Washington Slowly Emerging From Defense Muddles, Split Jurisdictions
LORING, EDWARD
Washington Slowly Emerging From Defense Muddles, Split Jurisdictions By EDWARD LORING Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C.—There are more charts, schedules, blueprints, and surveys per...
...Meanwhile the Communist press has launched a campaign against the Department of Justice's roundup of suspect aliens, some 300 of whom have already been picked up...
...kad introduced the Line System...
...By January 1943 this government will be functioning as smoothly as any in the world—by 1943...
...case of freight cars, ijrt year the American Association of •Railways said they needed laew cars...
...F'S almost cute to see the manner in which the West Coast tovarischi are dragging their newly estimated Japanese brethren around since the pact...
...There are already 1,200,000 working, in federal offices...
...Each car re-Igjres tons of steel...
...He is a first-class man to serve as second in command...
...They are more concerned about business-as-usual— .j^jr own business-as-usual—than about defense...
...This time the German agent, rwho entered the country from 'Mexico at Brownsville, Tex., has been working quietly in an effort to get the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey to sell to Germany its valuable Hungarian properties...
...For the first time the League of American Writers and the American Artists Congress planned to rrteet in joint session...
...if"* there is one marcher there who moves with conviction— Jj*j.*P...
...The departments that • the ordering are staffed with first-class routineers...
...Wellingon Roe will be around to talk of the "Factory as...
...At least 90 days will be lost...
...OPM Puts Gov't in Aluminum, Magnesium, Aircraft Business By DANIEL BELL Call it a "managerial revolution," but old-style conservatives simply bellowed "government ownership" when Federal' Loan Administrator Jesse Jones last week announced that the administration was allotting 700 million dollars for new government aircraft, aluminum and magnesium plants...
...Rieth...
...Don't you Hr=a- "Tired...
...there are signs of inflation and high food prices...
...Defense officials have admitted that they turned down offers from, several independent aluminum producers to go into competition with the trust...
...Small companies, such as the Reynolds Metal company, were discouraged from producing aluminum because of ALCOA's statement that it could-fill all requests...
...Whether Dr...
...The sense of emergency »H>reading...
...Aluminum and magnesium are highly important in aircraft, but the production of these metals is closely tied with the production* of power...
...a man in the Wages and Hours Division...
...CELDOM has a Dies Committee audience been as impressed with a witness as it was with Jan Valtin this week...
...Yet when Mr...
...1 came of my own g^* These people made me so darned mad &at I paid for ttt^.^seK and came...
...How do you keep it up...
...This expansion is included in the production estimate of 1,209,000,000 pounds of aluminum for 1942, made by OPM official W. L. Batt in his testimony before the Truman Committee investigating national defense...
...Speaking rapidly, without hesitation, naming dates, facts, addresses, he vividly brought out the full meaning of Soviet and Germany activity in the United States...
...Also present was Will Thomas, his son, who had just oome in from Chicago, where he worked for the America First headqwarters...
...Poor Mike Gold is stack with "As Evaluation of Proletarian Literature in the Thirties...
...The Navy, of course, is more ready iathe Army...
...and all night the Peace Mobilizers picket the stately . *bite House...
...He had put his cotton jjfe shop in the same class as Henry Ford's River Rouge plant...
...i|ICKEY MOUSE has squeaked his way around many a narrow *" corner, but he may soon have to buck a picket line...
...With sad and steady step they move...
...However this is having little effect...
...Bridges' best witness was Dean Wayne L. Morse of the University of Oregon Law School, and Pacific Coast arbitrator of waterfront disputes...
...He answered: **ri^r?Can*" "Who sent you here...
...JkffEANWHILE the tovarischi are throwing their propaganda *-_•* panzers into action in the capital to step federal investigations of government employees...
...Busi-*¦ men are getting closer to defense...
...ACCORDING to Winchell, who incidentally is now feuding with *!*Westbrook Pegler, Pearson and Allen have sent their 600 editors evidence that Mrs...
...this charming atmosphere of air-conditioned accents I have v — sleuthing for three days to find the fellow who is holding up...
...Whick,, of course,- if nonsense...
...When Thomas finished they patted him...
...Investigations must be made...
...That he is i first-class plant production man but not a successful national jftimw...
