The Automobile Industry Will Not Be Commandeered

REGINALD McINTOSH CLEVELAND

The Government Proposes Helpful Cooperation and Not Curtailment of Output

THE automobile industry may rest quietly o'nights. It need not fear the bogy of Government commandeering, rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, and definite statements to the contrary notwithstanding. There is no idea, on the part of the authorities in Washington, of taking over forty per cent, twenty per cent, or any other percentage of the productive facilities of the industry. Nor is there any idea of restricting by this or any other method the output of passenger vehicles on the part of automobile manufacturers.

On the contrary, the temper of the Government, through its agencies and committees which have these matters in charge, is one of the most active and hearty cooperation with the industry. It is the consensus of opinion of those in the best position to know that, under the ordinary laws of supply and demand, the natural effect of wartime conditions will adequately take care of any restriction in the production of automobiles which may be advisable. Meantime, the Government not only intends to keep the factory fires burning under full draft, or even forced draft, in the automobile plants, but it has already given substantial proof of this intention by placing exceedingly large and various war orders with the makers of automobiles.

INDEED, one of the most encouraging signboards pointing toward the efficient management of the war is the spirit of intelligent co-operation between the Government and the third largest industry in the country—that of automobile manufacturing—which is plain to anyone who takes the trouble to make a little investigation. So important, in fact, has the relation of the industry to the war become that a special Automobile Industries Committee has been formed to sit constantly in Washington and act as a clearing house for the war orders which are to be placed with automobile and automobile parts makers. This committee consists of A. W. Copland, chairman; John R. Lee, and Hugh Chalmers. It receives notice from every department, including the Navy Department, of what may be desired by the Government in all types of munitions and equipment together with the quantities needed and the desired time of delivery, and it then sees that this business is placed with those elements of the huge industry which are best prepared at the moment to well and expeditiously fill the order. Its job is acceleration.

This war business has attained such proportions and promises to attain so much greater proportions, that many of the important automobile and parts makers have sent high officers of their companies or their chief engineers to Washington for the duration of the war in order that there may be no delay in bidding or in the transfer of information which comes through the Automobile Industries Committee to the companies best able to handle the business. The whole thing is a lesson in industrial co-operation which is a cheering note in the symphony of gloomy rumors of inefficiency and delay with which the newspapers are constantly filled.

AS to the specific statement that a certain proportion of the automobile factories' output or possible production was to be taken over by the Government and the still more drastic statement that the production of passenger vehicles was to be arbitrarily curtailed to a certain definite percentage of production capacity, the Automobile Industries Committee, the Society of Automotive Engineers, and the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce join in giving them the lie.

It is very plain to the men of reason in Washington that the best possible way to play into the hands of the Hun would be to put a wet blanket upon industry in this country. There is a sound basis for the optimistic British slogan, "Business as Usual," which is fully appreciated by the authorities in the Government. The last thing which they desire is the banking of the fires in the factories, the turning off of men, the curtailment of production, business depression and all the evils which this state of affairs brings in its train.

SOME weeks ago rumors were started which evidently took shape after very concrete statements in the press to the effect that certain industries had been selected as unnecessary in war time, and that they would be prevented from continuing—in the interests of efficiency and economy—by various methods such as the limitation of production, the diversion of coal, the commandeering of labor and the restriction of advertising. Whether these rumors actually had their foundation in German propaganda or not is known only to the Secret Service, but in any case they distinctly played into the hands of that propaganda in one of its most subtle and dangerous forms. That such rumors do not represent the spirit of the Government is made manifest by the following recent statement of Judge Robert S. Lovett, administrator of the Priorities Transportation Act:

"The report that I am contemplating an order shutting off cars from the automobile industry is without foundation in fact. I said a week ago that I did not have in mind any transportation order treating any industry as non-essential since priority order number two went as far as it seemed wise to go in dealing with so-called non-essential transportation orders. That statement still stands."

