| Show U S guards its strategic resources while haves fight with have nets by PETER BECK erased ased by western newspaper union V ya yAS ASHINGTON HINGTON when vy VV adolf hitler initiated his eighth year as nazi fuehrer he asserted i ening the allies wi with th total war that this was a social war between nations in which the have nots bots are lighting fighting the haves for a new division of the world it was an excuse as old as the first caprice of mother nature for scattering generous supplies of mineral and vegetable resources in some spots of the earth and leaving others woefully barren nature ad a pd a world of haves and f iee ye bots nots and war has been go alg on somewhere ever since against daily reports of the pinch european nations are feeling because of blockades there stands in relief a more encouraging picture for uncle sam U S pretty well off america is self sustaining to a degree lee nearly equaling the total of the six other great powers in the essentials to a comfortable standard d of living according to col H D rogers 1 chief of the commodities modi ties division office of the assistant secretary of war these rd r essentials D senti als colonel rogers writes in army ordnance are foods fibers power iron and steel machinery chemicals coal and petroleum the U S has one third to one half the worlds wealth and does one halt half its work colonel rogers says the average american workman has 1312 horsepower at his command those of some other countries less than one for this reason he estimates the american workman to be worth two french or italian workmen nearly two germans or three and one half russians inventive genius and industrial science have cured many of americas material deficiencies and are working to cure what few there remain today the army commodities division according to colonel rogers now lists only 17 materials as strategic a far smaller number than that listed by other nations these are manganese ore tin chrome ore tungsten antimony manila fiber nickel quartz crystal quinine rubber silk mica mercury aluminum coconut shell char optical glass and wool plenty of aluminum not all of these are cause for general alarm aluminum for instance is perhaps the least strategic of all maj G A roush writing in military engineer states that there is no question of the ability of the reserves to meet even emergency demands some geologists have estimated that a considerable supply of high grade bauxite ore of aluminum is still available here as a result of the long established policy of aluminum company of america to conserve its arkansas deposits for times of emergency although the U S was completely self sufficient in bauxite during the world war the richer arkansas supplies were heavily drawn upon causing the company to begin importing inc increasing reasin i amounts until today more than 60 per cent of its bauxite comes from dutch guiana leaving literally millions of tons of varying grade in arkansas however in any great emergency no great difficulty is anticipated in policing the ship lane from dutch guiana especially since any american defense program must include defense of the panama canal manganese safeguarded even in the case of manganese which authorities have labeled strategic material no 1 developments of the last few years have greatly reduced the possible danger of loss of supplies while it is true that domestic production from the low grade ores which are available in 38 states is not being undertaken on anything like a scale equal to the demands of the american steel industry the cuban american manganese corporation an american financed company has perfected a flotation process tor for concentrating cuban ores which are similar to many of the american low grade ores most authorities feel that shipments of rubber from the par far east are likely to be regular under almost any conditions that can be visualized at this time meanwhile S L brous a qualified engineer of the B F goodrich company writing in india rubber world recently stated that with the expenditure of on a high speed research program to develop synthetic rubbers the united states could in one year be made independent of foreign supplies of natural rubber nation makes optical glass lammot lammo du pont font president of E I 1 du pont font de nemours and company says that thanks to american scientists this country is now producing optical glass second to none whereas in 1914 we were dependent upon europe for this vital material needed in the manufacture of various instruments science has made us independent today in materials which were strategic in the past he points out we now take nitrates 9 A 47 4 4 E t 0 UR position in agrical ture requires a small er percentage of our pop r zt than other nations leaving the bulk of our I 1 workers free to engage in industry r N M IR 0 A from the air recover potash from our own deposits make our own dyes through organic chemistry and produce our own camphor synthetically no one can tell how soon other materials will be removed from the strategic list by science the texas mining and smelting smelling Sm elting company now has a plant at laredo texas designed to make more effective use of ores from nearby mexico constant experiments are being conducted to improve the na eions output of mercury tungsten and other materials one reason for the optimistic belief that science will find ways of supplying our deficiencies in strategic materials is that progress ot of american civilization makes demands entirely apart from the requirements quire ments of defense to quote colonel rogers again it is is practically impossible to name a raw material which has a strictly military use and the same can be said of many manufactured articles |
