Mr. JAMES. Will you put it in the record?

General RUGGLES. I can furnish it for the record. That is quite an appropriation. The total sum covered by the program referred to by Mr. James is $21,490,800, and included in this total is the sum of $4,930,000 for jigs, fixtures, dies, gauges, and special tools.

Mr. WURZBACH. You are not doing anything along this line at the present time, are you?

General RUGGLES. We can not. We are prevented by law.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will next hear Mr. Frederick J. Haynes. Mr. Haynes, will you identify yourself for the purpose the record?

of

STATEMENT OF FREDERICK J. HAYNES, VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES CHAMBER; MEMBER OF THE CHAMBER'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS; FORMER CHAIRMAN OF DODGE BROS., DETROIT; DURING THE WAR MANAGER OF PRODUCTION OF DODGE BROS.

Mr. HAYNES. My name is Frederick J. Haynes. During the last war I was manager of production of Dodge Bros. and later chairman of the board.

In October, 1917, we were approached to make a recuperator. We said, "What is a recuperator? We had no idea what it was. It was then explained to us that there are really three parts to a gun, the carriage, the recuperator, and the barrel. The carriage carries the recuperator, and on the recuperator is placed the gun barrel, and the object of the recuperator is to absorb the shock of the gun after the discharge and return it to its original position ready to fire, without having destroyed the aim or the range.

After we got that explanation we said, "Can we see a sample?” No; they had no sample. Then, we were informed that it was complicated that even the French were confident that were any of these recuperators to be captured by the Germans it would be impossible for them to duplicate the mechanism.

Then the only thing that we had to fall back on was the fact that we had been asked to produce them. Obviously the country needed them, and so we took a chance and said we would produce them, purely and absolutely with no knowledge whatsoever, excepting that if they had been made by man before, they ought to be able to be made by man now. That was the way we started to produce, gentlemen. That was all the information we had on which to start to produce one of the vital mechanisms of the war which was needed, and for which our men were suffering because of their lack.

We asked for assembly drawings that we might get an idea of the picture. But there wasn't even an assembly drawing. There were the parts drawings, but no drawing showing these parts put together in the relation in which they were to function. So we started with no knowledge whatsoever. We had no education. We had never seen the thing before. We did not know what a recuperator meant until it was explained to us.

Then we found, after we began to look the thing over, that it was complicated; that to start with and make the rough recuperator we had to have a billet of steel 7 feet long and 27 inches wide and 18 inches thick, weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000

pounds; that you had to cut 7,500 pounds of chips off that block of steel, and when you got through you had that block of steel with holes running through it in most every direction, with trunions on it. Then in those holes you fitted pistons and hollow piston rods and piston rods inside of those; you had bores in there with at least 30 different tapers on them.

You had machine requirements there that we had no machines at all to meet. In fact, as we got into the job we found that the first thing we needed was a building, and we figured as nearly as we could that it would take approximately 11 acres of floor space. Then we tried to get a contractor to put that building up for us so that we would have one section of it in two months' time. We were approached about the middle of October, and about the 1st of November the contract was awarded us, and we started to put the building up ourselves, because the contractor said the building could not be put up in the time we wanted it. We wanted one section to be ready to begin to do the rough planer work on billets, and we said we would be ready by the 1st of January. Well, we weren't. We were ready on the 4th.

Then we found, at the time we started the building, that we had no machine tools at all to begin the job, and it was necessary for us to design and make at least 200 different machines before we could begin.

Then when we were finally ready to do the rough work for which we had planers, or had accumulated planers, we found the steel companies had not been educated. The steel companies were not able to produce these billets, 8 feet long, that I told you about, with the required physical and chemical specifications. Consequently, after we were ready to begin the rough work, we waited between two and three months while the steel companies had to educate themselves in order to make the billets so that we could even begin to start on the first operation.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. How long had we been at war while all this was happening?

Mr. HAYNES. We declared war in April, I think, and the Government started—well, to answer your question, we went into the war in April, and we started in October.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. You are carrying it over into the following spring. aren't you?