...t But when we come to the relations of Army and Navy with rtutry there is a different story to tell...
...With his great frame, W sis, craftsman's tradition and his big-business reputation, he In veritable Gibraltar to the humble citizen...
...Only the other day at Colucci's we were weeping into our spaghetti- and breaded shrimps over the disintegration of the arts when one of the lads let it be known that all was saved...
...Opening off the corridors are offices—air-con-Sawd—housing pretty secretaries, wiflj southern, accents and 2/executives filled with militant energy...
...Recently they wired to movie comedian Lionel Stander, Broadway producer Herman ShumUn, George Marshall of Soviet Russtu Today, Mrs...
...Hertslet, special Nazi economic agent in the Americas—and a friend of William Rhodes Davis—is operating in Latin America...
...There is something to show for-the past nine months of intense planning and production...
...do it...
...But though the-expanded military force is neces-ady somewhat improvised, the universal opinion is that the offi-•r" corps—from Chief of Staff Marshall down—is doing a first-ass job...
...Argosy-magazine's Robert Carse, one of the first to advertise in Dan Gil-mor's Friday, will discuss "Knocking off the Saturday Evening Post...
...Peak production has been hit and 1,000,000 rounds an hour are to be produced...
...Last week reports circulated to the effect that Donald Nelson, chief of the OPM purr chasing division, would resign unless he obtained more cooperation from the Army and Navy procurement divisions...
...Few persons know just why she suddenly went on the air or who paid the National Broadcasting Corporation for its time...
...So it appears this summer's story is the same as last years': we will soon begin outproducing Germanized Europe in all fields, if England can hold out until March of 1942 the invasion threat will be over...
...what could Mamie say—with'the boss' arm about her waist...
...Making more money...
...Then car-loadings began to rise...
...The priorities system has so worked out that du Pont and General Motors interests received, sufficient aluminum while com-1 petitors were restricted by the OPM "committee on aluminum priorities...
...Doho...
...Among the sponsors are C. D. Batchelor, Pulitzer-prize-DaUy News-an tiwa r-cartoonist...
...Teagle denies knowing Dr...
...Here is a blow at the most complete monopoly in America, the world combine of the Aluminum Corporation of America, popularly known as Alcoa...
...Some ^•^iacite Negroes against the administration—which is not j?*.* peaceful purpose...
...pi without greater capacity we shall run into trouble before six joaths are out...
...He instances the...
...In some bureaus the situation is so confused by jurisdictional jealousies that authorities refuse to cooperate and there is a complete standstill...
...Each ** answered: "Eleven dollars...
...Gvfgenhemer, Anna Rochester, Herbert Biberman and Mrs...
...The iadhion—and a good one—is never to take a chance...
...Whether such activity is conducted by agents in the Spanish legation or through other channels this correspondpnt has no way of knowing...
...eyes snapping...
...So badly planned has been the reserve schedule on vital raw materials that there is only a seven months supply of rubber on hand, while a scarcity of aluminum has already developed...
...on the back...
...Since it first began operations, thousands of Russian engineers and purchasing agents have visited hundreds of American factories...
...That committee includes two military officers, and ?. J. Barney, a General Motors official, and R. G. Farrell, chairman of the Fairmount Aluminum Co., which as Senator Wallgren pointed out, is under the thumb of ALCOA...
...Orders ngoing out...
...Hollywood will be needing the National Mediation beard any day now...
...The fourth American Writers Congress wfll run the gamut from passion to pulp...
...Speaking at the Women's National Press Club ha urges that the United States organise a secret police force to combat foreign secret agents now enjoying a field day here...
...ithin six months some of the offices will be decentralised ia Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York...
...I have been hot on his trail but have never *L op with him...
...Hriaps It's Knudsen SWLLIAM KNUDSEN is aheady a njyth...
...Kurth Reith.with headquarters in the swank Waldorf-Astoria, has been here for two months peddling Nazi good-will, while offering to buy European oil properties of American corporations, He is quietly doing what Dr...
...This is the case in government purchasing activity...
...If the Isles stand until March even the predicted collapse of the Near East wilTnot change this...
...But liberal Washingtonians are shaking their heads ruefully...
...The result is that Mrs...
...It would be hard to convince *2 ""on man that these people got into line under their carry signs...
