Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 April 1941 — Page 11
| TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 194
SECOND SECTION
¥{oosier Vagabond
EL PASO, Tex. April 20.—The last time I drove Oss country at snail's pace, breaking in a brand ew automobile, was in June, 1936, when we went from Washington to the Democratic National Convention
in Philadelphia. I swore I'd never do it again, but I have. Today I drove alone from Albuquerque to El Paso. . It is 275 miles, and it took me all day. There is a great deal of difference petween driving at 35 miles an hour in the crowded East and out here across the desert. In the East you have to keep awake. even if you're only crawling on your stomach. But out here you can go along at 60 miles an hour and still keep thinking you'd better shift out of low gear. Thirty-five miles an hour is actually a sleeping powder. As far as you can see there's nothing in sight. You don't even have fence posts or telephone poles to count, much of the time. And every curve you come to is such an event you stop nd carve your name on a rock. It’s only 75 miles from Albuquerque to Socorro, but by the time I got there I thought surely I must be n Mexico City. An hour out of Socorro things got so bad that I got a deck of cards out of my traveling bag, and played solitaire on the seat for the next hour as I drove along. After that I got out and rode on the hood awhile, yelling and waving my old hat at all the cacti.
A Cross-Country Runner
I don’t know why I was so dumb, but I was half way to El Paso before it occurred to me to get out and run alongside the car. I found that to be very exhilarating, because one meets so many interesting oeople while running alongside of a new automobile, So I ran for the next 70 miles; which used up two aours. Finally we got to Hot Springs, which I felt at the time was practically a suburb of El Paso. As I went through Hot Springs I remembered that Mayor Tingley of Albuquerque has a boat there on Elephant “Butte Lake and had asked me to go fishing with him some time, and I would have done it right then exgcept I was going so slowly I couldn't get stopped. An hour or so out of Hot Springs I came to the end of my rope. I simply got so sleepy 1 couldn't sit up. So I pulled this roaring monster over to the side of the road, stretched out in that new back seat
Inside Indianapolis (And “Our Town)
A COMPLETE AND IMPARTIAL survey of the City’s recreational habits shows a trend—perhaps a andslide—to sun-bathing. Due to this popular demand, many apartment houses are turning their roofs into lounges. Clubs and the like are finding their present facilities taxed to the limit. And large numbers of housewives hardly wait until the Monday washing is off the line before theyre out in the back vard for a tan. Several explanations for the sun-bathing fever have been offered. Of course, the first and best is the fact the weather has been warmer earlier. But also logical and generally accepted is the reason that the public these days is getting more “vitaminminded”—you know, C-3 tonics and that sort of thing Very shortly now, when the weather gets warmer, there will be communiques from the various health officers urging iemperance in summer activities—Including sun bathing. They'll have to be forthcoming
quickly or theyll be scooped by a thopsand blistered backs.
Washington
WASHINGTON, April 29.—No sooner had Secreary of the Treasury Morgenthau offered his courpus appeal for stiff taxes than the whining began. Sure, everybody wants 10 «ce Hitler licked. But when it comes to shelling out some dollars jor that purpose, the whimpering starts. To Rep. Crowther, a Republican, heavy taxes are like burning down the barn te kill the rats. He fears the drastic rates proposed will affect purchasing power. Of course they will. Does the Republican Congressman want inflation? Civilian consumption has toa be cut. It has to be cut because factory capacity and materials are limited. The automobile industry will reduce production of cars at .east 20 per sent next vear. Many lines will be curtailed. To allow a wild mass of purchasing power—built on wed money—to rattle around in a country short of civilian goods is to invite disastrous inflaticn. The Republican surely doesn’t want wild inflation. Another Republican, Rep. Knudson, declares the Administration is lacking in imagination In trying to draw more iaXes from incomes. He complains abou: the proposed income taxes on both individua ts and corporations, about the proposed estate taxes, apout the proposed excise taxes. Where would he g0 for the money? To the printing press?
