Military industry

“ The record made by management and labor in war industry has been a notable testimony to the resourcefulness and power of America. The needs are so great, nevertheless, that in many instances we have been forced to recall soldiers and sailors from military duty to do work of a civilian character in war production, because of the urgency of the need for equipment and because of inability to recruit civilian labor. ”

“ Therefore the percentage of foreign workers in Army armaments, if you take it as a whole and as one of the older industries, was lower than the percentage of foreign workers in air armaments, because that was a completely new industry which had no old regular personnel. ”

“ Today thousands of England's industrial plants are being operated as government factories for the production of war materials, and many other thousands of plants, still under private control, are centering their energies in this same direction.
"We have here in the United States vast resources in manufacturing and producing equipment, but they are unorganized and uneducated for the national service. Our observations of the European War have taught us that it is upon organized industry that we must base every plan of military defense. ”

“ And quoting now from the same document, Paragraph 2, II and III—I am quoting directly:
“II. Construction and armament industry.
“ (a) Work units for construction of all kinds, particularly for the fortification of coastal defenses (concrete workers, unloading units for essential war plants) .
“ (b) Suitable armament factories which are to be selected in such a way that their personnel will consist in the majority of prisoners of war under guidance and supervision (upon withdrawal and other employment of the German workers) . ”

“ Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. ”

“ The large standing army indispensable to Germany costs vast sums annually, but the standard of personal efficiency is raised so much by military training, and industry is so stimulated to meet government requirements, that the Germans have captured markets all over the world for the sale of their manufactured products in ever-increasing quantities. ”

“ Just in proportion as the machine has established its dominancy over the various industries, so will they increase in size, diminish in flexibility, and grow ripe for admission, as routine businesses, into the ranks of state-industry. If the chief object of society was to secure continual progress in military arts and to educate to the utmost the military qualities, it would be well to leave fighting to private enterprise instead of establishing state monopolies in the trade of war. ”

“ Once the Army, in cooperation with the Air Force and Navy, has taken the most important positions, industrial production will cease to flow into the bottomless pit of the Army’s battles, and can be diverted to benefit the Air Force and Navy. ”

“ We are calling upon the resources, the efficiency and the ingenuity of the American manufacturers of war material of all kinds-airplanes, tanks, guns, ships, and all the hundreds of products that go into this materiel. The Government of the United States itself manufactures few of the implements of war. Private industry will continue to be the source of most of this materiel; and private industry will have to be speeded up to produce it at the rate and efficiency called for by the needs of the times. ”

“ When America entered the war, problems and needs rose up at every hand, like dragons springing from the ground, and all of them, in all their number and complexity and variety, had to be met and conquered at the same time. None of them was more difficult than this problem of the creation of a munitions industry, for it demanded a highly specialized manufacturing equipment of enormous capacity and great variety which we did not have, concerning which we had in the past known but little and for which we had always had slight regard. ”

“ In enormous factories, such as the world had never seen, tens of thousands of workmen toiled in casting great guns, while by their [25] side, in workshops and laboratories, every invention which the disinterested genius of neighbouring peoples had been able to achieve was immediately captured, bent from its intended use, and converted into an engine of war. Reciprocally, the army and navy which owed their growth to the increasing wealth of the nation, repaid the debt by placing their services at the disposal of this wealth: they undertook to open roads for commerce and outlets for industry. ”

“ Therefore, the Government began at once to provide the industries and institute the training facilities necessary for the creation of this new branch of warfare. The development had to be from the foundation on both the side of production and the side of training. From the cutting of spruce trees in northwestern forests and the weaving of wing fabric to the making of the engines and the oil for their lubrication, the industry of airplane production had to be developed and speeded to the point where it would meet the desires of our war associates. ”

“ Chapter 7
"It is after you have mustered your industrial army into service," I said, "that I should expect the chief difficulty to arise, for there its analogy with a military army must cease. Soldiers have all the same thing, and a very simple thing, to do, namely, to practice the manual of arms, to march and stand guard. But the industrial army must learn and follow two or three hundred diverse trades and avocations. What administrative talent can be equal to determining wisely what trade or business every individual in a great nation shall pursue?" ”

“ The volumes which are now nearing completion will deal with the supply and control of raw materials, with the supply and utilisation of labour in the munitions industry, with the provision of factories, plant and machine tools, with the administrative machinery of the supply departments, with the finance of war production and with overseas supplies. There may also be a composite volume dealing with the design and development of weapons. It was also part of the original plan to introduce the series by a ‘synoptic’ volume covering the entire field of war production. ”

“ If our history of the war economy had aimed at perfection, it would have included in each chronological Part a long chapter explaining carefully how the war production sector was built up. But the positive employment of resources in the field of war industry is an immense subject. ”

“ The reader who has come to this point has before him the picture of the Nation's industry at war—the whole teeming effort in its main outlines, its myriad ramifications, its boundless activity, its ten thousand enterprises, its infinite toil, its hosts of workers, its wonders of scientific achievement, its attainments, even its failures—in short that humming complex of work, planning, ambition, disappointment, triumph, shortcomings, ability, and driving force which was a mighty people concentrated with all of its powers upon a single objective. ”