THE automobile industry in its passenger car and parts branches, therefore, may look forward without concern to the new year, at any rate, in so far as any adverse action on the part of the Federal Government is concerned. The war will undoubtedly have the effect of putting the industry through a period of reconstruction, by shaking down what has been one of the most sporadic and mushroom-like developments in the sensational industrial life of America, to a basis of soundness and conservatism. In this process some of the weak are bound to fall by the wayside, but the strong, wisely financed and sound companies are equally sure to find themselves in a more firm and thriving condition when the unnatural conditions of war time have passed.

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In addition to this production of vehicles, reduced only as the actual conditions of a wartime market may be expected to reduce them, these companies will have the benefit of an unparalleled war business in the manufacture of equipment and supplies and in the tremendous air programme on which the United States has definitely embarked, for it is primarily to the automobile industry that the Government must look, and does look, with entire faith, for the production of the airplane fleets which are to blind the eagles of Prussia.

TN so far as that part of the automobile industry which is concerned with the manufacture of motor trucks and their parts is concerned, the war has thrown open a hitherto unexampled opportunity. The truck companies are already embarked upon production schedules for the army in its various branches which put quite in the shade anything contemplated in times of peace. The Quartermaster's Corps and the various branches of the Ordnance Department have ordered and have in prospect fleets of several types of trucks especially designed, with the cooperation of the Society of Automotive Engineers, which run into the tens of thousands. The truck manufacturer therefore, who is pessimistic at the present time must be an exceedingly jaundiced person.

It is not fitting, of course, to reveal in full detail what the Government is planning along the motor truck line, and its allied and associated services, involving tractors and tanks, but it may be said, as an indication of the scale on which trucks will be required, that the initial order for the so-called "B" or heavy-duty truck, is for more than 10,000 vehicles involving a total cost in the neighborhood of forty million dollars. Designs for this "B" truck were very carefully worked out with the co-operation of the best automotive engineering brains of the country and it is believed to be quite as remarkable a feat in its way, as the production of the perfected Liberty aviation motor. Perhaps it is even more remarkable, as it involves not only the design of the engine but of a complete frame and chassis. This lew truck, which it is confidently believed after test, will prove more efficient than any commercial heavy duty vehicle, will have, in addition, the tremendous advantage of being standardized, with a consequent reduction in the cost and difficulty of up-keep.

This programme for the "B" trucks is entirely independent of the immense quantities of "A" trucks —the lighter vehicles of one and a half ton rated load—already under way and of the still lighter threequarter ton "AA" trucks which are likewise of a standardized design and intended for high speed use in connection with ordnance, ammunition and supplies. It is also entirely independent of the special service vehicles such as searchlight wagons, tractors, tanks, and the great number of special units to accompany them of which one of the most interesting is a plan for a standardized motor unit for field repairs.

IN connection with the truck programme an interesting experiment is already under way which would relieve the congested railroad lines from the necessity of shipping the trucks. The plan contemplates the driving of the army trucks from the factories at which they are made to the coast. The first of these experimental trips has already been completed, a truck unit having been driven from Detroit to Baltimore under exceedingly severe conditions of both road and weather, with very satisfactory results, except for the loss of one truck through a railroad crossing accident.

It is planned to send over the road, from factory to shipping points, at least 30,000 trucks in this way. Among the practical results which will be attained by this plan, in addition to the test of the vehicles themselves under load (for they will be driven fully loaded with munitions of war and other supplies) will be the training of army motor truck drivers, the releasing of a great, number of freight cars which would otherwise be necessary to carry both the trucks and the supplies and a demonstration of the most public character of the feasibility of transportation by motor truck on schedule time. This plan will kill a great many birds with the one stone, and is an ambitious undertaking.

There is every indication that the Government has quickly realized the enormous advantage which the possession of the great automobile industry has given it in waging this highly mechanical and essentially automobile war. It evidently proposes to use this tremendously powerful weapon quickly and to the full extent of its potentialities. And when the history of America's part in the great struggle for liberation comes to be written, it is safe to predict that a very large measure of the success which we are to accomplish in the air, on the land, and even on the sea, must be attributed to the ability, energy and patriotism of the makers of motor vehicles.