On May 28, 1940, President Roosevelt took the first step toward arming this country for any eventuality. Seeking to harness industry to the rearmament program, the President appointed a seven-member Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense.

The seven members of the National Defense Advisory Commission were: William S. Knudsen, in charge of industrial production; Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., industrial materials; Sidney Hillman, labor; Leon Henderson, price stabilization; Harriet Elliott, consumer protection; Chester Davis, agriculture; and Ralph Budd, transportation.

The commission's task was tremendous. It involved not only the gearing up of American industry to an emergency speed but preparation of plans and the provision of adequate supplies both for the present and the future. Out of all this was to come, as quickly as possible, airplanes, tanks, ships, and guns. Time was of the essence.

The Defense Commission lost no time in translating congressional appropriations into Government contracts. A total of $825,000,000 in Army and Navy awards was approved in June, another $1,137,000,000 in July.

Slow at First

The tempo was necessarily slow at the outset. American industry was geared for only normal peacetime production.

Prior to June 1940, American plants were turning out few military planes, ships, tanks, and guns. Small quantities of British and French orders had been placed in the United States for aircraft, machine tools, and basic raw materials.

Because war had turned to the air as its major battlefield, first attention was given to aircraft manufacturing. On July 1, 1940, the Army and Navy had approximately 5,200 airplanes in service. By July 27 an additional 5,974 were on order with 80 percent scheduled for delivery within a year.

Four months later 25,000 planes were on

order. The Army had contracted for more than 16,000 combat vehicles, including tanks, and had sharply increased its orders for field artillery and guns.

Selective Service Act

Meanwhile, the defense program had taken more definite form. The Selective Service Act had been enacted by Congress. A goal of a 2,000,000-man Army, a two-ocean Navy, and a greatly expanded air force had been set.

Army cantonments were under construction; American youths were preparing to go to camp. Clothing, shoes, tents, and food, as well as fighting equipment, had to be procured. The job of the Defense Commission was expanding.

Less spectacular, but equally important, were the specific tasks of laying up stocks of raw materials so that industry would not be retarded, of providing an adequate labor supply where it was needed and of training the skilled workers of the immediate future, of keeping prices stable, protecting consumer interests, insuring an adequate supply of agricultural products and fair prices, and prcparing the Nation's railroads and trucks to haul war goods.

By December progress in the defense undertaking was apparent, but defense officials were far from satisfied.

Optimistic predictions as to potential plane production in July had to be trimmed. Efforts were being made to subcontract parts of planes to body manufacturing companies and others. The forecast of 1,000 planes a month by January 1941, had to be scaled down by 30 percent. The aircraft industry still was in the expanding stage; expanding from a production of approximately 1,800 military planes during all of 1938 and 2,100 in 1939.

The machine tool industry, which had constituted one of the first bottlenecks, was showing definite progress. Production of machine tools for 1941 was running well ahead of 1940, setting an example for other defense industries.

A reorganization of the administration of the defense program was forecast in December when Mr. Knudsen said he considered "the defense effort to date not satisfactory enough to warrant hopes that everything is all well."

"Arsenal of Democracy"

On December 29 President Roosevelt set an even greater goal for the defense program than the rearmament of the United States.

"We must be the great arsenal of democracy," he said.

Declaring that present efforts were not enough, he warned his countrymen to "discard the notion of 'business as usual.'" The defense program must go into high gear.

A few weeks later the President outlined to Congress a plan for "billions of dollars worth of weapons," and soon the lend-lease legislation began to take form.

On January 7, 1941, the President enlarged the administrative structure directing the defense effort by creating the Office of Production Management, and providing for the coordination of the activities of the National Defense Advisory Commission, the OPM, and other defense agencies through the Office for Emergency Management. The OEM was designed to serve as extra eyes, hands, and brains for the President.

As collateral defense agencies were brought under the OEM, a Division of Defense Housing was created by Executive order to insure the orderly and prompt erection of dwellings for the workers and their families who migrated to centers of defense construction or production.

The second stage of the program was under way with the citizenry more alert to the national danger, industry better prepared to turn out ships, airplanes, tanks, and guns. America was moving at an increasing pace.

Machine Tools Shortage

But a shortage of machine tools threatened to retard this pace at the outset. The appropriate division of the OPM went into action. Priorities Director Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., on January 31, requested machine

tool builders to deliver machine tools after February 28 only to defense contractors.

This was followed by collateral action by the Price Stabilization Division. The first of a series of price schedules striking directly at profiteering in second-hand machine tools was issued.

About this time the National Defense Advisory Commission announced that plant expansion contracts in January aggregated $357,685,332 as against $700,000,000 for the previous 7 months.

More concrete evidence that the defense program was well under way came in the OPM disclosure that during January 1,036 airplanes were delivered by United States manufacturers to the Army, Navy, Britain, other governments, and commercial air lines. Of these, 957 went to the Army, Navy, and the British.

With the coming of March the Priorities Division acted again to insure vital raw materials and tools for defense industries. Aluminum producers and machine tool makers were placed on a mandatory priority status in the first industry-wide orders. Magnesium, nickel, and neoprene followed.

The OPM Division of Purchases, under direction of Donald M. Nelson, meanwhile was helping the Army and Navy get what they wanted as quickly and as economically as possible. On February 5 it took over the job of passing on all major defense contracts.

