States.

A report prepared by the credit research staff of the Department shows but little change in the percentage of open-credit sales to total sales in 1940 compared with 1939 both for the nation and regionally.

Cash sales of these stores accounted for 28.6 percent of total sales in 1940 compared with 29.0 percent in 1939. Installment sales accounted for 3.5 percent of the 1940 sales compared with 3.2 percent for the preceding year, the report shows.

Bad-debt losses on open-credit accounts of identical credit granting women's specialty stores declined very slightly from 0.32 percent of open-credit sales in 1939 to 0.31 percent in 1940, indicating a decrease from 1939 to 3.1 percent in the average rate of loss per $100 of open-credit sales.

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Installment-credit bad-debt losses declined from 1.50 percent of installment sales in 1939 to 1.22 percent in 1940. The average rate of loss per $100 of installment sales declined 18.7 in 1940 compared with 1939, according to the Department of Commerce.

Aluminum Ware

More than four-tenths, 43.3 percent, of the products of the aluminum ware industry produced in the United States in 1939 were sold to retailers for resale, and approximately one-fourth, 26.2 percent, went direct from point of production to commercial, professional, institutional, and other users. In addition, 16.6 percent of the total 1939 output went to wholesalers and jobbers and 11.1 percent was sold direct from plants to consumers at retail.

A relatively small amount was produced for export.

This industry, as reported by the Census of Manufactures, consisted of 32 establishments with value of products for the year 1939 amounting to $37,124,898 (preliminary figure). Of this number, 30, with products valued at $36,799,755, reported the distribution of their sales. intra-company transfers of these amounted to $35,095,000.

Sales and 30 plants

The quantities of iron ore and of coal now reaching the blast furnaces (where the iron ore is converted into pig iron) are sufficiently large to keep present facilities operating at or very near capacity. And, if necessity required, more of both could be produced.

Scrap, on the other hand, is not a commodity that can be produced. Very considerable tonnages do arise as byproducts of various metal working processes, but this production is incidental and is not economically susceptible to increase at will. The balance of the scrap is the result of obsolescence, and of prodigality.

Scrap Has Phoenix-Like Quality

It is the Phoenix-like quality of scrap that makes it so valuable to the steel plant and foundry. It has only to be remelted to become the equivalent of virgin metal. In fact, remelted it cannot be distinguished from new iron or steel.

Open-heart steel plants when operating most economically use scrap as part of the furnace charge, the other part being pig iron-about equal quantities of each being used. Adding scrap speeds up the process, and this, in effect, increases the capacity of the steel furnace. When the percentage of pig iron is increased more time is required for its conversion and the capacity of the furnace is lowered.

The foundryman simply melts the scrap-using the kind required to make the type of casting he has in mind--and then pours the molten metal into molds so that it may harden into the shape desired.

40 Million Tons of Scrap Needed

To make the 81,000,000 tons of steel to be produced in 1941 will require nearly half that quantity of scrap say 40,000,000 tons. Of this quantity the steel industry will, out of its own operations, provide about 24,000,000 tons leaving 15,500,000 to 16,000,000 tons to be collected from other sources to be used in steel production alone. In addition some 6,500,000 tons of metal will be required by

the foundry industry.

Last year an estimated 19,480,000 tons of scrap were consumed in this country for all purposes, and collections this year seem to have been no higher if as high as in 1940. All of which indicates that something must be done, and done at once if we are to produce the enormous amount of steel needed in our defense effort. From some place, and somehow, 3,500,000 tons or more additional scrap will have to be found.

Scrap in the Urban Home

While no one knows how much scrap there may be in this country, it is generally assumed that the scattered reserves include millions of tons of usable material. Almost every household may well yield some quantity of scrap in the form of broken or outmoded iron or steel objects. Only a few pounds may be found in the average home, but in the aggregate the tonnage is enormous. This is one reservoir.

Scrap on the Farm

The farm is another important potential source of scrap--worn-out parts of machinery, and discarded tools and equipment are to be found in considerable quantities on most of them. Still another reservoir includes the remains of wrecked automobiles which stripped of all parts salable as such, make up the familiar automobile graveyards found in all sections of the country. Estimates place the scrap available from this source alone at 7,000,000 tons--perhaps twice the estimated current shortage.

And, finally, there is the industrial reservoir--metal scrap in plants which process steel. This too appears to represent a very considerable tonnage which ordinarily would reach consumers through the medium of the scrap industry. However, it appears that a very large part of the total available from this source is being held by its owners in anticipation of an increase in the official price ceiling. In any event it is known that the quantities believed to be available are not reaching the market.

OPM at Work on Problem

The Office of Production Management is working on the problem of how to get the country's scrap into the hands of the steel and foundry industries. One plan that has been evolved paves the way for the engine blocks, the chassis, and usable parts of the bodies of the cars in the many automobile graveyards to come into the hands of the scrap industry and, with a minimum of delay, to reach steel plants and foundries.

