Supply depot

“ Our salvation of the depôt system is in the importation of a large supply. These small shipments are only drops in the ocean." And further on in the same letter: "We began our operations on the 1st of September or thereabouts; and here, in the midst of harvest, before any Commissariat arrangement for supplies from abroad could be matured, we find the country besieging our depôt for food, and scarcely a proprietor stirring in their behalf." [164]
Government depôts were only to be established where it was probable that private enterprise would not offer a sufficient quantity of food for sale. ”

“ In the intermediate warehouses was kept constantly a thirty days’ supply for all the American forces in France and in the distributing warehouses behind the [Pg 75] front and at hospital, aircraft and other centers of final distribution there was always on hand a sufficient supply for fifteen days. Most of the material for all this vast network of storage houses had to be shipped from the United States. This was especially true of the base supply depots and the early construction. Later, much of the wood was cut by American engineering troops in French forests. ”

“ These ranged from bodies of village women and shop girls to factories like the Bel- gravia War Hospital Supply Depot and the Kensington War Hos- pital Supply Depot ; the latter with an average daily attendance of 1,200 workers turned out 6,000,000 articles, making a speciality of elaborate orthopaedic appliances. A number of men did valuable work in the woodwork annexes of the depots. ”

“ The two Commissioners shall be empowered to establish supply depôts, and to authorize other persons to establish supply depôts, at such places on the road as may appear to them suitable; to fix the rates at which provisions shall be sold to traders, carriers, settlers, and others, and to fix the rent to be charged for the use of any rest-houses or serais that may be established on the road. ”

“ Rodney Maxwell said. "You know, Conn brought back a lot of information on locations of supply depots and things like that. An amazing list of things that haven't been discovered yet. It's going to be too much for us to handle alone; we're organizing a company to do it. ”

“ Subsidiary depots should be established every hundred miles until the pole or an open polar sea is reached. These minor depots would be nothing but tents of stout duck, of the Northwest tepee pattern, raised on light but strong poles of cedar, and spiked to the ice with iron or copper spikes. They would contain provisions, blankets, stoves, and fuel, and, as long as the main party was out, would be connected with the head depot by regular dog service. ”

“ This requisition was presented at any of the supply depots, and on it were issued rations consisting of potatoes, canned meats, prunes or preserves, beans, biscuits or bread. Men, women and children with their baskets were seen in the streets throughout the day. ”

“ It is the centre of the raw materials for manufactures, cotton, wool, metals, coal, gas, oil fields, all sorts of food. And as it is the centre of supply, so it is of distribution—60 railroads and branches bring freight and carry out manufactured products to every part of the country—to say nothing of the great number of lines of water transportations—connecting with all parts of the world. ”

“ The Community Department of Exchange then shipped it directly to the place where it was needed.
Under this system of distribution, products passed directly from the producer to the consumer and were never handled but once. The producers held their surplus in their own possession until they had orders from consumers by whom it was needed. The Commissioner of Exchange at Orbitello had a tabulated report of the surplus held by each district, and each district had its clerks in the Order and Supply Department of the Continental Exchange. ”

“ The plow, furnace, mill, loom, railroad, steamboat, telegraph—all were driven to their utmost capacity. Warehouses were emptied; and the great reserves of supply, which all nations in a normal state keep on hand, were exhausted to meet the demands of the great consumer. For many months the Government swallowed three millions per day of the products of industry. Under the pressure of this demand, prices rose rapidly in every department of business. Labor every-where found quick and abundant returns. ”

“ The accumulation of many large manufacturing establishments in the same district has a tendency to bring together purchasers or their agents from great distances, and thus to cause the institution of a public mart or exchange. This contributes to diffuse information relative to the supply of raw materials, and the state of demand for their produce, with which it is necessary manufacturers should be well acquainted. ”

“ Commerce, or the distribution of commodities, involves their storage and transfer, and requires warehouses, docks and freight depots, while the population engaged in this business requires residences, shops and public buildings. Where the products handled are of low value, and the handling is a simple transshipment, the result of even a large flow of commodities in locating population at a point of trans-shipment may be small. ”

“ Depots for the reception of supplies are established in the large cities, whence they are transferred as required to the great issuing depots near the active armies, and from them to the depots in the field. Thus, the main depots of the Army of the Potomac are at Washington and Alexandria—a field depot being established at its centre, when lying for any length of time in camp. Only current supplies are kept on hand at the latter, and no surplus is transported on the march, except the [Pg 3] required amounts of subsistence and forage. ”

“ While the difference of a cent or two in the rate of freight may not in the least interfere with the conduct of industry or commerce in the aggregate, such a slight difference, may perhaps determine whether a manufacturer obtain his raw material from this or that source of supply, whether a wholesale dealer obtain his stock from the manufacturer in one, or the manufacturer in another city, whether a retail dealer make his purchases from the wholesale dealer in this city or in that city. ”

“ A large proportion of the commodious and well-lighted warehouse level on the top storey is let off to individual traders in what are known as "fixed spaces," the demand for which is always in excess of the supply. Goods of great variety and of great value are stored here. The warehouse is found especially useful in connection with the extensive goods traffic carried by the Great Eastern Railway Company between England and the Continent. ”