Even Congressmen Must Pay
crat from North Carolina, Rep. Cooley jeaps to the defense of his tobacco constituents by opposing further increases in cigaret taxes. It might reduce the consumption of cigarets. Well, I can jmagine a worse calamity than that, but the chances are that people will still smoke cigarets, even if the
is higher. : oie Congressman has called attention to the fact
My Day
LOS ANGELES, Cal. Monday —Yesterday we listened in a pleasant living room to Winston Churchill speak, so many thousand miles away. One must admire a man who can trust the people of his country so completely that he can tell them stark naked, cruel truths unafraid. That quality of courage is a kind of challenge which calls to the very depth of other human souls. Mr. Churchill can use the English language so that it rings and pounds the emotion behind the words into your brain. He knows the value of contrast. Though 1t is years since I have read the poem which he quoted, I can think of none better to fit the occasion. When all is said and done, however, what remains with me is his stark sincerity and indomitable fape. At 12:30 we hurried down to the NYA center to see a colossal and fine statue of the President. Miss Thompson and I lunched with Mrs. Jerome Schneider and my daughter-in-law, Romelle. In the i many people came to the Douglas’ house for tea. The patio buzzed with conversation and for me , Was most exciting. To meet and talk with people work one has long admired is always a thrill-
Le $y
A Demo
and had myself an excellent half hour of shuteye.
I am willing to sign a testimonial praising the | :
back seat of these 1941 convertibles for slumber pur- | poses. In fact, I think I'll get an electric grill and a few groceries and set up housekeeping back there. Oh well, this story is getting too long, so let's just assume that I finally got to El Paso, which of course is true. And in El Paso I ran onto what, the world over, is described as “unusual weather.” It was a spring sand storm. The wind was hitting up to 60 miles an hour, in gusts. Downtown El Paso was just a haze, like something seen at dusk. Out at Ft. Bliss, where the earth is raw and bare, you could barely see across the street. Soldiers wore handkerchiefs over their faces, and some put on their Army gas masks. | Small rocks were being blown through the air. | Soldiers’ tents were going down, I left my car all closed up and locked, and when I came back an hour later there was actually half an inch of sand on the seat.
A Foe of Sandstorms
When it was over people laughed and said, “Now don’t you write anything about this. For this is very unusual, you know.” | But I tell them that now, since I'm a bona fide tax-payer in the Southwest, I'm entitled to write | anything I please about the climate. I don’t like sandstorms or anything about them. I may yet have to run for the State Legislature and get a bill passed against sandstorms. Somebody's got to clean up this weather situation. El Paso is booming so that it’s even hard to get into a hotel. But our old friends at the Gateway threw a few cattle millionaires out into the street, and gave us back the very same rooms we had when last here two years ago. We have been staying at the Gateway almost since we can remember, and they are mighty good to us. Most of the employees are Spanish-American, and although we've never done anything for them, they're always doing something for us. This spring they got it into their heads they wanted to give us. a present. So they took up a collection, and for weeks they pondered and searched, and finaily turned up with four of the most beautiful buckskins you ever saw, They knew That Girl is a regular Cellini at making things out of leather, so it was their idea she should make me something. However, she says they're too nice for me, so she's going to make herself a cape out of them. The minute she does, into jail she goes. I'm going to have a wigwam made of those skins, or else.
What, No Politics?
THEY'RE HAVING A LOT of fun at the State House speculating on the ramifications of the new
Stout Liquor Law which goes into effect Thursday. For instance, the law specifically provides that there shall be no politics in the administration of liquor control. To see that this is carried out, a bipartisan board is set up. What the corridor boys are wondering is how Hugh Barnhart (who had charge of fund raising for Governor Schricker’s campaign) and Harry Fenton (former secretary of the Republican State Committee) are going to get along together on a “non-political” board.
Company, ‘Tenshunl
THE HOME GUARD is new and is entitled to a few mistakes. But good soldiers can take a little | joshing. ¢ At one of their first get-togethers, the socially: prominent sergeant was told to take his outfit down to the supply room. These were his commands: “Column left! “Column right! “Right this way boys!”