We Need Scrap Peddlers

The scrap in urban homes and on farms presents another problem how it is to be collected. Until a few years ago the wagons and trucks of scrap peddlers, as these collectors were called, were sights familiar to all. Now, however, only a skeleton force continues in this business 10,000 peddlers, according to the best estimates, having forsaken scrap collections because of low prices, mounting restrictive regulations, and the availability of more remunerative employment in other lines. Since to make the barest living, the peddler had to collect at least one ton of scrap each day the absence of these 10,000 peddlers means that at least 10,000 tons less is coming to hand each day, 60,000 tons less each week, and some 3,000,000 tons less each year. And this last figure is probably low.

One solution would be for individual owners of scrap to bring it to established collection points as donations or for sale to scrap dealers. This problem remains to be

solved.

One Plant Working Its Own Back Yard

In the meantime at least one steel producer, the American Rolling Mill Co., has set out to find the answer to its own shortage. Speaking a language that none could misunderstand - a tale of the impending closing down of furnaces due to inadequate supplies of scrap it set out to get the scrap available in two communities where it operates plants. Response has been gratifying. In the first two weeks of the campaign something like 8,400 tons came into their hands through local scrap dealers, and the flow is continuing as these and neighboring communities become scrap conscious.

This company's experience in Middletown, Ohio, and Ashland, Ky., the two cities in which this plan was tried, affords a yardstick of results which might be obtained by other companies both producers and converters of steel in their own back yards.

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So it is that this country needs scrap desperately if it is to cope with the present emergency. And it will continue to need it until the emergency is terminated. A long range scrap program must be inaugurated. Steel mill operations in 1941 will require much more scrap than they did in 1931 -- possibly as much as three to four million tons more and it must come from the reservoirs of the home, the farm, the automobile graveyard, and the manufacturer of articles fashioned from steel. Keep 'Em Flying!

Secretary of the Navy Knox reports awards have been made for the construction of 332 new combatant ships. "The building of these vessels, which will cost about $6,000,000,000, added to what we already possess, will give us a combined sea strength of 32 battleships, 18 aircraft carriers, 91 cruisers, 364 destroyers and 186 submarines, a total fleet of 691 vessels of war. Incomparably, this will be the greatest sea power with air power auxiliary

ever created by any nation in the history of the world." Mr. Knox said at the outset of the program it was estimated that "full effect" could not be given before 1946, but now it is apparent the whole fleet will be completed "far ahead of schedule." He said "Before the end of 1941, we will have added to the fleet, commissioned and ready for service, 2 battleships, one aircraft carrier, 18 destroyers and 10 submarines."

As the national income increases the outlook for the wood household furniture industry becomes brighter.

There will be some deterring factors, of course. In the installment field the new Federal Reserve Bank regulations requiring a 10 percent down payment and allowing a maximum of 18 months to pay the balance may cause some postponements of furniture purchases.

cherry, maple, oak, walnut, and birch, are available in good quantity though a shortage of hardwoods such as mahogany, normally imported from Central America, may develop, because of increased demand for its use in planes and ships and a shortage of transportation facilities.

Existing metal shortages will affect the furniture industry along with practically all

structural use in household furniture, such as steel bedsprings, table extension mechanisms, and reinforcements.

The industry has been developing substitute materials, such as plastics for ornamentation and rubber mattresses to replace innerspring mattresses, but with priority demands for rubber and certain basic chemicals used in plastics, it is now becoming necessary to find "substitutes for substitutes."

The curtailment of machinery and tools is not expected to prove a serious problem to the furniture industry, since it is reported to be equipped to meet all demands. Its labor, also, is not so trained as to be in special demand for defense production.

Standardization Being Studied

In line with the program of OPM and the National Bureau of Standards the furniture industry is endeavoring to achieve simplification and standardization of design, and thus release certain machines and materials for defense needs. This trend would tend to popularize modernistic furniture rather than the more ornate styles, and presents an opportunity for the development of distinctive American de

The wood household furniture industry, which in 1939 reported an output valued at more than $400,000,000 (at the factory), is well distributed throughout the United States. Production reports were received by the Bureau of the Census from every State in the Union. Several of the middlewestern States, particularly Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, reported sizable industries, as did California in the far west, but around 50 percent of the national total is produced in eastern seaboard States.

One-half of the national output of wooden household furniture consists of living room and library equipment. Bedroom furniture follows with 27 percent of the total; dining room, 12 percent; and kitchen, 4 percent.

Types of Wood Household Furniture

Pa. Calif. Mich.

All

Other

Living Room

Bedroom

Dining Room

Kitchen

All Other

TOTAL

27,707

18 2,197 1,027 225 6,294