. Hopewell's full facilities, it was argued, would not be needed for powder purposes. The defense commission then turned to developing new plant facilities. fa-cilities. Here good fortune seemed to smile. TV A still had its World war nitrate plant at Muscle Shoals. When the defense commission moved to use this government-owned plant, it again ran into powerful opposition op-position from big business, particularly particu-larly from the duPonts, tactitly encouraged en-couraged by the army. However, weeks later, the defense commission commis-sion finally had its way and the plan was approved. Defeated, the duPonts du-Ponts did the sporting thing and offered of-fered to sell TV A latest types of oxidizers, thus expediting renovation renova-tion of the Muscle Shoals plant. TVA and defense commission heads were delighted. But their pleasure and duPont's willingness was short-lived. When it came to installing the machinery, duPont demanded de-manded a guarantee that it would be used only to produce explosive nitrate ni-trate and never fertilizer, in which duPont is heavily interested. This was rejected flatly by TVA, which pointed out that even if it wanted to, it couldn't accept such a restriction under the law. Furthermore, Further-more, it didn't want to. DuPont remained adamant, refused re-fused to lend its machinery without the guarantee. So TVA had to go into the market, order new machinery ma-chinery for the government. NO MORE HARDTACK Hard tack, that celebrated butt of doughboy jibes, will be largely eliminated elim-inated from army field rations if Donald M. Nelson, energetic coordinator co-ordinator of defense purchases, has his way. Nelson has worked out a novel scheme to make U. S. army field rations the best in the world. The defense purchasing chief and his aides have discovered a substitute substi-tute canned, irradiated bread. Large quantities of this have been ordered for the army. Hermetically Hermet-ically sealed in small tins, suitable for carrying in a knapsack, the bread will remain fresh indefinitely. In addition, every soldier in the field will carry a second tin of a meat and vegetable mixture containing contain-ing all the essential vitamins. The two cans together will give him a balanced diet away from camp. EAST INDIES OIL The Dutch Shell Oil company has secretly planted with "sleeper" mines, which can be detonated at a moment's notice if the Japanese set foot on the island. In that case millions of dollars worth of holdings hold-ings will be blown up or fired. MERRY-GO-ROUND The new TVA picture, "Power for Defense," will have a wider distribution distri-bution than any film ever produced by the government. It will be shown in more theaters than "The Plow" and "The River" combined. Brig. Gen. Raymond Lee, keen U. S. military attache in London, is now home on leave and jumps every time a plane zooms over Washington airport. Tobacco-chewing Sen. Bill Bulow of South Dakota, sports the biggest hats on Capitol Hill. |