Businessman, What Now?

To the first eight months of World War II, many a U. S. businessman did not strongly react. He strolled through them loudly isolationist, thankful for whatever war orders came his way, half presuming that no future could be worse than the past ten years of Depression and New Deal.

By last week, many a U. S. businessman was not so sure. In spite of the violent reaction of the stock and commodity markets, it was still too early to measure the exact effect of Hitler's new war on his sales, production, profits. Like a sleeper half-waking, he felt no change, but sensed also that things would be very different in a little while. He had already been nudged by $11,477,316 of educational orders for war goods let so far in fiscal '40 by the U. S. Army and Navy. (Already six times 1939's, they cover 46 items from charcoal for gas masks to shells and light tanks.) President Roosevelt's $3,297,000,000 defense program stirred in his mind.

Most business firms still had only intimations of changes to come, but a few felt the beginning of the changes. Some typical examples:

>In Massachusetts, where State industrial statisticians figured that war orders for six months had accounted for less than 1/2 of 1% of the State's production, Waltham Watch & Clock Co. had a $356,085 order for time fuses, National Fireworks Co. a $13,431 order for parachute flares. Meantime, the Army's Procurement Division in Boston was swamped with men who wanted government jobs buying war materials.

> In Wisconsin, Milwaukee Stamping Co. started work on $251,089 worth of gasmask face blanks.

> In Seattle, Isaacson Iron Works had a machinists' strike on its hands, because "the unions anticipated more [war] business than we did." Soundview Pulp Co., in nearby Everett, its exports soaring, had the fourth best month in its history in April.

> In Detroit, loss of exports caused layoffs. Small manufacturers called the Board of Commerce for information on how to get war orders. Ford waited for a Government green light to start making torpedo boats. In plants with Army & Navy contracts, several hundred aliens were about to be fired. In two weeks, Bohn Aluminum & Brass fired 59.

> In Pennsylvania, Baldwin Locomotive Works got one confirmation on an old order from France, had a two-month-old educational order for shell forgings, got a new ordnance order for a $27,800 tapering press. "We've been in Washington regularly, trying to get set up," said Baldwin, "but so far there hasn't been anything for us to do."

> In Rochester, N. Y., Ritter Dental Mfg. Co. turned its attention from landing gears, made on subcontract for Glenn Martin, to the summer busy season in dental equipment sales. Stromberg-Carlson had a $48,985 educational order for field-telephone magnetos, but was more interested in its booming domestic business of frequency-modulation radio sets.

> In San Antonio, a barber shop, a milkman, four gasoline stations and the ball park noticed a slump in business since Hitler invaded France. Said Phoenix Refining Co. of its 50% slump, "war jitters." Southern Prison Co., having had to raise its bid on a new New York State prison because of war uncertainty, heard that New York State had rejected all bids as too high.

> In Salt Lake City, EIMCO Corp. (mining equipment) reported the cancellation of all its foreign orders, postponed a plant-expansion program. Because of war's spread, wool buyers (on orders from Boston) bought wool clips frantically one day, frantically stopped buying the next.

> In Portland, Ore., plywood mills prepared bids on an Army feeler for 60,000 square feet of plywood for shell boxes. Said President Thompson of the Columbia River Packers Association: "War has absolutely shut off the export of any fish."

> In Atlanta, Scripto Manufacturing Co., having lost 10% of its business (pusher pencils) through war, renewed an engineering study of shell-fuse "boosters," figured it would take nearly a year to convert its plant. Southern Spring Bed Co. viewed with disfavor a 300% rise (over 1939) in the price of cotton linters, due to a $150,000 bale order by explosive makers. In Winston-Salem, Chatham Manufacturing Co., having spent $800,000 on plant expansion, was finishing a Marine Corps order for 40,000 blankets, welcomed an announcement by General Marshall that the Army would buy 2,500,000 blankets and $20,000,000 worth of uniform cloth.

> In Peoria, Caterpillar Tractor noticed that more of its skilled workers than usual were quitting to work in aircraft factories. Distillers expected a big boost in business when rearmament begins raising wages. Keystone Steel & Wire Co. (barbed wire, etc.) was at capacity, had a steel airplane runway in the experimental stage.

> In Denver, Colorado Fuel & Iron and General Iron Works had educational orders for forging and machining shells.

> In Elkhart, Ind., H. & A. Selmer, Inc., which imports French musical instruments, had heard that trench-digging on the Italian frontier was endangering the supply of reed cane grown there, used here.

> Partly on exports, partly on domestic orders anticipating a U. S. armament boom, steel production moved up to 76.9% of capacity.

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