Expensive Economy?

Sitting where they could feel the influence of local disturbances and color, a Naval Committee last week went through the usual formality of investigating a disaster after it has happened. At Dover, N. J., where the Naval Arsenal suddenly exploded three weeks ago when struck by lightning (TIME, July 19), the committee last week decided that God's act was unavertable.

Some of the witnesses testified that the danger would have been minimized by subsurface magazines, but that the expenditure and trouble had not warranted such extraordinary precautions. Other gentlemen of the Navy said that they thought the best lightning controls known at the time were being employed by the Government, and that they were completely surprised to think that lightning had struck the U. S. arsenal.

Some few added that the arsenal at Dover was overstocked by anywhere from 800% to 300%, that the roofs of the storage warehouses were wooden, that no sprinkler systems were used inside the buildings, that the high explosives had been jammed together in buildings much too close together. Nothing definite was said concerning the contention of Professor Michael Pupin of Columbia University, who stated that the lightning could have been held under control by the use of copper roofings connected by heavy copper strappings directly to the ground; or the belief of Inventor Hudson Maxim that subsurface magazines are essential to the prevention from spreading of explosions.

Summary of vital facts: 22 persons were killed and $84,000,000 worth of government property was destroyed. The cost of constructing the cellar storage plants was lately estimated at $1,000,000.

Meanwhile up in Peekskill near the Bear Mountain Bridge across the Hudson the gentry shiver each night as they prepare to go to bed. They fear a repetition of the Dover disaster from the Navy arsenal at lona Island, a mile away. Perhaps Manhattan citizens tremble as they recall the terrors of Dover if they know about the arsenal at nearby Sandy Hook. Other death dealing overstocked plants include the arsenals near Pittsburgh, Springfield, Mass., Augusta, Fort Monroe, Va., Philadelphia, Rock Island, Watertown, Mass., San Antonio and many another town.

At White Pine Camp, President Coolidge and Secretary Davis (of War) discussed moving the two big TNT storehouses near Baltimore and Camp Raritan, N. J., to the great waste places in Utah.

The committee at Dover discussed whether or not to rebuild and, if they should rebuild, whether or not it would be too expensive to construct safe storage places.