As the President envisioned a $28,000,000,000 defense program, the magnitude of the task increased substantially. Its breadth was indicated by comparison with the estimated wholesale value of all passenger cars and trucks turned out by the automobile industry in 1940 $3,184,959,808.

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While the Production Division put the spur to industry, two significant steps were taken to insure adequate and satisfied labor. The OPM, by regulation and with approval of the President, established a Labor Division to work with the Divisions of Production, Purchases, and Priorities.

Sidney Hillman, Associate Director General of OPM, in a review of the first half year of defense, earlier had stated that "labor's present contribution to the defense of the Nation has never been excelled at any time in

all history." Less than 2 hours per worker were lost in defense industries during 1940 due to strikes.

Mediation Board

On March 19 the President set up the National Defense Mediation Board, and its prompt settlement of the 75-day-old AllisChalmers tie-up and a number of smaller strikes was of material assistance.

Future needs of defense industries for skilled labor meanwhile were not being neglected. The Labor Division of OPM reported that 816,000 men and women were being given vocational training in April 1941, and it was estimated that the number would reach 1,000,000 before June.

The defense picture broadened as the Office for the Coordination of Health, Welfare, and Recreational Activities under Federal Security Administrator Paul V. McNutt outlined the needs of scattered communities for schools, hospitals, public utilities, and amusement centers where defense industries had overtaxed their normal facilities.

In production, time was still the most important factor. Progress was apparent,

but was it rapid enough?

America was engaged in the biggest job ever undertaken by any country in the length of time, and it called for the maximum cooperative effort of every man and woman in the United States to get it done.

As industry boomed the President moved promptly to forestall threatened rises in prices by creating the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply. Leon Henderson, the administrator, already had placed ceilings on many vital materials as Price Stabilization Commissioner.

The national defense program was now moving into the period for which all the previous work had been preparatory mass production of planes, of tanks, guns, and ammunition.

The more tedious and less spectacular phases of national defense were behind for the United States. Billions of dollars in appropriations, thousands of blueprints, hundreds of

contracts were now translated into swelling streams of fighting equipment.

The enactment of the Lend-Lease Act greatly enlarged the task.

The additional load of becoming "the arsenal of democracy" increased the production job of defense industries by 60 percent and called for 28 billion man-hours of labor within a maximum of 27 months.

To increase the available supply of skilled labor and raw materials, the automobile industry agreed to reduce its output of automobiles by 20 percent beginning August 1. A further release of machine tools was promised as leading manufacturers announced they would forego a change in design for 1943 models. President Roosevelt asked that machine tools be used 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

As production of planes and tanks began to swing into quantity proportions, the National Defense Advisory Commission's duties were being transferred to the OPM and other operating defense agencies. Functions of the Agricultural Division were assigned to the Department of Agriculture.

A Division of Defense Aid Reports was established to report on the lend-lease program under Maj. Gen. James H. Burns as executive officer. Aid to Britain was being accelerated.

Civilian Defense

On May 20 the President established the Office of Civilian Defense within the OEM as a means of coordinating Federal, State, and local defense activities and to facilitate constructive civilian participation in the defense program. New York's Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia was put in charge. The role of the Man-in-the-Street in national defense was growing in importance.

The public, industry, and labor were now indicating full support of national defense. United they provided an almost inexhaustible reservoir of manpower and potential equipment pledged to save democracy.

Progress during the first year of defense effort had been good regardless of the handicaps. But it was not good enough.

What It Costs

The

Armament for defense costs money. total program by mid-May called for expenditures of approximately 40 billion dollars (U. S. and British orders), almost all of it in 1941 and 1942. That is a staggering sum $310 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Yet even it will not be enough. The security and freedom of America cannot be measured in billions of dollars.

There are three major steps in the translation of the taxpayer's dollar into weapons of war. Congress appropriates it. The Army and Navy, with the advice of civilian defense agencies, award contracts. And the Treasury pays out the money as services are performed.

Appropriations and contract authorizations amounted to 37.3 billion dollars on May 17. British orders, which also are being filled by American industry, add another 3.7 billion.

An idea of how the 37.3 billion dollars will be spent may be obtained from the following breakdown:

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What makes a defense program so expen

A 35,000-ton battleship, such as the U. S. S. North Carolina, costs 70 million dollars. It takes 50 million to build an aircraft carrier, 20 to 30 million for a cruiser, 8 million for a destroyer, and 6 million for a submarine. And, even after these maritime fortresses are built, they are expensive to maintain. For instance, it costs $900 about the price of a small family car to fire a 14inch gun from a battleship. And there are 124 guns in the fleet with more scheduled for the two-ocean Navy. A 16-inch gun costs $1,000 to fire.

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Aircraft is not so expensive, but it takes more planes than ships to arm the United States. Yet a four-engine bomber, complete with spare parts, costs close to half a million.

Tanks are less expensive, but the prices are many times the cost of the family auto. The Army pays from $27,000 for a light tank to $67,000 for a medium tank and $114,000 for a heavy tank, not including the cost of guns. Out of the 37.3 billion the Army will get 13.1, the Navy 13.1, and Lease-Lend 7. Other United States defense agencies will share 2.3 billion, while Government lending agencies will distribute 1.8 billion.

Contract awards on May 1 amounted to 15.2 billion. The Army and Navy accounted for 13.6 billion and other defense agencies for 1.6 billion. British orders of 3.7 billion brought total orders to 18.9 billion. Cash payments amounted to only 5.1 billion dollars on the same date.