Evening star. [volume], June 09, 1940, Page A-6, Image 6

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Relief Funds Since '33
Have Aided Defense
To Tune of 2 Billions
Included Are 32 Warships,
Army Grants and Aids to
Industrial Mobilization
I
Bv NELSON M. SHEPARD.
With America preparing to pour|
out additional pillions for arming
against the overshadowing menace
of the German swastika, high offi
cials said yesterday the administra
tion again will tap its reservoir of
emergency relief funds to help
strengthen the bulwarks of national
defense
A golden stream estimated at
more than $2,000,000,000 has flowed
directly and indirectly into national
defense and preparedness channels
from New Deal recovery funds
during the lean years of the de
pression. It is still flowing in siz
able driblets, officials claimed, and
during the coming fiscal year work
relief funds will be used in larger
amounts
The first indication came from
Col. F. C, Harrington. W. P. A.
commissioner. Studies now are
being made to determine how the
eight-month relief fund of $1,000.
000.000 may be utilized to best ad- j
vantage for emergency defense con- ;
struction. Col. Harrington. Army
trained engineer, estimated that
perhaps one-fourth of the relief rolls
and money — 500.000 men and
$250.000.000—can be devoted to con
struction work of essentially mili
tarv valye.
War Department Got 613 Million.
Reviewing the part played in the
national defense program by the
Use of emergency recovery funds.
Federal officials stressed that first
Importance is attached to allot
ments totaling $613,307,605 made to
the War and Navy Departments
alone since the 1934 fiscal year.
Speedily these funds were converted
Into fighting ships, airplanes, land
ing fields, munitions, improvements
st naval and military bases and
other sorely needed items for actual
national defense.
Thirty-two combat ships, their
118.500 tons forming today a part
of our first line of defense at sea.
trace back to the initial allotment
of emergency funds to a then de
teriorating Navy. With a scratch of
s pen. President Roosevelt exercised
his emergency powers under the
National Industrial Recovery Act in
the fall of 1933 to cut red tape and
transfer $237,735,837. Later trans
fers boosted the special ship fund
to about $260,000,000. The excuse
given at the time was to create jobs
In industry. But officials say the
real motive back of this first na
tional defense step of the New Deal
was to build the American Navy to
a pomt more nearly approaching
treaty strength.
Some Jobs Still Being Planned.
Some of the more recent emer
gency projects for the Army and
Navy are still in process of plan
ning and construction. The W. P. A.
on Thursday ordered 73 of these
projects speeded up. They involve
work on the major air, military
and naval bases, including Bolling
and Anacostia Fields. Congress al
ready is planning a supplemental
appropriation of $25,000,000 to ex
pedite those projects.
Federal funds given the Army and
Navy during the last seven years,
it was claimed, had no strings at
tached. They were spent for such
needs as the two armed services
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saw; fit, subject to presidential ap
proval. On the books of the emer
gency spending agencies, the pres
ent P. W. A. and W. P. A., are no
detailed records of how the funds
were utilized. Only the War and
Navy Departments know the com
plete breakdown of figures in terms
of materials actually produced.
Even while the cry of "boondog
gling" was loudest, millions of dol
lars in non-Federal allotments were
made each year for municipal air
ports and National Guard armories.
To these sums local sponsors added
as much as 70 and 45 per cent. The
Federal allotments were estimated
at approximately $225,000,000.
Some of Biggest Airports.
In time of national emergency or
for training purposes these new fa
cilities have a special military im
portance. Some of the country's
largest airports, such as La Guardia
Field and Washington's National
Airport at Gravely Point, which is
being built wholly with emergency
funds, are counted among them.
To emergency funds for direct na
tional defense should be added, the
United States Coast Guard says, the j
approximately $34,844,478 given that
arm of the sendee afloat. During
the World War the Coast Guard
was transferred to the Navy.
From this sizable fund the Coast
Guard modernized and increased its
fleet of armed cutters and built up
its aviation arm almost from
scratch. Among the new ships put
into service were seven 327-foot cut
ters carrying 5-inch guns. They are
sisterships of the Navy's Erie and
Charleston, also built from emer
gency funds. Their mission in war,
as in peace, is to help guard our
thousands of miles of seacoast.
Accounting for all these various
types of expenditures, officials esti
mate a total of about $875,000,000,
most of which has been diverted
strictly to military uses. The allot
ments were made for the most part,
it was reminded, during years of
peace and national security when
spending for employment and hu
man relief was uppermost in the
American mind.
Other Kinds of Aid.
But there is another side to the
heavy emergency expenditures that,
filtered into preparedness channels.
Next in importance to the aid ren
dered the Army, Navy, Coast Guard
and National Guard, officials pointed
out, are the hundreds of millions
in recovery funds allocated for non
Federal projects that can be utilized
in part, at least, in a mobilization
i
of resources. Well over a billion
dollars may be accounted for in this
connection.
Industrial mobilization spells ex
pansion of factory output and trans
portation, with increased rolling
stock and port freight facilities.
Equally important is the health of
the Nation and a provision for ample
hospitals strategically located.
Such indirect aid to national de
fense contributed by the spending
agencies account for modern arte
rial highways, for an ever-increasing
flow of commercial trucks, and mu
nicipal power plants that could be
put to useful service in powering
the sinews of war. Many harbors on
the East, West and Gulf Coasts
have been deepened, piers, wharves
and docks improved.
