Silver at Work

Fight thou with shafts of silver, and o'ercome When no force else can get the masterdom.

-- Robert Herrick

Many a war has been fought for silver, but World War II is the first in which silver has been used as a major weapon. Silver technology, long retarded by political price-boosting, has leaped ahead under wartime pressures.

Because of the great industrial demand, Congress three months ago authorized the Treasury to sell or lend war industry part of its silver hoard not needed for currency backing -- under WPB restrictions. The Treasury has released 700,000,000 oz., a half-billion dollars' worth.

As a war metal, silver started as a substitute for tin, copper and other critical metals, was soon found superior to them in many ways. Silver has many ideal properties: it resists corrosion better than any other metal, is little affected by atmospheric conditions, is extremely malleable, and is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. Some of its uses :

>As bus bars (electricity conductors), replacing copper. Aluminum and magnesium plants have borrowed tons of silver from the Treasury for this job, must return every ounce in five years.

>As a brazing alloy (with copper and zinc) to connect joints: it is workable at relatively low temperatures which do not injure the metals joined.

>As a solder (lead and 2 1/2% silver), which has been found cheaper and stronger than tin solder.

> As bearings: silver is exceptionally slippery, durable and heat-resisting, is widely used in airplane engines.

>Silver may be a postwar threat to the tin can. It resists the corrosive and bacterial action of food better than tin; if experiments with an electroplating process for making silver linings are successful, silver may soon compete with tin in cost. These and other silvery possibilities gleam in metallurgical eyes. But silver is a die-hard political issue. Chief obstacle to plans to put U.S. silver to work is the artificially high price (71.1-c- an oz. v. 35-c- in the open world market) fixed by Congress under the influence of the silver bloc.

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