WALTER J. MURPHY, Editor
Thirty Fateful Days No longer arc we interventionists, isolationists, capitalists, laborers. Republicans, and Democrats, but 13U.U00,OO(J citizens of the United States, united in a grim determination to eliminate, once and for all time, the vile, loathsome, totalitarian philosophy that holds nothing sacred, but rather seeks to destroy civilization by deceit and treachery. There can and will be but one answer—total victory over the forces of evil." These words were written by your editor immediately following Pearl Harbor for the editorial page of chemical industries. In many respects they are equally applicable to the present international situation. The surprise attack on South Korea is stark and undisguised military aggression, very different from the political infiltration of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and China. The challenge has been met by the United Nations, and once more Americans are fighting and dying in a foreign land in an attempt to maintain a free and peaceful world. Whether the present action flares into another world war holocaust will be decided in the Kremlin. No decision in history, not even Hitler's order to inarch on Poland, or the Jap sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, has ever carried with it such a threat to the civilized world. Hitler made the tragic mistake of believing the United States was torn with dissension and, therefore, was impotent. It took four years of savage warfare, millions of lives, and the destruction of a large part of the world to prove that assumption false. We as Americans can speak our minds, we can disagree, we can criticize—that is the right and heritage of free peoples. We are dedicated to the principle that this kind of a world must continue, regardless of the cost. What that cost will be, no one knows today, but it will be heavy whether the present police action in Korea remains localized or blazes out into a full-scale world-wide conflict. The chemical industry and the chemical profession will carry a heavy burden in the days ahead. Fortunately, the chemical industry of this country was expanded tremendously during World War II. It has expanded considerably since V-J Day, not at the behest of a military clique seeking to conquer the world, but to meet the rapidly growing needs of a civilian economy and a steadily rising improvement in the standards of living. The chemical industry, the backbone of American industrial progress, has more than tripled in size since 1939. Despite the huge size of the chemical industry, shortages of certain chemicals will occur when the $10-billion rearmament program asked for by President Truman gets under way, unless, of course, the level of civilian economy is drastically revised downward. The steel industry, for example, is not only a large producer of chemicals, but a heavy consumer, as well. The American Iron and Steel Institute has just reported charted plant expansions that would add 6,363,000 tons, or about 6.3% to America's world-leading steelmaking capacity by the end of 1952. This nation will then have a capacity to turn out 105,750,000 tons of raw steel, or 82,000,000 tons of finished products a year. In contrast, the most reliable estimates of Russia's output of raw steel last year place it at between 22 and 25 million tons. The Soviets arc known to have expansion programs
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under way, but among the steel industry there is a definite feeling we can and will maintain a four-to-one advantage over the Soviet production potential. Despite this numerical advantage, we cannot continue to make millions of automobiles, electric refrigerators, radio and television sets, and other commodities, if a full-scale war is forced upon us. The situation in steel is generally true of all industries which depend upon chemicals as basic raw materials of manufacture. T h e President has asked Congress for authority to institute priorities, allocate materials, place ceilings on production of goods which consume critical materials, and requisition excessive inventories. This authority undoubtedly will be given the President. This machinery will be available to assure an orderly distribution of raw materials and finished products. At a later date may come direct price controls. How far we are forced to go depends entirely on the course of future events. An all-out effort will require manpower controls and all the other techniques of complete industrial and civilian mobilization. We face the strong possibility once again of a scarcity economy, not a pleasant condition to contemplate, but one forced upon us by world events. According to figures just released, we have spent since V-J Day about $50 billion for defense. Yet we are discovering we are short of every essential element in meeting the attack in Korea. The President's request for $10 billion more can hardly be viewed other than just a beginning of what ultimately will be required. The draft is back with us again and the first call of 20,000 men will be followed shortly by increased quotas. We earnestly hope that the lessons of World War II mobilization will have a salutary effect if we are forced once more to go all out in a war effort. Valuable months were lost through hesitancy at the beginning of World War II, by piling one inefficient agency on top of another, until we had a multiplicity of alphabetical groups without any clear-cut understanding of their duties and authority. Overlapping and duplication of effort characterized our early efforts in industrial mobilization. One of the greatest mistakes was the administration of Selective Service without due regard to the needs of production and the fact that science and technology are essential in modern warfare. W e are fighting in Korea with World War II weapons. We disposed of great quantities that we could be using there at this very moment. If, however, the Korean action leads to a long world-wide global struggle, victory will depend, to a great extent, on science and technology. W e cannot win through manpower alone. All the heavy industrie* can make an essential contribution now by adopting voluntary systems of priorities and price controls. The chemical industry achieved a wonderful record in the last conflict in allocating supplies and preventing prices from getting completely out of control. The same farsighted action should be duplicated in the present emergency. Just one month has passed since the Korean Communists launched their attack. We are still retreating, and the odds are now that nothing short of a major effort on our part will reverse the tide. The American people are united and stand ready to prove to the world that in joining the United Nations they were ready to give much more than mere lip service to the cause of world peace. It must be abundantly clear that we do not intend to sit by idly while the world is enslaved.
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