Show nka no great obstacle to industry andu ln du many factories making consumers goods for services numerous others to require e only minor changes by BAUKHAGE news analyst and commentator service union trust building washington D C has begun and it looks as if one prediction made back when conversion had been accomplished complis hed with many an ache and groan would come true then the experts predicted that would be easier than conversion eighty per cent of t the he factories we are now told by officials of the department of commerce will not have to do a major job this is largely because many industries now furnishing supplies to the military will continue to manufacture the same supplies for civilians clothing 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 to another from uncle sam to john Q consumer some industries whose present final product differs considerably from the civilian goods they make wont 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 have to change spools there are a number of other predictions concerning the future ot of businesses big and littlee little and one of them is that 40 per cent of the industries although they wont 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 war demands tor for products which wont have any civilian market well our american business ingenuity and our native mechanical inventive genius they tell us are going to step into the picture again then there will be the natural evolution which will eliminate the be low average business man and establish a survival of the fittest yankee ingenuity to the fore what started me off on this topic tas 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 small town business the man with the inventive genius is a frequent washington visitor these days his name is burl E sherrill the name of the town is peru ind population 13 sherrill is a modest hoosier genius en lus 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 want to part with the idea behind it so he decided to manufacture it himself it was a popular priced magnetic compass for use in steel bodied automobiles and anc trucks sherrill rented three offices right on the public square of peru turned them into his factory and started out soon he began to expand pushing lawyers doctors real estate men out of the way but I 1 am getting ahead of my story sherrill was a born inventor although he realize it and started 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 kitch en laboratory in his flat then he got a chance at a job back in indiana repairing radios in peru this gave him lots of opportunity to tinker and he paten patented ted inventions and and sold them which bolstered his income considerably finally he evolved the compass which he part with he was able to hire a small staff of workers then came the war and no more civilian autos but there were lots of military vehicles 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 equipment of various kinds sherrill went to work and produced his models the carnegie institute the army engineers and the war college looked them over and put their okeh on them the inventor moved downstairs and took the whole first floor of the building on perus public square the 20 men who had assembled the auto compasses were increased to working at a regular assembly line next came a call from the maritime commission A compass for steel lifeboats was needed like the tanks too many had been left to wander on the high seas blind further 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 is now under way some day of course the last war order will arrive at the factory in peru but because of the war seimu ingenuity of one man a product 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 1 understand from sherrill a new hearing ald aid is in the making war a spur to many entrepreneurs to reconvert to the manufacture of civilian products no change of machinery or assembly line jine nor any re tooling will be necess aryl yi lat at the sherrill factory nor will the number of employees have to be re deuced of course not many inventors are endowed with enough business sense to run plants of their own sherrill appears appears to be an exception when he got his first admy order he was asked when he could deliver how many compasses he named the figure 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 hurdles have been able to do there are other inventors and other business men who like sherrill have received from war demands the stimulation which will push them ahead and carry them through the breakers of sherrill himself has no technical education he calls himself a graduate from a junk pile but he can talk with the scientists and the experts and what Is is more he makes the pictures he draws on his drawing board sometimes in the small hours in pajamas and slippers work he has the typical american ingenuity shared by thousands of others 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 that if bonds were contributed for a memorial commensurate with wah our sorrow and regret by the time these bonds matur matured ed we would be able to buy the most magnificent memorial in the world in honor of our greatest president then she concludes 1 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 govern ment wishes to achieve by the sale of bonds the double purpose of securing cash to defray war expenses and also reducing the amount of inflationary pocket money it struck me as such a good idea that I 1 sent it along to ted gamble who is in charge of such matters in connection with the seventh war loan next to making suggestions for selling bonds I 1 suppose one of the best things one can do is buy them of course if everybody followed that horse sense plan and bought simply tor for the security of own future the treasury need any suggestions |