Mr. HAYNES. Well, we are in January.

War

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. January, 1918. We had been at war 10 months? Mr. HAYNES. Yes; we had been at war 10 months. We started then in March. We had been at war then very nearly a year. had been declared in April and the following March we were able to get our first billets, nearly a year later. The latter part of July, or, approximately, the 1st of August, 1918, we produced our first recuperator of the howitzer type, which was the smaller type. It was not until October, 1918, that we produced the first rifle type. Then in November came the armistice. Between July, 1918, when we produced the first howitzer, and July, 1919, after the war had closed, when we were once in production, we were producing recuperators at approximately a rate of 45 a day.

We produced a total of 1,601 howitzers and 881 rifle, but had we been educated, had we not had to have explained to us what a re

cuperator was, had we even the faintest idea what it was, then we would have been able to start, but we ran into difficulties because of lack of education everywhere. The materials specified for the con-struction of that gun were of such an exacting nature that the manufacturers were not accustomed to make them. For instance, there were bronzes specified that as you looked at them you would think the foundries would be capable of producing, but when they began to produce them they ran into the fact that there were strange stresses and strains; there were shrinks. The metal did not work the way it should work. Consequently they had to cut and try, cut and try, until finally they overcame the difficulties.

In other words, they got their education, and after they got their education then they were able to begin to produce.

Now, had a system such as you are contemplating in these educational orders been in operation, the War Department would not of necessity have had to lose the time from April to October to place that order.

In that great time of stress when everybody was doing the very best they could, and working at the utmost pressure in order to get things. done as quickly as possible, they had an idea that maybe one part could be made in one plant, another plant could make this part, and so on, and then assemble them and save time. That was the plan the Government went on in trying to produce these recuperators, and they found it was so complicated and so exacting that such a thing would be utterly impossible, because the parts wouldn't fit. So it was practically from July to October that was lost, because even the Government itself was not acquainted with that fact, due to the fact that up to that time there had never been one of hese recuperator mechanisms manufactured in this country.

So we did not have any education. We started from a dead start, just like a boy who has not learned his a b c's, and all the time our men were over there at the front, and they were going over there, and they were hoping desperately that we would get them something, and we were doing our best, but we did not have any idea what we were trying to do until we got our education.

Now, had we been permitted to have gotten acquainted with the recuperator, had we been told that some day we might be called upon to make them, we would have made a few. We would have gotten a set of tools and a set of gauges, and we would have gotten a splendid idea of what we had to do.

For instance, the bores in that mechanism were of an exact diam-eter. They had to be so smooth, in order that the packing which was necessary to hold the high pressure should not be destroyed, but would last and be permanent, that they must resemble in appearance, as you looked through them, the finest mirror that you ever gazed on. There must not be any scratches, because if there was a scratch, every time that packing slid back and forth over it, it would begin to destroy itself.

We worked for about two months on just the simple thing of trying to find a suitable polishing solution that would smooth that bore to the exactness desired and leave no scratch. It took us two months to discover the right grit and the right lubricant, the proper mixtures to do that apparently simple thing. And yet I presume:

anybody would be justified in saying that it is a simple thing to polish a bore.

That is simply a recital of the difficulties we faced. We started in October, 1917, and we did not produce our first one until the next July. We did not practically get into quantity production on the one gun until along in October, 1918, or a year from then, and on the rifle we never got into production in quantity until along in January of 1919.

Now, had the manufacturers of this country been educated and knew as much about making the raw parts-that is, assuming that we had all been educated and we had the knowledge-then the billets would have begun to flow in as we began to ask for this other material. Or, if there was knowledge and information available as to the peculiarities and the action of these things in the files of these other companies, we would have got our materials quicker. Everyone would not have greeted us with a look of blank amazement as to what we wanted, and then, too, the War Department would have been acquainted with the difficulties of that mechanism. By means of these educational orders they would have known the size and the magnitude of the job. They would have selected, then, a company that had the resources and the facilities to handle that large job. No time would have been lost there. If they had started to place it in July, it would have been placed in July, and the latter part of 1917, even with one set of tools, we would have begun the production-not quantity production, but in the meantime we would have been making additional tools, because we would have known something about them.