By Raymond Clapper
that the proposed rates would take three months’ of | his salary for taxes. We'll all be working one, two or three days a week for the tax collector from now | on. Congressmen and Senators will have to share in| the burden. Many letters come in to me from mothers who don't | want their sons to go to war. Sometimes letters | come in from young men who ask why their lives| should be taken in hand by the Government. One can sympathize with the thousands of personal tragedies that are involved, with thwarted hopes and ambitions, and separations from families. Upon many people will fall a heavy burden of personal sacrifice. Sacrifice Spells Strength But with those who must sacrifice only dollars, I cen feel no sympathy whatever. Wher. anybody begins to complain about taxes, that is a sure sign that he has enough income to be rated as a lucky mar. and the tears that splatter upon his income tax check leave me as cold as a fish. In other woras, I don't think it ought to be any harder to draft a dollar than to drait a man. And they can talk about profits being the wages of capital and about how nobody will work at defense unless he can wring a two-yacht profit out of the operation. But I think that is hooey, too. If the men who are smart enough to be in business and who have the ability to run a business, don't see anvthing more in this situation than a chance t0 grab profits, then Hitler has already conquered America and it remains only for him to choose the time when he shall make his triumphal entry. One reason that Germany is master of Europe today is thet the German people have the stamina that it takes. They have sacrificed to make themselves strong. We cannot make ourselves strong without real sacrifice because the effort will take enormous expenditure of materials and human energy which has to come out of something other than the printing press. It has to come out of our income, sooner or later. And better if sooner,
By Eleanor Roosevelt
McCall, Dorothy Parker and many others actually in the flesh, was an experience which I had never hoped to have. To know that many of the people who were here yesterday had worked in the last campaign for the President and that most of them believe in what he stands for, was most inspiring. So often you have to be glad because of your friends, I kept saying to myself, even if some piograms are wrong, the ideas in back of them must be right or the people wouldn't be with us in the fight for democracy. It was particularly nice to see again some familiar faces. Marc Connelly, who was so patient in the broadcast which I had the fun of presiding over in the last campaign; Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Mann, whose short time with us in the White House was such a pleasure; and our old friend, Eddie Dowling, who is here acting in the play “Time of Your Life,” which we enjoyed so much last year in New York. After dinner, we went over to Walt Disney’s studio and he was kind enough to show us some of the work he is doing for defense. I liked particularly the drawings before they reach the color stage, and was very glad to find one artist at work in the studio and to see what the process of making these drawings really means. These cute little figures may teach us many lessons in the future, as well as provide the entertainment on which we have come to count. Breakfast on the porch this morning, and now big envelopes of mail from Washington to keep us busy until we go to lunch,
| tional
.was out then.
o Smokeless Powder
HY
U.S. Owns Huge Defense Plant at Charlestown
By ROGER BUDROW Times Staff Writer
CHARLESTOWN, Ind,
April 29.—By the end of
this week, the world’s largest smokeless powder factory will turn out grayish amber-colored sticks that can hurl a shell—as big as a man—from here past Louisville. The Government set May 17 as the deadline for de-
livering finished powder.
Work is already underway on
the first batch and as the project has been running ahead of schedule all along, its last deadline probably will be
beaten also.
In only nine months the costliest Government-owned armament plant in the nation has been built on nine square miles of southern Indiana cornfields and tobacco patches
along the Ohio River. project last fall but the story of the Indiana Ordnance Works—that's the official name—begins four
years ago. Four years ago when blitzkriegs weren't newspaper headlines, the United States had facilities for
| making only 50,000 pounds of
smokeless gunpowder a day. This was just enough for an Army of
100,000 fighting a large-scale battle. Today there are 1,200,000 men in military service, counting NaGuard, Reserve and draftees, Without the new powder factories, only one man out of every 12 would have had gunpowder.
