Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1916 — GET DEFENSE DATA [ARTICLE]

GET DEFENSE DATA

Experts Will Comb Country for Information. Plan Perfected to Enroll and Classify AH the Industries in the United i States —Approved by the President. New York.—The naval consulting board has perfected a plan for the enrolment and classification of all industries in the United States. In this yray the government will come into possession of accurate information respecting every description of industrial need at a time of emergency and will be able at the shortest possible notice to turn this country into a comprehensive war machine. Announcement of the plan was made by W. L. Saunders, president of the A,merican Institute of Mining Engineers and vice chairman of the naval consulting board. It is proposed to use the members of the five great industrial societies of the country, all of them experts in their departments, to gather and classify the required information. These societies are the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Chemical society, The four societies together have a membership of some 38,000 men. They have branches and numerous representatives in every state of the Union, In gathering the material the work will be allotted by states, the factories and industrial capabilities of each state being enumerated by its respective branch of the national organization. In this way it is proposed to discover all of the plants capable of manufacturing munitions, automobiles and everything, in short, which the government in time of war would need. It is expected that with the 38,000 experts available for gathering the information the work can be done in a comparatively short time. Mr. Saunders produced a letter from President Wilson in which he formally instructed Mr. Saunders to proceed with the organization necessary. The letter was as follows: . _—_ , “The work which the American Institute of Mining Engineers has done through its members on the* naval con~sulting board is a patriotic service which is deeply appreciated. It has been so valuable that I am tempted to ask that you request the institute to enlarge its usefulness to the government still further by nominating for the approval of the secretary of the navy a representative from its membership for each state in the Union to act in conjunction with representatives from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Americap Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Chemical society, for the purpose of assisting the naval consulting board in the work of collecting data for use in organizing the manufacturing resources of the country for the public service in case of emergency. I am sure that I may count upon your cordial co-operation. Cordially yours, “WOODROW WILSON."