Crepehangers

In recent weeks more crepe has been hung on the U.S. machine-tool industry than on all other war industries combined.

Gist of the funeral orations: 1) the U.S. war plant is now substantially built, therefore the U.S. hunger for machines to build the machinery is almost satisfied; 2) the wartime production of new machine tools will leave the postwar U.S. with enough tools to starve every builder out of the business. Conclusion: the industry is firmly, patriotically digging its own grave.

Some facts support the grave-digging theory. In the prosperous '20s the "sound value" of all the machine tools in the U.S. was around $750,000,000. At the end of this year the corresponding figure, after depreciation, will be around $4 billion --and the average useful life of such tools (overlooking obsolescence) is from 15 to 20 years. Last year the industry shipped a fabulous $1.3 billion of tools, seven times its 1929 high, ten times its 1919-35 average. This year shipments are off more than 10% from last December's peak; new orders are coming in only half as fast as they did last summer. And the men who really brood point out that much of this new tool production is Government-owned, may be sold for next to nothing after the war.

Optimist Trecker. A few toolmakers still like the looks of their industry. Among the most conspicuously cheerful is Joseph L. Trecker, vice president of Milwaukee's Kearney & Trecker, which makes one-third of all the milling machines in the U.S. (TIME, Jan. 12, 1942).

Last week small, round-faced Joe Trecker predicted that the industry's wartime business will stay at four to five times its peacetime production. His reasons: 1) inadequate, manpower-wasting equipment will be replaced as the capacity to make it is freed from more pressing work; 2) worn-out tools will boom the replacement business; 3) new weapons, new military strategy will call for new tools (e.g., a tank-making tool is no good if you want to make a "bazooka" gun).

But peacetime is Joe Trecker's favorite subject. He denies that war tools will be any good for the dream cars, washing machines and refrigerators of the future, believes that his industry will be the indispensable base of a postwar consumers'-goods boom. And last week Joe Trecker delivered one solid piece of advice to his crepe-hanging colleagues: "The future of the machine-tool industry is no blacker than the individual abilities of its members will allow it to be."

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