Water an Essential
Knowing of this unpublicized bottleneck, the Army Ordnance Department set out to find a factory site. It had to be in the interior to escape possible enemy bombers. It had to have plenty of water nearby because so much is used in making powder Also needed were abundant fuel, labor, good transportation, ground that would be easy to build on and cheap to buy, and proximity to loading plants for shells and cartridges. Charlestown filled the bill. Last summer, even before Congress appropriated the money, E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. was told it would probably be called on to do the job. And so it set about buying up the land. The news On Sept. 3, work began. The plant vas to cost 25 million dollars. Then it was stepped up to 51 million and again to 74 million. Now it's around 86 million dollars. There is one outstanding difference between the munitions industry created in World War I and the present one. The Government is paying for and thus owns a good share of the new munitions plants being built now. It was private industry's headache the last time.
Costs 40 Cents a Pound
At Charlestown the du Ponts were hired by the Army to build and then operate the vast project. Du Pont will receive $500,000 for building it, according to the contract. This is called the cost-plus-fixed-fee type of contract as compared to the cost-plus one of the World War that caused so much furore. The powder is expected to cost about 40 cents a pound to make. Du Pont’s contract allows them 13 cents fee for making each pound which would be $10,500 a
day when the plant is going at |
full tilt of 600,000 pounds daily. Workmen aren't allowed to smoke (the store on the grounds sells every kind of chewing tobacco you can name). Visitors can’t smoke either. Guards even
takes matches from visitors mak- |
ing a tour of the project. There are 571 buildings scattered over the area in such a way
that it would take a devastating |
bomb attack to knock the plant out of commission. Powder will be made in six production lines.
If any one of the six ig bombed, the undamaged can tie
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The public learned of this huge
in with another production line and go right ahead.
130 Solvent Recoveries
Another reason for spreading out the buildings is to keep an explosion in one, building from spreading to others. There are 130 solvent recovery buildings, for instance, instead of just one big one as was the case at the Kenvill, N. J., powder plant that blew up last summer. The ordnance works will have a craving for two things especially —cotton and water. Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson said 300,000 pounds of cotton linters will be used each day. That would make enough string to race two kites to the moon! The cotton will be hauled up the Mississippi and Ohio on barges, unloaded at Jeffersonville’s wharf, and trucked to Charlestown. Some will come by rail. Thus the visitor will see large warehouses for cotton— more than $1,500,000 worth is now stored there. Cotton linters are becoming more expensive because the plastics industry, making substitutes for such metals as are vitally needed in rearmament, has been buying great quantities and boosting the price. Wood pulp can be used instead of cotton in making powder if absolutely necessary. To obtain water, seven wells have been sunk 90 feet through a sandbar to a subchannel of the Ohio River, This pure sand-fil-tered water has a temperature of 54 degrees, just right for the job. The plant can draw 70,000,000 gallons a day, three times as much as Louisville uses. As a safety precaution, the supply is split into two mains half a mile apart. The reservoir will hold 5,000,000 gallons. There are 110,000 feet of water lines.
TTT
The $86,000,000 smokeless powder project at Charlestown in distinguished from most industrial plants by the fact that operations, instead of being concentrated in several large buildings, are scattered
through 585 separate structures, are:
Among the most interesting of these
1. A solvent recovery house where many chemicals are recovered
from the powder, to be used over again and cutting costs.
130 of these.
There are
2. One of the {wo huge power plants supplying electricity and
steam.
3. One of the six blending and packing houses which will operate
at night to reduce danger. mote control.
Operations here will be done by re-
4. This waler dry house has a safety chute from the second floor to enable workmen to escape quickly in case of explosion. 5. This powder storage magazine, for temporary storage only, is surrounded by a dirt-filled barricade to force a possible explosion upward, prevent its spread to other magazines.
Makes Own Power
The project will have its own power from two power plants. But their principal job will be
making steam. There are 44 miles of roads crossing this former farm land and 61 miles of railroad track and 12 miles of sewers. The smokeless powder itself is as interesting as the plant. It should be undevstood that smokeless powder is not used Inside shells or bombs as an explosive. It is a propellant. Its job is to force the shell out of the gun. Pretty generally known is the fact that it is not really smokeless. There is some white smoke when a shell is fired with it. Bu% such a smoke would be hard for the enemy to spot in foggy, weather or at certain times of day. Strangest thing about the whole process of manufacture, however, is that there is no way of knowing just how strong the powder will be until it is tested. The same formula used one day will not produce the same strength of powder the next day. For that reason, each day’s batch of powder (which will be all alike) will
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be taken up to the Jeflerson Proving Ground outside of Madison to be tested under actual firing, When its strength is determined, then they will know how much of the powder to put in each bag at the Goodyear bag loading plant (Hoosier Ordnance Works, officially), the $20,000,000 project adjacent to the smokeless powder factory. The powder will be made in sticks of different size and length and with holes running lengthwise (like spaghetti) to increase the firing surface. These bags of powder are loaded into the breach of the gun and explode when the gun is fired, sending the shell on its way.
