TAKING STEPS TO MEET DEMAND FOR WAR GOODS WILSON, WOODROW. Typed Letter Signed, as President, to former Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission Edward N. Hurley. suggesting that the imbalance of supply and demand with respect to war goods can be remedied efficiently and with minimal disruption by the pursuit of two goals: (i) converting existing plants to war production rather than building new facilities and (ii) only ordering goods and materials that can be used immediately. 3½ pages, 4to, White House stationery, written on 4 sheets; slight feathering to signature, faint scattered soiling, two small punch holes at upper edge, horizontal fold. Washington, 24 July 1918 "I am disturbed to find that the present industrial demands of the country for the supplying of war needs . . . are in some instance far in excess of the productive capacity of the country and in other instances almost as great as the full capacity of our present organized industries.
"The . . . requirements for steel for the last six months of the present year are estimated at about twenty million tons, whereas the greatest productive capacity of the steel industry for an equal period has not exceeded 16,500,000 tons. From the data now in hand, it appears that the Army will need all of the available wool in this country and as much as can be supplied from without by the shipping now available, and so it is with many other materials.
"I, therefore, suggest that the various departments of the Government . . . check every considerable item for the purpose of seeing to it that material is not ordered to be in hand until it can actually be used. The war demands . . . should not be anticipated. . . .
"I am solicitous that our war programme should be carried out with as little disturbance of our usual industries . . . as possible . . . . [P]lants which have been rendered idle or are likely to be rendered idle by the curtailment of non-essential production should be converted to war uses as far as possible. . . .
". . . I have specially charged the War Industries Board with the conversion of existing plants to war uses and have asked that no new facilities should be provided without consultation . . . . If these suggestions are acted upon, many of the hardships that would fall upon businesses may be lessened or avoided altogether. . . ."