...340 a month are expected by January 1. The 26 tonners will roll off at the rate of 200 a month in October...
...A similar sad tale of- woe may soon be told about steel, which also could "supply all defense needs...
...He did,- albeit a trifle nervously...
...and Congress is beginning to learn of serious misplanning on reserves for vital raw materials...
...So far—on the government jfc_they have got no positive orders from the-big boss, who is She President of the United States...
...asjngfon Loughs piESE- federal men must have relaxation...
...Sbs they are not Peace Mcbiliasers, but just people hired m*ne foot before the other...
...1WTOW that Presiding Examiner Judge Charles Scars has been *™ pushing the Bridges deportation hearings at a faster pace, and has refused to permit Attorney Carol King to subpeona Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins the trial may be concluded this week-end...
...So ques-!l0,B»iies must be sent out...
...He still has about him men chosen by Sloan...
...Their red jx has been elaborated for a century to protect the government cd to get the utmost in quality and technical up-to-dateness...
...A shirt moved smoothly along 'felt while swift workers did this or that to collar and sleeves...
...Lmt the inspector wanted to know, the effect on the workers, ."^nsourcef ul proprietor grabbed a girl and, with 'his arm about "*waist, jerked out: "Mamies, no speed-up...
...Roosevelt has become a liaison between New Dealers, liberals and the president...
...If a bated million tons are required he should figure on a hundred u4 ten or a hundred and twenty...
...I" one needle-trades shop the boss found an easy<way to define >«tand»rd...
...Now they need-100,000,new cars...
...They hate, him, it is said, but 1 he gave orders, he would be obeyed...
...Out of the welter of figures these things are clear: the,President has been unable to make up his mind on the relegation of responsibility and so is bottle-necking defense strategy by combining the tasks of political leadership, chief strategists, military and naval commander, and chief administrator and director of routine government policy...
...If the President would speak, if the.folks back home •¦Id speak, we could go faster...
...Ships and tanks and planes are being built...
...There are plenty of paec'eal experts here who say bluntly that he won't do...
...Lindy' nodded, saying "very good...
...It was often remarked in Detroit: "Knudsen is not a policy .Baker...
...Oddly enough Jerry Klotx of the Washington Poet and Richard Scholz of the Washington Daily News, influential eolumnieU, are pooh-poohing such probes...
...The cam mission will check with its own records...
...During Thomas' speech the Senator turned to the flier and asked . . . "Do you like him...
...The move is a tremendous step on the anti-monopoly front, for $300,000,000 of the money will go towards the building of a new •government aluminum plant...
...there are new plane factories in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Tulsa, Forth Worth, Omaha, Kansas City, Baltimore, \ Ypsi-lanti, and more coming...
...Norman wasn't the only Thomas on the platform...
...Because the German embass-y In Washington and all consular 'headquarters are.- constantly in the public eye, it is to be expected 'that men like Hans Thomsen, German charge d'affaires in Washington and other consuls are not very actively engaged in other than official work...
...If only the Wtijh can hold out...
...Nothing slow, laggard and mechanical ^han...
...Meanwhile Rieth has been visiting banks and business houses using as reference the name of Walter C. Teagle, chairman of the Board of the Standard Oil of New Jersey...
...Genteel subject...
...Driers have to be checked and rechecked and double-checked...
...Ken Crosses (we don't know him either) will discuss "New Heroes in the Pulp Field...
...He is always in the next Office, across the ha!L ^another building...
...But as rtrst oficer he is still waiting for orders...
...His name is Robert N.-Miller...
...he answered, "well somebody's got to...
...It is hard is the efficient and conscientious bureaucrat to change his ways...
...there are the Screen Actors Guild* the Screen Directors GuHo, the Screen Cartoonists Guild, the Screen Office Employees Guild, the Screen Readers Guild...
...The stoppage is due to lack of planning by defense officials who delayed for months making allotments of aluminum to the Boeing Company that would have " insured a - virtually uninterrupted flow of the heavy bombers...
...There are now 7,500 to 8,000 planes in the army and navy compared with 5,000 last September...
...At that time it was also the Tribune which discovered him, causing his recall and the retirement of Torkild Richer from the presidency of the Texas Oil Company...
