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OCR Page 1 of 13SPEECH OF SENATOR HARRY S. TRUMAN OF MISSOURI
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY
10, 1941.
FOR RELEASE ON DELIVERY
I am introducing a resolution asking for an investigation of the
National Defense Program and the handling of contracts. I feel that it is
my duty at this time to place before the Senate certain information which
I have, and which I am sure is of vital importance to the success of the
National Defense Program.
There seems to be a policy in the National Defense set-up to con-
centrate all contracts and nearly all the manufacturing that has to do with
the National Defense in a very small area. This area is entirely outside
the location which the Army survey, itself, has shown to be safe. The little
manufacturer, the little contractor and the little machine shop have been
left entirely out in the cold. The policy seems to be to make the big man
bigger and to put the little man completely out of business. There is
no
reason for this that will stand up, because plans have been presented to the
National D-fense Committee which would solve the condition of the little
manufacturer and the little machine shop owner.
A perfectly practical and concrete plan was presented by the Mid-
Central War Resources Board. A survey of the region within one hundred miles
of Kansas City was made by this Board, and 160 small machine shops and manu-
facturering plants were located. It was proposed to combine the facilities
of these little machine shops and allow them to take a contract, or contracts,
which they could, working as a unit, carry out successfully.
Under this program there would be no housing problem. The shops are
in the small towns. The people already have their houses. They are the
best workmen and the most loyal citizens in the whole country.
The same sort of a survey was made in St. Louis and the immediate
surrounding territory, and the same conditions exist there. I have no doubt
that these conditions exist in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana.
When this matter was put up to the Defense Committee, an effort was
made to find out where the machines in these small shops were located so
that the big fellows could go and buy them. They are buying these machines
wherever they can find them, shipping them to Detroit, Piniladelphia, Norfolk
and industrial cities in Massachusetts and Connecticut. They are hiring our
TRUMARY
young men and moving them to the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards and to
NARA
Detroit, leaving us denuded of manpower as well as machines. This makes a
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