“ There are also several machine shops, factories and warehouses which contain vast stores of war material of every sort sufficient to equip an army at a fortnight's notice. About twelve hundred men are constantly employed in the arsenal and shops making and repairing military arms and equipments. ”

“ The Contracting Powers further agree that munitions and implements of war shall not be manufactured by private enterprise or for private profit, and that there shall be full and frank publicity as to all national armaments and military or naval programmes. ”

“ In an astonishingly short period of time, the auto industry and its workers became one of the nation's most important contributors to the war effort, manufacturing more planes, tanks, bombs and weapons than the world had ever seen. ”

“ Our dependence upon France for artillery, aviation, and tanks was, of course, due to the fact that our industries had not been exclusively devoted to military production. All credit is due our own manufacturers for their efforts to meet our requirements, as at the time the armistice was signed we were able to look forward to the early supply of practically all our necessities from our own factories. ”

“ And as the captains of industry have, at last, begun to be aware that the condition of success in that warfare, under the forms of peace, which is known as industrial competition lies in the discipline of the troops and the use of arms of precision, just as much as it does in the warfare which is called war, their demand for that discipline, which is technical education, is reacting upon science in a manner which will, assuredly, stimulate its future growth to an incalculable extent. ”

“ Thus these two administrative war agencies, the War Trade Board and the War Industries Board, together had practically complete control of all the vast affairs of the whole nation’s industry and commerce. As a sculptor works a piece of clay into any desired form, these two boards took the country’s business life into their hands and moulded and shaped it into a war-making machine. ”

“ In the coming year we must increase the output of many weapons and supplies on short notice. Otherwise we shall not keep our production abreast of the swiftly changing needs of war. At the same time it will be necessary to draw progressively many men now engaged in war production to serve with the armed forces, and their places in war production must be filled promptly. These developments will require the addition of hundreds of thousands to those already working in war industry. ”

“ Its policies must be subject to the administration's general strategy in the war—for instance, to the amount of munitions in comparison with the number of men or the amount of food that it wishes to send abroad at any given time. The munitions program and the conversion of industry to war purposes must be governed by the ultimate end in view. In addition, one of the great factors in production—the labor factor—is being administered by another government agency, and it is obvious that priority in the labor supply must go hand in hand with priority in materials. ”

“ The attention and admiration of the country were directed to the fact that the Labor administration was the first to build small arms factories, to revise the military establishment so as to secure the greatest efficiency and to prepare the nation for deeds of valor on the battlefield. ”

“ As he foresees that the competition of highly organized industrial communities, for markets and for raw material, is about to produce a series of wars over the whole surface of the globe, he pleads for the highest possible efficiency and combination of naval and military power. ”

“ The development of the armament industry by the use of foreign markets was a program encouraged by the navy, so that this industry would be able to supply the requirements of the navy in case of need. ”

“ Several less important industry branches accounted for another 11 percent of industrial employment, and an unlisted residue of fifty enterprises employing almost 100,000 persons, presumably constituting the defense industry, made up the balance of 6 percent. ”

“ World Armaments and the Growth of the 'Arms Culture' 31. Traditionally, nations have adhered to an 'arms culture' They find themselves locked into arms competitions fuelled among other things by powerful vested interests in the 'military-industrial complex' as well as in the armed forces themselves. Industrial nations account for most of the military expenditures and the production and transfer of arms in international society. However, the influence of this 'arms culture' is not confined to these nations. ”

“ Control of Industry and Transportation.—The establishment of huge war industries for making guns, munitions, clothing, and the varied supplies for a vast army put a great strain on the industry and transportation of the United States. The country was called upon to feed its own people, the army that was preparing to go abroad and, in considerable part, the Allied armies. ”

“ And beside the feeble and irregular endowment of research by commercialism, its little short-sighted snatches at profit by innovation and scientific economy, see how remarkable is the steady and rapid development of method and appliances in naval and military affairs! Nothing is more striking than to compare the progress of civil conveniences which has been left almost entirely to the trader, to the progress in military apparatus during the last few decades. ”

“ In the olden times warfare was supported by a single trade, that of the armourer. Nowadays the whole resources of the greatest manufacturing nations scarcely suffice to supply the needs of their armies. So much is this the case that no nation can possibly hope to become powerful in a military or naval sense unless they are either a great manufacturing community or can rely upon the support of some great manufacturing ally or neutral. ”

“ So apparently war work is not only making shell factories out of sewing-machine and tobacco works, munition contractors out of enamel-button makers, munition machines from bicycle- and clock-factory lathes, but is also manufacturing as a by-product engineers60 and mechanics from milkmen and all sorts of similar unlikely material. ”

“ Now in that branch of the war business we have thousands of officers and 100,000 men. But 96 per cent. of those officers are trained business men and engineers from big civil enterprises. Most of them are in military uniform, but that is merely a matter of form that does not go to the substance of the business.
The great military work of America, the work of the soldiers, is being done in France. In this country we have settled down to the purely business undertaking of producing men and material out of which to form the armies. ”