"I Have a Right to Ask ..."

"I Have a Right to Ask . . ."

Congress suddenly turned a hard, dollar-conscious stare on the U.S. Army & Navy. Total U.S. war bill since July 1940: $331 billion (roughly $10,000 per U.S. family).

Last week, before the Senate gave the Army its biggest sum yet, $71 billion, several Senators gave the Army a quick combing-over:

> Said Virginia's closefisted Harry F. Byrd: "War expenditures . . . have been unnecessarily extravagant and wasteful. . . ."

> Said Missouri's neat, grey Harry S. Truman: "Tremendous sums of money are simply being thrown away with a scoop shovel. . . . [The Army & Navy] know how to waste money better than any other organizations I have ever had anything to do with. . . ."

One member of Congress, who really worries about what happens to public funds, went farther, much farther, to find out. Last January, factory managers throughout the East and Midwest began to get visits from a mop-haired, jug-shaped man who began: "My name is Engel. I am a member of Congress representing the 9th District of Michigan. I am here to have you educate me so I can do a better job in spending your money. I have a right to ask, and shall expect your fullest cooperation. I want facts, just facts."

Long famed in Congress as a tough investigator who tracks down the facts, bulldogs them, ropes them and brings them in, Representative Albert J. Engel has brooded since 1939 about Army extravagance.* Five months ago he got in his automobile, drove 4,500 miles, snooped through 47 war plants. Last week Fact-Finder Engel reported: both war plants and labor are making too much money at the taxpayer's expense.

> War contractors in Engel-inspected plants made "excessive profits" (up to 53% after payment of taxes) during the last two years. Still greater profits were made by Government-financed corporations "earning profit on a large Government capital, but distributing that profit to a small group of stockholders who have very little capital invested."

>An 18-year-old girl (from the 5-&-10-c--store ribbon counter) took a two-to-six-weeks welding course, now earns $65 a week, or $3,380 a year. (Base pay of a U.S. Army major: $3,000). Ex-gas station attendants, grocery clerks, automobile salesmen now make between $60 and $110 a week in war plants.

> Machine-gun assemblers get $4,700 to $8,740 a year. (Lieut. General Brehon B. Somervell, in charge of U.S. Army supply, gets $8,500. U.S. soldiers and sailors, at $50 a month, must take down and assemble machine guns, blindfolded.) Moralized Mr. Engel: "On the other hand, we attempt to freeze a half-million coal miners at wage rates of $1,200 to $1,700 a year."

Warned Representative Engel: "If there is one thing that will set the returning soldier against his Government, it is excess profits . . . on invested capital, and excess wages paid to labor. . . . If Socialism or Communism ever gets a foothold in this country, it will be because of these wartime profiteers in the ranks of labor and industry."

* In October 1940 the Army asked for a $466 million housing appropriation, Michigan's Engel protested waste, made a check, predicted the Army would need another $330 million if the waste continued. The Army needed another $338 million, got it.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.