Famine in Aluminum

Holding in his hands a sheaf of white paper, Senator Mead of New York rose in his place one day last week to read the report of the Special (Truman) Committee Investigating the National Defense Program.

Everyone remembered Secretary Ickes' startling (even for him) charge at the committee hearings: "When the story of this war comes to be written, if it has to be written that it was lost, it may be because of the recalcitrance of the Aluminum Company of America." Grave looks became graver before Mead finished. His most dismaying statement: "It is estimated by the Services that the peak of their requirements ... of 100,000,000 lb. per month will be reached in March 1942 . . . production capacity in March 1942 will be 75,000,000 lb. . . . a shortage of 25,000,000 lb. per month. This still leaves no provision whatsoever for indirect military & civilian requirements. . . . Germany and the territory it now controls has a present capacity of 915,000,000 lb. ... by 1943 will have . . . 1,385,000,000 lb. without scrap aluminum." (If she conquers Russia and draws on Japan, the report said, she will have 1,915,000,000 lb. in 1943.) "In the light of the serious shortage," read Senator Mead, "it is interesting to note that substantial amounts are still permitted [by OPM] to the automobile industry for pleasure cars."

Against OPM the Senator ticked off the following charges:

P: For months it said that talk about a shortage was misleading and unpatriotic.

P: It finally admitted a direct military need of 1,200,000,000 lb. per annum, hoped to get 200,000,000 from Canada, 300,000,000 from scrap.

P:OPM has not encouraged research and experiment in the use of alternative processes for the production of aluminum from low-grade bauxite, or other sources such as alunite. In fact, it discouraged them. A report recommending alunite as an aluminum source was prepared by the Bureau of Mines more than six weeks ago. OPM has not yet acted on it.

P:OPM not only miscalculated needs and sources but refused to aid Reynolds Metals Co. to build capacity for 120,000,000 lb., left that job to RFC.

P: During all this time OPM had relied solely on Alcoa as a source of information, has discouraged others from entering the field. The Senator ticked off some black marks against Alcoa:

P:Alcoa promised to build up its stockpile of bauxite, did not do so.

P:Alcoa wastefully ships raw materials and finished products: bauxite from the Guianas and Arkansas to East St. Louis, alumina from there to Vancouver, ingots from Vancouver back to the East, rolled sheets from the East back to California, all costing 2-c- a lb. for freight alone.

P: Alcoa refused to build a power plant at Fontana (N.C.) on the ground that, under the license prescrlbed by the Water Power Act of 1920, it would risk recapture (with pay) of a $45,000,000 investment after 50 years' use.

The Senator read statistics to show that the Government must now furnish 70% of the power to make up the aluminum shortage. After adding that the U.S. will be practically the sole purchaser, he said: "Under such conditions there is no basis for large profits to private interests. The furnishing of management skill and services is all there is left. There is a question whether, at least as to one or more plants, the Government should not hire the necessary personnel on a salaried basis."

For a day no answer came from OPM. Then Knudsenhillman sent to Secretary Stimson a recommendation for eight new plants to lift production 600,000,000 lb. a year. In Arkansas, Washington, New York, Alabama, California, North Carolina RFC will finance them: they are to be privately operated--by what companies, OPM did not say.

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