BUILDING: More Dirt

“The Government has been reamed of several million dollars … a project gone to hell.” So moaned fox-faced Senator Harry Truman last week after hearing witnesses describe construction of the Army’s Wolf Creek Ordnance Plant and Milan Ordnance Depot being built 100 miles from Memphis in the Tennessee hills. The Truman Committee, tirelessly investigating defense expenditures, had heard similar charges before in connection with other Army construction projects (TIME, Sept. 15). But the Memphis testimony reached a few new highs. Some of the accusations made:

>Using World War I figures for labor and material costs as a basis, the Army originally estimated the projects at $20,000,000. Five months later the estimate was $51,000,000.

> Contractor Ferguson-Oman Co. “is rebuilding [its] equipment at Government expense,” by September had received $59,000 for rental, $53,000 for repairs on equipment valued at $162,285.

> Contractors Taylor-Hale Co. by Aug. 31 had been paid $362,394 rental for equipment valued at $704,000 in which it had but $37,000 equity.

> A caterpillar tractor was found hidden in the woods and idle for three months, though $650 a month rental was paid for it.

> Testified former Auditor A. W. Hauck, “It seems to me all Ferguson-Oman officials and employes are organized to cost the Government every dollar they can.”

> A random one-day auditor’s survey showed a $1,300 labor charge for work on 300 light vehicles. Examples: repairing one tire, 4½ hours; pouring five quarts of oil into a truck, one hour; repairing one carburetor, 12 hours.

> Running across the 28,000-acre plant and depot grounds are 195 miles of 16-foot, blacktop asphalt road, already cracking. Cost: $29,000 a mile; the average concrete road would have cost under $25,000. Two parallel roads lie only 75 feet apart, one on the Milan project, the other on the Wolf Creek project. Snorted Senator Truman: $149,000 wasted.

> Thirty-two seven-room frame houses (“millionaires’ row”) were built for the operating staff at a cost of $18,000 apiece. Harry Truman thought $6,000 was plenty.

> Chert (gravel) cost the Government $80-90,000 too much. Low bidder was the Cartwright Construction Co. at $1.63 per cubic yard. But Cartwright’s contract was canceled, Memphis Stone and Gravel Co. took over at $2 per cubic yard.

> A QMC purchasing officer bought 26,000,000 paper cups for the use of 15,000 laborers.

There were but two happy groups at week’s end: 1) the Memphis Commercial Appeal, which for months has been running an exposé of the ordnance project, at long last was vindicated; 2) the insatiable Truman Committee, which planned to continue hearings this week in Washington.

Reddest were the faces of two Congressmen, E. C. (“Took”) Gathings of West Memphis, Ark. and Cliff Davis of Memphis who, as a House Military Affairs subcommittee, two months ago had whitewashed the project (“There seemed to be nothing much that we could criticize”).