Now, the fact might be that the tools were not for the latest model, but they would be for a good model, and while the new model might be different in many respects, it would in all the essentials probably be the same as the old model. A change in measurements does not mean much to a company. It is when you change the whole thing and start with something that you don't know anything about that the difficulty begins. Once a company is acquainted with what they have got to do, and have had experience with the difficulties, then they can go ahead and produce, and it is valuable to know your sources, to know what you have got to manufacture, to know the difficulties that exist, in order that in peace time you can overcome those difficulties, and when, if research is necessary, you have got the time to make that research. But when the men are out on the front line with nothing, and they are desperately hoping you are going to do something for them, it certainly seems a bad time to start in to learn your A B C's.

There is no money in educational orders for the manufacturer. But we owe everything we have got to this country. Whether we agree with everything we have here or not, I don't know of any better country to live in. And the manufacturers as a class would be willing and glad to help and cooperate with the authorities at Washington toward the end that we might better preserve this country in time of need, and it is my own private opinion-this is not official, nor have I the experience upon which to base this opinion— but purely as a layman it is my opinion that valuable as time has been in the past, in the last Great War, when we practically, as has

been stated here, did not ship anything abroad, in the new war, if it should come, time is going to be more valuable, perhaps even as the square or the cube. I would say two years to-day may then in effect be four years or eight years. In fact, in my opinion, I would not be surprised if the next war, if we have one, would be so destructive that it would come and would be over before we knew it.

We are all of us for peace, and I know of no better way to get it than through education and by being ready; and it will take some money to get these manufacturers ready-to educate them. But when we are ready and when we are prepared, then we are going to be very peaceful, because nobody will want to attack us, and, of course, we want nobody to attack us. But we do believe in education.

Mr. JAMES. Mr. Haynes, about how much was your contract for these recuperators?

Mr. HAYNES. I have forgotten the exact number. I think the rifle recuperator, as I recall it, cost about $10,000.

I think we had

Mr. JAMES. I mean the total amount of your contract. Mr. HAYNES. I am talking from memory now. something like 3,000 howitzers and 1,500 rifles to make.

Mr. JAMES. What was the total amount of money involved? Mr. HAYNES. I don't recall that now, but if I am right on my figures, if the rifle recuperators were $10,000 and we were to make 1,500, there is $15,000,000.

Mr. JAMES. About how much did it cost you for the tools you used? Mr. HAYNES. We spent over $6,000,000 for machine tools alone. That is purely for machines. Roughly guessing, I would say we spent a like amount or a great amount for tools. But that was for quantity production on two guns.

Mr. JAMES. Has there been any material change in the recuperators since the war?

Mr. HAYNES. I would have to ask General Ruggles to answer that. I am not familiar with that.

General RUGGLES. No material change, Mr. James. We would like to make more changes than we do, because that is a very difficult recuperator to make. It is the French type. But we have not been able to materially change it.

Mr. JAMES. Where are the tools and gauges you used on that?

Mr. HAYNES. They were transferred to the Rock Island Arsenal. Mr. JAMES. I would like to ask the General in what shape they

are now.

General RUGGLES. They are now in good shape.

Mr. WURZBACH. These recuperators were not being made in this country, I understood you to say.

Mr. HAYNES. There had never been one made of a pneumatic

nature.

Mr. WURZBACH. You say they were made in France?
Mr. HAYNES. They were of French manufacture.

Mr. WURZBACH. We having been an ally of France, they were willing to give us the information and the right of inspection, and everything else, were they not?

Mr. HAYNES. The French really didn't want that gun made outside of France. But they did give us the blueprints, and helped. Mr. WURZBACH. I was wondering why it was so difficult for you to get information, when it was to the advantage of France that