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Show War Surplus Property of 103 Billion Dollars Will Be Made Available to Public ? ' ' '' if" ' r ' ?' " ' 1 t ' ' t A large number of horses are being sold as surplus. ering Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Region 9 Denver; covering Colorado, Colo-rado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Wyo-ming. Region 10 San Francisco, 30 Van Ness avenue, covering Arizona, California Cali-fornia and Nevada. Region 11 Seattle, 2005 Fifth avenue, ave-nue, covering Idaho, Oregon, Montana Mon-tana and Washington. Large Assortment Given. In advertising the products for sale treasury groups them under eight general heads as follows: furniture, general products, machinery, automotive, auto-motive, paper and office supplies, medical and surgical, textiles and wearing apparel, and hardware. Furniture may include mattresses, bedsprings, household furniture, to office, shop, beauty parlor, barbershop, barber-shop, tables, stools and numerous other furniture supplies. General products may include anything from live animals, lamps, water coolers, lighting fixtures, photographic goods, storage batteries and thousands of other items. Machinery may include powered trucks, tractors, agricultural machinery ma-chinery and implements, farm trailers, farm service tires, wagons, dairymen's, poulterers' and apiarists' apiar-ists' supplies. Automotive includes all sorts of motor vehicles and trucks, automo- 4 Some Goods Earmarked For Farmers, Balance to Enter Trade Channels By WALTER A. SIIEAD WNU Washington Correspondent. Releosed by Western Newspaper Union. WASHINGTON, D. C Approximately Approxi-mately a half billion dollars worth of consumer goods from surplus wai stocks will be offered for sale during dur-ing the coming year through the medium of the procurement division divi-sion of the United States treasury, treas-ury, according to reliable sources here. ; Treasury procurement, however, la only one of six governmental agencies agen-cies involved in the sale of surplus war properties, so the total may run to double that sum. The other agencies agen-cies are Reconstruction Finance corporation cor-poration and its subsidiaries, handling han-dling capital goods, lands and war plants; War Food administration. Belling food and foodstuffs; the Maritime commission, handling all marine equipment; the army and navy, disposing of materials abroad and certain small stuff here at home; and the Federal Housing administration, adminis-tration, which will handle sale of government-owned housing projects. Estimates are that the total potential value of surplus war properties will run approximately approxi-mately 103 billions of dollars, or more than the total sales of Sears, Roebuck & company for a hundred years at their present annual rate of sales. During the first six months war properties have been on sale, only $135,164,000 was realized out of a total declared surplus valued at $986,000,000. From this fact it can readily be seen that sales must be stepped up considerably if the government gov-ernment is to realize a high percentage per-centage of the appraised value of the property. Of the amount already sold, receipts were approximately 75 per cent of appraised value. For this reason treasury procurement, procure-ment, which will handle about 60 per cent of the total declared surplus, sur-plus, is planning increased activity during the coming fiscal year and is now asking an appropriation of $20,750,000 to virtually double its present personnel of about 5,000 employees em-ployees in its 11 regional offices throughout the country. This surplus material will cover every conceivable item of goods and commodities from small hardware items to defense plants and shipyards. ship-yards. It must be borne in mind, however, that the government is not in the retail business and the general gen-eral public is not eligible to purchase pur-chase this stock direct. Farmers to Get Break. Intent of the law governing sales of surplus properties is that farmers are to get at least an even break in opportunities to buy these commodities com-modities which are in demand and applicable to farm usage. In some cases farmers are given preference. For instance the Defense Plant corporation, cor-poration, a subsidiary of RFC, has held several auctions for the particular par-ticular benefit of farmers, of commodities com-modities left over after war plant construction. This property included hoes, shovels, spades, paint, construction con-struction hardware and other items. Treasury procurement, too, . holds some direct auctions of livestock, such as horses and mules for benefit of farmers, but otherwise all commodities are sold through bona fide dealers. Any dealer, including farm cooperatives, coop-eratives, hardware stores, general gen-eral stores, grain elevators, is eligible eligi-ble to bid on any of the commodities commodi-ties offered for sale in his region. Twice each week treasury procurement procure-ment sends out a publication called the "Surplus Reporter" from each of the 11 regional offices listing items to be up for sale, method of sale, etc. Dealers can readily be placed on the mailing list by writing to the nearest procurement office in their territory. Procurement offices are in the following cities: Region 1 Boston: covering Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. Region 2 New York. Empire State building; covering Pennsylvania, Pennsyl-vania, New York and New Jersey. Region 3 Washington, D. C. Covering Delaware, Maryland and North Carolina and Virginia. Region 4 Cincinnati; covering Indiana. In-diana. Kentucky. Ohio and West Virginia. Vir-ginia. Region 5 Chicago, 209 N. LaSalle street, covering Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Region 6 Atlanta: covering Alabama. Ala-bama. Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Mississip-pi, South Carolina and Tennessee. Region 7 Fort Worth; covering Arkansas, Louisiana. Oklahoma and Texas. Region 8 Kansas City, Mo.; cov- i I J i v f S3 property as set out by the war properties prop-erties board seek to foster wide distribution of surplus commodities to consumers at fair prices; to achieve prompt and full utilization of the property with due regard for the protection of free markets; to prevent pre-vent dislocation of prices from uncontrolled un-controlled dumping; to avoid dislocations dis-locations of the domestic economy; to encourage and foster postwar employment em-ployment opportunities; to assure the sale of surplus property ik such quantitites and on such terms as will discourage disposal to speculators specula-tors or for speculative purposes; to prevent insofar as possible unusual and excessive' profits and to afford returning veterans an opportunity to establish themselves as proprietors of agricultural businesses. This last objective brings up the regulations regarding the sale of lands by the RFC. All government owned land which is declared surplus sur-plus will be offered for sale to the original owner, from whom it was purchased by the government at the price paid. If sale is not then made, it is offered to heirs or assigns. Then the property is divided into family sized plots and war veterans are given preference as buyers. Thus farmers will have an opportunity oppor-tunity to buy back their land and If they do not, war veterans are given preference. Although much of this land is 'farm land, hundreds of acres are included in suburban plots near or adjacent to cities and towns. How Farmers Can Act. Procedure for farmers to obtain a military vehicle, either truck or automobile is as follows: Make application ap-plication to your local triple A office. of-fice. The farm transportation committee, com-mittee, WPB, PAW, or ODT regional offices are authorized to issue letters let-ters of certification to essential users. After the certificate of need has been obtained sales must be negotiated through a dealer who has purchased the vehicles from procurement. pro-curement. No trucks, autos or other vehicles will be sold direct to consumers. There has been some complaint from farmers about the indirect method of purchase, but the procedure outline is about as direct as possible under the regulations. A trip through the sample room of the treasury procurement division divi-sion in Washington is a revelation. It's the most amazing collection of commodities imaginable: overalls, khaki shirts, fleece-lined sleeping tents and blankets, rubber lifeboats for five people; rubber a'nd leather overshoes; nurses' shoes; tarpaulins, tarpau-lins, all-steel tool boxes, table ware, kitchen ware of all descriptions; medical supplies; surgical and dental den-tal instruments; snow shoes, jungle knives, imitation rifles; hardware of all descriptions, such as nuts, bolts, chains, hooks, and metal gadgets; saddles, signal lights, flashlights, spotlights, all-steel boxes which would be suitable for mailboxes or for locking away valuable papers; all-rubber suits; woolen mittens, leather gloves, photographers' supplies, sup-plies, even cameras. Patently, it is up to the dealers deal-ers in the 15,000 small towns of 5,000 or under population throughout the country, if farmers farm-ers are to be able to buy this surplus war property. The dealer deal-er who is alert and watches for the sales dates may be v able to lay in a stock of commodities. com-modities. Farm Cooperatives particularly, who deal in most everything the farmer needs, might well be able to stock up on surplus commodities at prices which would be favorable to their customers or members. In an effort to further inform these dealers about prospective sales and commodities for sales, the procurement offices in each region re-gion notify newspapers of an impending im-pending sale through intermittent releases. Surplus army mattresses. bile parts and accessories, tires, motorcycles and other automotive equipment. One of the largest stocks is surgical surgi-cal and medical equipment including includ-ing drugs. Textiles and wearing apparel may include shoes, rubber goods, shirts, raincoats, sleeping bags, gloves, cots, pins, needles and dozens of other articles. Other items include thousands of hardware articles such as kitchen supplies, wire, screens, nails, wheelbarrows, pushcarts, saddles, tableware, jewelry, musical instruments, instru-ments, small arms ammunition and others. These lists merely give an idea of the thousands of different commodities com-modities which will be offered for sale on bids and important to know bids under ceiling prices which have been fixed by the OPA. On some occasions OPA has not fixed a ceiling until after the articles arti-cles have been sold, so what happens hap-pens then the treasury doesn't know. Even dogs, trained in warfare, war-fare, carrier pigeons and monkeys mon-keys have been sold as surplus war property. A large number of monkeys have been sold to zoos after they have been used by the air corps to test altitude in compression tanks. Through these tests the lives of thousands of our aviators have been saved. Some of the objectives of the regulations regu-lations governing the sale of this tremendous volume of surplus war |