...Gerhard Alois Westrick tried to do last year...
...Replying to his charges that last week's testimony was the "rankest hearsay" a committee spokesman said that "if Secretary Ickes' investigations have overlooked some Communists in his agency well be glad to give him the names of several actual Communist Party members in the Interior Department" Meanwhile the committee has turned Over to the Civil Service Commission lists of all government employees alleged to be members of party line organizations...
...Recently the pickets were beaten by several marinas on leave...
...Fifty million dollars will go towards boosting magnesium production...
...Some of these quote the President's cam-Promises...
...Last week the New York Herald-Tribune laarned that a Dr...
...Five minutes twice !%-plenty rest...
...New employees will stop flowing in...
...Failure bo place them throws American defense production even further behind Germany's pace—which is costing the Reich something like $35,000,000,000 a year compared with the U. & $10,000,000,000...
...Materials are being conserved and channeled...
...The safety devices which save the one ndnrtry from loss are a brake on an all-out program of a national sttrrency effort...
...The OPM has been loaded with " dollar-a-year men" who have been all too willing to take industry's word that sufficient supplies would.be on hand for defense needs...
...Now there is talk that Supreme Court Justice Douglas may be called from the bench to . run a super-defense organization charged with responsibility for all-out planning...
...torybody to Blame—And Nobody (Sgniost charitable executive says the fault lies in our habits, Tour individualistic way of doing things...
...Up and down, back and forth.- Past the old ?*>'¦'Past the squirrels...
...Henry Morgenthau, Cordell Hull, Henry Stimson, Frank Knox, Sidney Hillman, Leon Henderson, Lauchiin Currie, and Harold Smith (budget director) have formed a sort of super structure cabinet...
...COME important liberal circles in New York refused to believe that Norman Thomas would appear at Vast Friday's America First demonstration in -Madison Square Garden...
...His picket-sign reads: 8<**?lerican8 protest the Communists picketing the White JjJ**0 ^j1 day yesterday he marched...
...INTERESTING how politics make strange bedfellows...
...nearest thing to a statistical wizard in Washington, became the 'eCOnoniic'^Tde-to" the president...
...hrkmffs the Army and the Navy PKB|BNE here agrees that the officers of the Army and the ¦*»y^are .doing a fine -johi TAey are ready for whatever lies' ihsi— as far as they can be...
...The location of defense plants in the TVA area has spurred expansion of the Authorities facilities, and an additional appropriation of $10,-000,000 will soon, come through for that development...
...Here is, for example, a contribution-to economic science picked *by...
...buck-passing will be reduced...
...i Secretary of the Interior Ickes is again feuding with the Dies Committee over charges that employees of his department are part of the Russia first crowd...
...Whether these men hold back out of habit or out a* freed he leaves us to guess...
...In Washington the common report is that when he first came to the job he kept calling up Sloan and asking: "What shall I do about this...
...He has taken Washington by storm, and will leave his imprint behind when he departs for New York and further immigration department hearings...
...Suddenly the man-Zgi got scared...
...The late Minnesota Senator's widow has been silent for nearly a year...
...Government expansion in aluminum is expected to provide an additional 600 million pounds annually...
...The government is taking on about 10,-000 new employees a month...
...So has the National Lawyers Guild...
...He asked each girl: "How much do you make...
...The latter material was allocated along ill-advised lines, and the entire bomber schedule of 500 per month so sanguinely announced by President Roosevelt will be delayed .for months shortly when the Boeing company stops production on its flying fortresses...
...One of their most important agents is flow being held under $25,000 bail...
...But this tension wore off during the evening in the company of Wheeler.-and Lindbergh...
...Nelson called in Army and Navy leaders to ask about the ten billion dollars in unplaced contracts they told him not to interfere in fields not his own...
...I said to him: "Who are you...
...When they gaily lunch in the luxurious cafeteria's which Uncle Sam has pro-rW or during their evenings in the luxuriantly green suburbs ''the Capital, they cannot spend all their moments scheming to W a toe on the next rung of the civil service ladder...
...We need to be shocked ^ a mood for planning...
...By the way, Seldes' comrades will be glad to learn that in 1935 he called Walter Winchell one of America's leading opponents of the munition makers...
...So orders go out tod slowly...
