Industrial Conscription

Last week Congress, the President, Army-Navy underlings finally let U. S. businessmen know what they might expect in the way of industrial conscription: little or none, if they behave according to Government lights. If they behave otherwise (i.e. balk at taking defense contracts on Government terms), President Roosevelt can invoke conscription in its stiffest form: immediate, outright seizure of plants and products, to be paid for when and as he pleases.

Congress wrote this unqualified power into the Army conscription bill, after swaying all the way from outrage at the idea to enthusiastic acquiescence. Without proclaiming any further or special emergency, or going through tedious condemnation proceedings in the courts, the President can now "take immediate possession of any . . . plant or plants, and through the appropriate . . . bureau . . . of the Army or Navy . . . manufacture therein such product or material as may be required. . . ." He can either rent the seized plants or buy them, paying whatever he determines is "a fair and just price." Only important limitation is that he must first find (but prove only to himself) that the owner had failed to cooperate voluntarily.*

That Franklin Roosevelt or any other President would wish or have to use such power to the full appeared unlikely. Its mere existence serves the purpose: to scare a recalcitrant few. Assistant Secretary of War Robert Porter Patterson assured industry that the power would be applied to only "one case in a thousand." But he left no doubt that the Roosevelt Administration was prepared to crack down on the thousandth.

In a message to Congress last week, the President outlined his National Defense Advisory Commission's plans to get first call on industrial facilities for defense. Theme of these plans (and of all the War & Navy Departments' industrial mobilization charts) was voluntary cooperation. Nevertheless a hard vein ran through the Commission's silky words ("There should be ... honest and sincere desire to cooperate ... in producing what is called for, and on time, without profiteering; to assume some risks . . . rather than attempting to shift all such risks to the Government . . ."). Formulator of these standards was not Mr. Roosevelt, but business-minded Donald Marr Nelson, on leave from Sears, Roebuck & Co. to serve the President and the Defense Commission.

Last week the Navy bought a steel mill in San Francisco, Calif., to turn out armor plate for ships. Then the Navy did approximately what would have to be done with any conscripted plant. Delegated to run the Navy plant was Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s subsidiary Union Iron Works, which was already making destroyers and cruisers on a voluntary contract.

*Further penalties for failure to cooperate: up to three years in prison, fines up to $50,000.

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