For Cats & Dogs

A Senate Committee grew inquisitive last week about another reckless Army wartime venture that (like Canol) blew up. The Committee's curiosity was aroused by the 905-mi. highway from Mexico to Panama, which Army engineers had figured would cost a mere $14,714,000. Undertaken with the approval of the General Staff and the Secretary of War, the road cost $42,715,591 before it was abandoned.

This would be no news to Congressman Albert J. Engel of Michigan. Earnest, wire-haired Mr. Engel, who has done plenty of scratching around in the underbrush of Washington, had long ago discovered that the War Department (in the matter of public funds) was a "rat hole."

He has also discovered, he said, that, of the $192 billion appropriated to the Army since 1942--$64 billion more than the total assessed value of every piece of property in the U.S.--millions, maybe billions, have been wasted.

Among other items, Michigan's Engel said he had found that the Army wasted $250 million of $800 million spent on cantonments for 1,200,000 men; that examples of "outrageous waste" were Camp Blanding, Fla. (near Jacksonville), where a bad choice of sites cost an unnecessary $5 million; Camp Meade, where the Army spent $17,364 to build the same kind of barracks which cost $9,822 at Camp Dix.

Worse than the Waste. Al Engel told more:

He said he has discovered that the Army permitted corporations to make "exorbitant profits" out of Government contracts (he cited as examples Manufacturers Jack & Heintz of Cleveland who, in one year, showed earnings of 1.740% on capital stock; High Standards Manufacturing Co., which, "with a capital and surplus of $65,660 showed a net profit after taxes and after depreciation in 1942 of $1,888,918," plus $1,500,000 for a "management fee").

Congressman Engel, no partisan either of labor or management, was also "amazed to learn" that the highest paid machine-gun assembler at the Colt Arms Co. was paid $8,741 in 1942, "or $241 more than the base pay of a lieutenant general in the Army."*

But almost worse than the actual waste of taxpayers' money, he thought, was the Army's lordly and casual way of doing business without Congressional sanction. On the basis of Army estimates of costs, Congress had willingly appropriated funds. But Mr. Engel, scratching around, found that the Army had asked for many, many more millions than it needed.

"They told us that a medium tank cost $90,000; an 81-mm. trench mortar $800; a 60-mm. trench mortar cost $500, and we made the appropriation on that basis." Mr. Engel said he learned later that a medium tank "actually cost" $60,000; an 81-mm. mortar less than $600; a 60-mm. mortar less than $300.

Nor was that all. A "transferability clause" which allowed the War Department to transfer 10% of an appropriation to another fund let the Army play fast & loose with Congress' intentions. With 10% of a $25 million expediting fund. 10% of a $16 million engineers' service fund, plus sums transferred from highway funds, the War Department was able to spend $86 million on the Pentagon Building--after Congress had authorized an expenditure on "that white elephant" not to exceed $35 million.

Congressman Engel looked on the Army's latest request with a jaundiced eye. With reductions in personnel, he estimated that the Army would have nearly $4 billion to spend this year "for cats & dogs or any other purpose they see fit to spend it on."

Base pay of a lieutenant general is actually $741 less.

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