...In this aaenjency we are operating with the hope of co-ordinating all of fee industries to produce goods fast without profits and almost lithwrt regard to cost...
...Meanwhile the President is slowly passing more and more authority to his inner circles...
...Before Congress are two bills to provide further development of the Columbia River basin in the Northwest, and to launch the Arkansas River project in the Midwest The President also plans soon to resubmit the . St...
...The Screen Cartoonist Guild is ready to strike the Disney studios...
...The steel men said they require no new capac-L^The- railway managers fear there will be no metal for them, ittiey are yelling for a priority order...
...Once again the intellectual disintegration of the pact-ridden tovarischi is apparent No longer are.the giants present Gone, too, are the Granville Hicks, the Kyle Crichtons of the smooth coat publications...
...Action off Crete and the battleship sinkings off Brest reveal that bombers will win or lose, for Britain...
...Congress will insist on some authority...
...They have published a widely distributed pamphlet dubbedri'Stop the* Witch Hunt" The alleged Civil 'Rights Federation headed by Edwin S. Smith has mnlwind efforts to smoke out anti-defense elements...
...So there are !t«es—and not all of them are to the credit of the industrialists *¦ whom their work brings them into contact...
...Lawrence seaway and power-project to Congress...
...Although Amtorg has spent $910,-646,000 in the United States during the past 16 years, political observers and critics of the Soviet Union have frequently pointed out that the purchasing agency has been used for political and other purposes...
...It is expected that the new plants will double the present capacity of 80 million pounds...
...Reith is merely part of a vast German apparatus covering the Western Hemisphere, buying at low prices whatever valuable properties they can pick up, ox whether he is working alone is not known...
...SENATOR CAPPER, another isolationist, is permitting George Seldes to use his - name to get new su hscribers to In Fact, the abuse letter...
...At the OPM's request, the Defense Plant Corporation, a subsidiary of the RFC, will spend $350,000,000 to build new aviation plants...
...The meticukmsness of their provisions nAthe frequency of their revisions make the filling of them slower ftw the emergency requires...
...It is a part of 1* jab of this division to set up cost-of-living standards...
...But another type of German agent has not been so successful in eluding newspapermen...
...A less charitable gentleman says the dollar-a-year men are the brtdenecks...
...The President then- provided the peace pickets with an armed guard...
...In addition the Russians want export licenses on important tools and machinery...
...He had **n»de a great technological advance...
...Direct" military needs for the next year, according to Batt, will total more than 1,400,-000,000 pounds...
...It all sounds great, but as Senator Truman's Defense Contract Investigating Committee shows, it comes a trifle late...
...DEACE MOBILIZATION picketing of the White House con-* tiriues...
...In a single industry you are operating to produce pfofjts year by year in competition with other industries...
...American bombers in the hands of RAF pilots will then lay waste all continental production centers...
...Sears will then submit a full report and recommendation to Attorney General Jackson...
...j*o minutes a perfect garment emerged...
...On hot days—in . ^delightfully air-cooled quarters—they even work overtime...
...All-out criticism of the President is unfair, however...
...William Steig, -who is now really going in for "small fry," William Gropper, Dashiell Hammett and Fred (Blackie) Myers of the National Maritime Union...
...There'll be stuff oa Movies and the Was, Antisemitism in Hollywood...
...The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Somebody Else Holds UP Defense JEflnNCTON, D. C, May 28th, 1941.—Don't let anyone give iJLothe idea that this is a town of nothing but long speeches: , jong corridors...
...The next question was: "How J*i>does it cost you to live...
...routines will be established, office space will not be at a premium...
...100 others left the country recently...
...If a project is to carry tie weight of a hundred million tons production, he cuts it to tasty, to eighty—hoping to get by and cut losses...
...But we are moving...
...Thirteen ton tanks are now being turned out at the rate of 170 a month...
...The movieland commissars, whose business it is to stir up opposition to the production of defense films, are right in the midst of things...
...manufacturer in the white goods line proved in the most di-*tand convincing way that his employees are happy...
...Ellen Brandstetter of Chicago for $100 contributions...
...So they don't ' nat expanded capacity which may be a headache after the war...
