BIG BLOW

No clearer proof of the terrible responsibility which sits on the shoulders of U.S. management could be had than was given last week in the shocking case of Anaconda Wire & Cable Co. From a grand jury sitting in Fort Wayne, Ind., came a blistering indictment charging the company and the officials of its Marion, Ind. plant with faking on Government tests for wire and cable, and. with transferring inspection labels from tested to untested materials with a view to defrauding the Government. Material already sold to Russia, it was reported, has proven defective; material sold to the U.S. Army is now used only on maneuvers, is kept away from the battlefronts.

While the charges reverberated in Congress and throughout the country U.S. business wanted to know just one thing: how could it have happened? The facts were scanty enough. From Marion came news that the plant's superintendent and assistant chief inspector left on Dec. i. In Manhattan, Henry Donnelly Keresey denied that top company personnel had any knowledge that defective equipment had been sold to the Government. All that was certain was that U.S. business prestige and integrity had been dealt a blow such as it had not suffered since the McKesson & Robbins scandal or the defalcation of Richard Whitney.

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