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To the Editor:——• -
General Vandenburg, in a re-' cent issue of the Saturday Evening Post, says in effect that we must prepare for the bombing in this country of our principal targets. Among the most strategic targets will be the big aluminum . producers and fabricators. However, 90% of all companies in the country who know how to fabricate aluminum are small businesses—infact, most of them are tiny businesses; but, even so, they employ a total of over 150,000 men and represent $700,000,000 in the American economy. And, don’t forget for one minute that this 100-million dollars is all subject to Federal taxes which are so urgently needed to finance our defense efforts.
I am one of over 25,000 of these small businesses that will be “choked off” from getting the secondary aluminum for home usage; judging from the “death sentence” (as Regulation M-7 is grimly call-< ed these days) that has been handed down by the NPA in Washington (D.C.) fellows like me are going to be driven out of business.
My business is based on products made from aluminum—sash, storm windows, doors, etc., and we are important in maintenance, improvement and repair of the nation’s homes. The aluminum we need for our jobs is known in the trade is “secondary,” sometimes called scrap. The foolish thing about this short-sighted ruling by NPA is that the big industries don’t touch scrap aluminum. In 1944, for instance, more than 600,000,000 pounds of secondary! aluminum was discarded by aircraft plants. Now only a few hundred tons would cover the needs of the home maintenance! and repair men like me. .
You remember toward the end1 of the last war, when the government backed private industry for the first time, in an effort to encourage insulation to save fuel, which was of prime importance in transportation of troops, materials, and equipment! We can, according to a national survey, save up to 30% on a homemaker’s fuel bill; and that translates into a lot of coal-care and a lot of transportation facilities that are going to be sorely needed pretty quickly.
The small plants who had the “know-how” and the equipment to handle aluminum kept production lines going, whereas the big, wellknown factories were bombed out by German planes. We could do the same thing here, if need be, ’cause, by golly, Oshkosh is closer to Moscow today than Berlin was to Coventry back in 1940. We need that dispersal of bombing targets that small businesses who know how to handle aluminum— the metal of the air—can provide, urely, if it comes, this will be another air war!
It would seem to fne that if General Vandenburg is right, we should prepare to have a second line of industrial defense. I think it is high time that the tiny businessmen who are so essential to the nation’s economy as well as>. its security should speak out. I feel sure that our elected representatives can be induced to take the long -siew and see to it that we really prepaer right now for the worst. PAUL WALKER.
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