743 Hospitals Built.
Through P. W. A. allotments alone
743 separate hospital projects have
been built and authorized providing
accommodations for 107,849 addi
tional patients. Their cost was ap
proximately $400,000,000. of which
the Federal Government provided
45 per cent. The new hospitals are
located in all the larger cities and in
many of the smaller ones near which
Army concentration camps were lo
cated in the World War. How much
these new hospital facilities have
contributed to the health of the Na
tion and therefore to an essential
phase of national preparedness, it
is almost impossible to estimate.
Important to the Nation’s highway
and rail transportation system has
been the construction of numerous
bridges throughout the country.
Some of these are still under con
struction but are being speeded up
under orders. Notable types are
the great Tri-Borough Bridge in
New York, the Chicago outer drive
bridge, the strategically spaced
spans over the Potomac, Mississippi,
Missouri, Ohio and Susquehanna
Rivers.
Rail transportation facilities were
improved by P. W. A. loans of $200,
000.000 to 32 railroads for electrifi
cation, new rolling stock, road beds
and terminals. Coming at a time
when carrier's funds were rapidly
being exhausted, the emergency
loans put new life into an ailing
transportation system.
New Sources of Electric Power.
Vast supplies of electrical energy
for any industrial purposes can now
be obtained from plants built at
Grand Coulee, Bonneville, Grand
River, Santee Cooper, Buchanan
and Austin Dams. The hundreds of
millions of dollars for such gigantic
projects are omitted from the es
timated billion or more for non
Federal projects of indirect aid to
national defense. Yet, this electrical
power would be a boon in any na
tional emergency.
Brightest high light in all these
emergency expenditures is the pic
ture of timely aid given the Navy
when its regular congressional ap
propriations were suffering from the
effects of the depression. In earlier
years, as President Roosevelt pointed
out, naval funds declined as a re
sult of popular, but false convic
tion of security.
Allotments made directly to the
Navy Department account for $336,
995,780. Prom the $260,000,000 given
for new ships were built and com
missioned the following: Two air-!
plane carriers, the' Yorktown and
Enterprise, of 19,000 tons each; 1 :
heavy cruiser, the Vincennes, of
9.400 tons; 3 light cruisers, the
Nashville, Savanah and Philadel- j
phia. totaling 9,400 tons; 2 gunboats,!
the Erie and Charleston, of 2.000
tons each; 20 destroyers, totaling
31.400 tons and 4 submarines, total
ing 5,250 tons.
The naval funds also account for
$18,773,048 for new aircraft. The
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actual number of aircraft could not
be ascertained from the department.
Another major Item Included $48,
441,501 for public works construc
tion, consisting chiefly of improve
ments at naval bases, yards and gun
factories. More than $28,080,000 was
expended on such improvements at
yards and docks alone. Even the
United States Naval Academy bene
fited from emergency funds.
Secretary of War Woodring in
cluded the sum of $371,300,000 from
Federal emergency funds in account
ing recently for amounts appro
priated for the military activities
of the Army over a long period.
His figure is about $100,000,000
higher than estimated since then
by the general staff. The emergency
funds allotted to the War Depart
ment, according to an official sheet,
total $276,371,825 since the 1934
fiscal year.
A .partial rendering of separated
accounts shows $155,465,050 obtained
from the N. I. R. A. and the two
P. W. A. programs distributed as
follows: Air Corps, $7,497,612; sea
coast defenses, $6,984,348; National
Guard, $2,227,157; ordnance, $8,
788,450; Quartermaster Corps, $129,
737,162; Secretary’s office, $177,096,
and Signal Corps, $1734225. From
these figures it is apparent that the
W. p. A. must have supplied about
$125,000,000 in addition to the War
Department.
Many millions were spent on im
provements at posts in the District,
Maryland and Virginia. How much
is hard to say. Due to the intricacies
of Federal bookkeeping and the labor
involved, the War Department was
able to furnish only a meager break
down of specific items. These covered
emergency expenditures from 1937
only. More was allotted during the’
earlier years, it was believed.
Omitting projects costing less than
$40,000, the record discloses a total
of $2,936,019 authorized for posts
in the District. They include Bolling
Field, Army Medical Center, Fort
Humphreys, Army War College,
Engineer Reproduction Plant and
Soldiers’ Home. This, however, is a
very incomplete picture.
The total for Virginia posts was
given as $4,030,105. Fort Myer, out
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Others are Fort Monroe, Langley
Field, Fort Beivoir and small
amounts for Arlington National
Cemetery.
Maryland posts benefited to the
extent of $6,180,634. The principal
expenditures were at Fort George G.
Meade, Aberdeen Proving Ground,
Holabird Quartermaster Depot.
Fort Hoyle, Edgewood Arsenal and
Curtis Bay Ordance Depot.
Ramshackle barracks and officers’
quarters, many of them temporary
frame structures constituting fire
hazards, had been a blight at Army
posts since the World War. Most of
these have been replaced by modern
fireproof buildings. Emergency funds
were largely used.
Army and Navy officers testify to
the value of all these emergency
projects to the national defense pro
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further advanced, they pointed out,
on the hard road it has elected to
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