Getting It Done

The 1942 slogan of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States is "Let's Get It Done." Last week some 3,000 top-flight industrialists assembled for the Chamber's 30th annual meeting, found that the U.S. is getting it done. In the flamboyant grand ballroom of Chicago's Hotel Stevens, in committee rooms, in private suites and over late nightcaps, the story was the same: short, sharp debates over taxes, price ceilings, the 40-hour week, the closed shop; then long, heartening discussions of production.

Said the Chamber's retiring president, indomitable Albert W. Hawkes (Congole-um-Nairn): "We want to preserve our system. We are not fighting for a new, unknown system." A resolution to curb bonuses as well as wages for the duration produced the first floor fight in seven years of Chamber conventions. Lammot du Pont declared: "The point that irks me most is the idea of not being allowed to pay extra compensation for more and better work. A bonus does not affect prices, it reduces the cost." The Chamber also fiercely debated the open shop before demanding legislation to protect it.

But on the main issue the Chamber session proved that unity prevails in U.S. industry, and that management and labor have collaborated to get things done quicker and better than anyone hoped. The delegates heard:

> March aircraft production was 70% greater than the month preceding Pearl Harbor: bomber output jumped 200%; aircraft engines 48%. April figures are even higher.

> Admiral Vickery promised delivery of 23,000,000 tons of shipping by Jan. 1, 1944 (but not more than eight million tons this year). The tight schedule of 105 days from keel laying to delivery of Liberty ships was cut last week to 94 days by one yard; will soon be under 105 days in all yards.

> In Detroit one automobile manufacturer is nine months ahead of schedule on airplane engines, another is delivering medium tanks seven months ahead.

> In 1942 machine-tool production will be seven times that of 1939.

> The know-how of assembly-line engineers has cut a two-hour job of rifle boring to a ten-minute operation; a 400-man-hour assembly time on anti-aircraft guns to a 15-minute job.

To succeed Mr. Hawkes, the Chamber chose Spokane's young, progressive Eric A. Johnston, president of Brown-Johnston Co. (electrical contractors).

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