“ The population of the west has also increased so vastly during these latter years, that the demand on the dealers, and accordingly on the mines, has gradually become steadier till, at last, the industry rests upon the well-settled foundation of a regular demand, a regular supply, and a dependable railway service, in other words, it fulfils the three conditions laid down in Emerson's definition of commerce. ”

“ I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as Edith had described them, and became even enthusiastic over the truly remarkable illustration which is seen there of the prodigiously multiplied efficiency which perfect organization can give to labor. It is like a gigantic mill, into the hopper of which goods are being constantly poured by the train-load and ship-load, to issue at the other end in packages of pounds and ounces, yards and inches, pints and gallons, corresponding to the infinitely complex personal needs of half a million people. ”

“ Prudent trading during the past year would clearly have checked the productions of manufactures and other commodities, and with these the employment of labour. On the other hand, imports restricted to a prudent limit would as clearly have tended to raise prices against the home consumer.
We cannot, however, check our imports, for we have proclaimed that Great Britain, with her mighty capital and resources, shall become the depot of the merchandise of the world, and the foreign producers of that merchandise will hold us to our contract. ”

“ Warehouses should be located on railroad spurs so that supplies may be delivered directly from cars into the warehouse and from the warehouse directly into the cars. Concentration of storage space is desirable on account of the shorter distance to move supplies when unloading and loading. To this end a depot consisting of several stories, one above another, affords the minimum trackage necessary in handling supplies and it is desirable that such a building be selected when practicable. ”

“ By a system of priorities that governed both production and distribution the War Industries Board regulated the supply of raw materials to manufacturers and the delivery of finished products. It stimulated production and speeded distribution of whatever was urgently needed for the fighting forces, for exchange with neutrals or for our own people, but limited the supply of raw materials, or coal, or electricity, or labor, and temporarily withheld the facilities of distribution when need was not immediate, or when there would otherwise have been interference with some war-making effort. ”

“ As seventeen yards of linen are to ten yards of cloth, so are 1,000 times seventeen yards to 1,000 times ten yards. At the existing exchange value, the linen which England requires will exactly pay for the quantity of cloth which, on the same terms of interchange, Germany requires. The demand on each side is precisely sufficient to carry off the supply on the other. The conditions required by the principle of demand and supply are fulfilled, and the two commodities will continue to be interchanged, as we supposed them to be, in the ratio of seventeen yards of linen for ten yards of cloth. ”

“ A first consideration is the location of the building for operating advantages, which is a local matter, but involves shipping facilities by team and by car, convenience to the source of production, and power plant. Naturally the value of the commodity in storage, which at present prices, reaches a considerable amount, and the safety of the product becomes a matter of no small thought. ”

“ Round the large military cantonments in some places, the neighbouring farmers, finding that there is a demand for it, have taken to growing it for sale, and it can be bought in the bazaar; but as the supply is not certain, it is better to enter into a contract with one of the growers to supply the quantity by weight daily required. ”

“ For some one, who hitherto, like all the proprietors along the coast, had obtained his wine, his brandy, his salt, his tobacco, from the smugglers in small quantities, had hit upon the idea that what was needed was an intermediary between the supply and the demand; a middleman who should provide a sort of warehouse or magazine for the smuggling trade, and thus afford the furnishers an opportunity of getting rid of larger quantities at once, and the purchasers the means of procuring their supplies as they needed them, and at convenient times. ”

“ But in many towns, and especially in America, the supply is considerably greater, but also in many cases a good deal of the supply is lost by leakage of the mains. The supply through the branch mains of a distributing system is calculated from the population supplied. But in determining the capacity of the mains the fluctuation of the demand must be allowed for. ”

“ They simply lay in storage areas awaiting use. To say that the goods 'were actually being used to supply, the daily requirements of the plant,' simply affirms the obvious fact that the imports, unaffected in the form in which they were brought in from abroad and deposited, awaited their intended, but not begun, manufacturing process. ”

“ Meanwhile at the War Office itself would be kept not only full details of each depot, but a consolidated return showing the total requirements, so that directly mobilization was ordered the Contract Branch of the War Office, working under the instructions of the Director of Supplies, would at once proceed to make the necessary contracts to purchase the supplies required to meet the needs of each particular depot. ”

“ As the articles are requisitioned by the factory management, the numbers or weight extracted from bins or racks are noted on the cards and the supply made up from outside, the aim of a good storekeeper being to maintain a certain high-water mark, below which the stock is not permitted to fall. ”

“ The axial effect of a depot is more easily noted when it is located a few blocks from a through traffic street than if located on such a street, the travel off the. through street being then directly due to the depot and not being mingled with the general travel. In some cases a depot blocks the end or furnishes the beginning of a street which would for other reasons have been a good street, but which is greatly strengthened by the depot, as with 17th Street in Denver. Freight depots are commonly a part of passenger terminals and attract warehouses, heavy wholesalers and tenements. ”

“ In these piping commercial days of acute competition he has no time to be gallivanting down to the depot every time a through train rolls in, especially as the depot is frequently eighty or ninety miles distant from his domicile. He is closely confined at home turning out souvenirs. ”

“ In such work, at a time when there is likely to be any freight congestion in the country, stock-pile facilities should be provided to care for a supply of material to carry the work for one to two weeks. ”