Ammonia Necessary
The manufacture of smokeless powder is not hard to understand. It takes about four weeks from beginning to end and some of the first processes are under way at Charlestown now, even though the whole project is not done and won't be finished until about December. The contract calls for production by May 17. One line —100,000 pounds a day—will make rifle powder, In addition to great quantities of cotton and water, considerable ammonia is needed to make nitric acid. Coal for power house boilalcohol, sulphuric acid and
The cotton is dried and fluffed until its moisture content is cut to one-half of 1 per cent. Then it is mixed with nitric and sulphuric acids in dripping pots where it is agitated until the cotton is “digested.” And this is then dumped into a centrifugal wringer where most of the acid is wrung out to be used again. This is probably the best place to save money in making the powder—the more efficient the acid recovery, the less costly is the powder. This fairly dry mass left in the wningér is, chemically smokeless powder although it is far from being finished and is not in powder form. It is i{‘drowned” in water and boiled in big tubs to get rid of the remaining acids, screened for impurities. It is then dehydrated with pressure and alcohol, broken into small lumps and ether is added to make it a jelly-like consistency and make the grains specific sizes. Warm air removes the alcohol and ether.
Minimize Danger
Army officers say thateup to this point the danger in making smokeless ‘powder is no than in ur
other products. But the next step is the most hazardous. It will be done at night when there is more moisture in the air to carry off the static electricity. This step is the final drying and blending which will be done in the top of a three-story structure by pouring the powder over a series of baffles. And the men doing this won't even be in the building—they’ll un the machines by remote control. The officials in charge are anxious to rid the public of the belief that the powder plant is a dangerous place. They declare it will be safer than the average home, based on accident rates, and say the insurance company is charging only ordinary rates. All sorts of safety devices are used. There are safety chutes from the second story of the water dry houses so workmen can lean on a door, slide right down to safety. Powder storage magazines, which store powder temporarily, are surrounded by earthen barricades to force an explosion upward &nd away from other magazines. (All are 500 feet apart.) Workers wear shoes without nails. Electric light bulbs are gas sealed to keep sparks in and fumes out. Metal is grounced, There is a 24-hour fire depart ment and extensive sprinkler system.
Cars From 36 States
Although most of the labor (as many as 26,000 at one time) came from nearby, license plates of 38 different states were counted among the 5000 cars in the parke ing lot one day. The plant is exe pected to employ 9000 men when at full production.
Materials came from everywhere. There were 65 sub-contractors who helped. If the Charlestown factory were in full production, it alone could make enough powder for all the 1,200,000 men in the Army now. There are several other of these Government plants, besides the Army’s at Picatinny, N. J., and du Pont's at Carneys Point, N. J. The one at Radford, Va., about half the size of the Charlestown project, is now in operation, man= aged by the Hercules powder people. Another at Childersburg, Ala., is operated by du Pont. Obviously the big plant here will not be operated all the time— if peace comes. Army officers bee lieve the factory, built for a 50vear life, could be used for some« thing else than making powder, if the Government chose to permit that.
Buildings Useful
The cotton drying houses would be useful to a textile manuface turer. A chemical company might utilize the nitric acid buildings or the solvent recoveries buildings. The warehouses would be suitable for storing some of southern Indiana's and Ken=tucky's tobacco crop. The 100 shipping buildings would also be good storehouses—each has a railroad spur of its own. The power plants might be able to sell electric power. Only top-ranking Army officers know what the future for the vast: layout will be. But its job now is to make powder——as soon and as fast as it can. $ ;