INSTRUCTIONS AND CERTIFICATES-See also AR 5-160

1. For every Invitation for bids an abstract of bids form will be prepared as soon as practicable after the bids have been 'spened or as soon as it is decided to cancel the invitation before opening bits,

2. Every form will bear entries conforming to the following examples on page No. 1. If the entry in 3 below is made, the Opened entry will not be masie.

Invitation for bids No. "728-87-18." Tatal pages “B.”

Issued "December 5, 1936,"

Opened "11 a. m., December 31, 1938,"

Office of "Quartermaster, Fort Monmouth, N. 3."

To supply the following requirements: “Utilities supplies-3d Qr. F. Y. 1937."

3. If it has been decided to cancel the invitation before opening bids the date of the bancelation will be entered and initials) in the space provided below and the abstract will be distributed:

4. If no bids were received, the person whom duty it is to open the bids will initial the following in the space provided below and distribute the abstract:

No kids were received on this Invitation

(Initial)

5. If bids were received and upsmed, entries conforming to the following examples will be made. a. On page No. 2:

BID NOS

b. On page No. 3 and succekding pages (War Department Form No. 29 A): if remarks cannot be conveniently placed under the item they may be placed in any other space on the form. If, after making entries as indicated below, sufficient space is available thereunder, similar entries for a segond group of items may be made on the same page

*Liet om any page only the numbers of those bide received for the items included on that pere.

6. If bids were opened and the awards are not to be made by the person who opened the bids be will sign the following in the space provided below;

I CERTIFY that I have personally opened and read all bids received, verified all entries on this abstract extracted from those bids and find it correct.

(Signature and (c)

7. When setion on the bids has been completed, suitable entries showing such action will be made. The following are examples of possible entries for the items in the example of paragraph 5 above:

Item Check 12 of bidder No. 1 in red; Item 2-Check 1.18 in red; Item 3-Check 29 in red, check .26 in blue, and add the following to the remarks: "Rejected for that reason because size specified is essential"; Item 5-Check the 24.13 which was determined by lot and under the item enter: "Award made as directed in AR &-160", Hem 5-Under this item enter: "All bids received on this item have been rejected-Purchase will not be made"; Item 7-Chock 735 in red, check .72 in blue and add the following to the remarks: “Award made a directed in AR 5-340.”

8. When the abstract has been completed as indicated above and except when the invitation was canceled or whos no bida were received, the person whose duty it is to make the awards will sign the following, deleting a if the certificate in 6 aluve has been signed, and distribute the abstract: I CERTIFY that.'

4. I have personally opened and read all bids received, verified all entries on this abstract extracted from them bids and Bind it correct.

b. I have made the awards or rejected the bids as indicated on this

Kas lo

41957-54- -81

Mr. MORRIS. That covers the sales we will look at this afternoon. Mr. COTTER. Do you have the figures you obtained for that sale, the total amount?

Mr. KASTER. Yes.

Mr. COTTER. This is No 14?

Mr. KASTER. Yes. That is the sale where the market fell out on the metal prices. In August we had a sale of the same type of item and we received $26.17 a ton for light metal, and this sale was $9.88. According to our market, our waste trade journals, the mills have quit buying.

Mr. BALWAN. Did you award the contract anyway?

Mr. KASTER. Yes.

Mr. BALWAN. Do you ever wait on anything like that?

Mr. KASTER. We do wait, but this is the poorest grade of scrap as a whole. In other words, this is stuff that has been burnt. A lot of it has been burnt, and there are several things in it.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. You want to get it out of the yard.

Mr. KASTER. Yes, sir; the space is worth more than the whole thing, the holding of it, because we have no assurance as to when the market will go up.

Last month at the Army scrap seminar which Major Sullinger conducted in Chicago, we learned that the mills had a 49-day inventory on hand and they were not buying scrap.

Mr. COTTER. The overall steel situation is different than that.

Mr. KASTER. But they have a tremendous stockpile. A lot of our local dealers did not send in a bid.

Mr. COTTER. I notice you have brass stampings and miscellaneous lots of nuts and bolts of assorted sizes, 21,500. Wouldn't that be considered a better grade than normally of just iron scrap? Does your brass have a higher value?

Mr. KASTER. Most of the bolts were bent.

Mr. COTTER. No new stuff?

Mr. KASTER. They were bent, and some of the threads were stripped. Mr. COTTER. What about the brass stampings?

Mr. KASTER. I would say it was one-quarter of an inch wide and maybe 2 inches long. It was out of a buckle where they make the brass buckles.

Mr. COTTER. As scrap would brass have a much higher value than ordinary cast iron?

Mr. KASTER. Yes; that was why it was listed separately and sold separately. It is something like 17 cents per pound that we received on that.

Mr. COTTER. What is your total recovery for that sale? Do you have it?

Mr. KASTER. $7,706.35.

Mr. BALWAN. There is no acquisition value on something like that. Mr. KASTER. You couldn't get it.

Mr. BALWAN. You got 172 cents a pound for your brass for one lot, lot No. 10, and on lot No. 3 you got 132 cents.

Mr. KASTER. Probably the 172-cent brass was clean brass and the other was mixed. It consisted of fire extinguishers. Doesn't it describe it there?

Mr. COTTER. I can't tell. You did not sell the bolts by weight, but you got $276.

Mr. KASTER. Yes.

Mr. COTTER. But you had one bid in for $5.05.

Mr. KASTER. That is right.

Mr. COTTER. That stuff is still here?

Mr. KASTER. Not all of it.

Mr. COTTER. Has the sale been approved?

Mr. KASTER. Yes, sir; I think we have the teletype right here, the approval.

Mr. COTTER. I was wondering if you were going through the motions on a scrap sale where your expenses of your sale would amount to more than the recovery, and certainly you wouldn't want to do that. This would not be an example. You have some tonnage in there that is very substantial and some valuable types of scrap.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Are there any other questions?

Before we leave I would like to make this commendation in respect to Mr. Kaster: In the field that we have been in and traveling around, I think that we need to commend people when they are doing a good job, as well as to condemn them when they are not.

I do not think we have had anyone in the field who has been able to answer questions better than Mr. Kaster has, and who has as clear an insight on it, and who does not have to ask anyone else the answers to the questions propounded to him.

Mr. KASTER. Thank you.

Mr. IKARD. It is really refreshing for us to see someone like Mr. Kaster who obviously knows the answers and does not have to go into a conference every time a question is asked.

General MARSHALL. Might I ask that the committee put that in writing to help out Mr. Kaster's record?

Mr. RIEHLMAN. We would be glad to do that. We have sat through a good many meetings. When you get into a field of asking specific questions about certain parts of surplus and what was in the lot and so forth, we have found that other people have had to hesitate quite a bit in answering the questions, and I think that Mr. Kaster certainly has been able to answer any questions the staff has asked him.

Mr. COTTER. You are talking about local surplus property officers. Mr. RIEHLMAN. Yes, certainly.

General MARSHALL. I think a lot of Mr. Kaster and all of us do here. Mr. RIEHLMAN. I think we should try and correct evils if we find them and make constructive criticisms, and we would be just as frank if Mr. Kaster were doing a poor job and speak to you about it, just as we now tell you how we appreciate his work.

General MARSHALL. We all appreciate the committee's attitude, and are glad that you found it that way.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Well, thank you again, gentlemen.

That concludes this hearing, and we will now go out and inspect some of this property which we have been discussing.

(Whereupon, at 2: 10 o'clock p. m., the hearing was adjourned.)