...The influential Times Herald, which is part of - the New York Daily News Syndicate, will begin serializing Out of the Night on June 1. Within a few weeks his attorney, Hnge Pollack, leaves for the West Coast to see California's governor Oison in search of a pardon far Vaitin...
...Perhaps they are the sort of men who1 depend upon orders from jiisre—from a board or a president...
...license program...
...more than 240,000,000 rounds of ammunition are oh hand...
...AOST recent recruit to the "negotiated peace" crowd is -our *" friend Jerry Voorhis, who has introduced a resolution asking Congress to initiate world peace conferences...
...The mystery is further complicated by evidence that Lundeen did attend a banquet in honor of the Nazi Duke of Saxo-Oobvrff, and that Corliss Lamont recently publicly admitted that the late 5[ew-ator worked with the Friends of the Soviet Union...
...the Pickers flf* *SJ...
...If the British can hold out, we'll put it through in spite of raything...
...The rules which you apply to a specific industry don't mrk when you try to fit them to all the industries in a national aKrgency...
...The unanimous reply was: "Eleven So this employer reported without fear of contradiction: * eost of living here is eleven dollars...
...He might be better in the "Writing far Children" section . . . Basis, cest to guerre...
...Nothing else would jolt osi out of business-as-usual...
...Are you happy...
...By shaving down orders, it is sad by some who should know, our great industrial expert has aide himself the bottleneck of defense production...
...They have failed to place $10,000,000,000 in contracts which were long authorized...
...A sort of interlocking caucus exists...
...Drive on Aliens Shuts Anti-U.S...
...American housewife will forego aluminum sets in 1942...
...Pearson, Allen and Winchell's charges were made some time last summer...
...Knudsen, I am told, underestimates...
...Scholz' technique is to Missailllls 1MB even readers of the Nation are suspect...
...This is a huge machine, slowly being revamped into a streamlined defense mechanism...
...This need for the light metals has become the impetus'to reviving public power developments, like the TVA, in various areas of the United States...
...Washington Slowly Emerging From Defense Muddles, Split Jurisdictions By EDWARD LORING Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C.—There are more charts, schedules, blueprints, and surveys per square inch here than there are "clerks" in the local German travel agencies...
...Recently Isidore Lubin...
...The Amtorg Trading Corporation, ostensibly the purchasing agency of the Soviet government in the United States, has decided to dissolve unless Secretary Hull revises his attitude towards Russian Ambassador Oumansky and promises renewal of the expiring trade pact...
...To assure the taotd result he should, naturally, figure as an engineer figures a i bridge or a dam...
...a Theme...
...Most recent recruit to the caviar and class conflict all night parties is Shuji Fujii—we mean it—editor of the Japanese "labor" paper...
...All day today—always HibS ^rarp de termination that sets him off from the half-«4aT*®Wu**s...
...Some inveigh against war and convoys...
...He should provide a margin of safety...
...At the same time incomplete reports show that the Screen Writers Guild party-line leadership is ready to strike, too...
...Harry Hopkins—the six-hour a day man —is strong enough to wield complete authority over the lend-lease bill...
...Ernest Lundeen's recent unprecedented NBC broadcast was an attempt to smear all three columnists because of their pro-British attitudes...
...More directly in line with the defense effort, this new government appropriation gains importance in that this is the first attempt to obtain sufficient vital defense products by government competition with private industry...
...Some time ago they organized a -series of Guilds to cover the amusement industry...
...They have toured the nation annually, receiving a complete and first hand picture of our industrial and defense systems...
...W We'll Do It Yet "DOT," said a young man in a key office, "things are moving...
...But what they really want is in Henry Morgen-thau's department The pickets are broke...
...Heard on the Left By VICTOR RISSEL HERE we.-sit quip in hand driving ourselves past items too numerous to mention, but since, gossip columnists are reportedly the spies of life well assume our most respectable keyhole manner to report that...
...It is assumed that Dr...
...Qn other defense fronts the mediation services appear to have broken down...
...Concerns Here By GEORGE SHORT WASHINGTON, D. C—Determination on the part of the Federal government to clean out sabotage and espionage elements before an actual military situation develops, has had varied effect on the Axis and Soviet agencies operating in the United States...
...These are for vital war goods...
...Twenty-three new " ordnance plants are finished or about to be completed...
Vol. 24 • May 1941 • No. 22
