The metals which are destined to play an active part in actual warfare are naturally required to meet the most severe conditions imaginable. Thus we find the high manganese armor plate and the high chrome-manganese armor piercing projectile. We find the new specifications for steel forging, for hulls and engines now have rigid chrome-vanadium and special nickle requirements, all of which means that the tools that do the machining, planing, shaping, cutting, drilling, boring, reaming, stamping and many other operations must be made of a tougher and harder material than ever before.
We know that for every man who may fight on the battle field, at least two men must labor in our shops and factories over mechanical operations.
Those of us who have been in immediate touch with some of the vital requirements of the War and Navy Departments in these strenuous days realize the shocking absence of the complete preparedness, which we must rapidly accomplish if we are to come anywhere near supplying our own soldiers on the fighting front with the fighting machinery and supplies of which they are in such urgent need. We realize that after all these months of increased industrial preparedness, we are, therefore, still unprepared in the full meaning of the word. The very foundation of our structure shows a startling amount of unpreparedness. We like to gaze upon the exterior towers and battlements of a castle of preparedness, and these are wonderful and encouraging to look upon but down below all these are certain neglected and unfinished pillars in the unseen cellar of that foundation, which threaten the stability of the entire mass. It is, therefore, some of these fundamental details which have been neglected as we have beheld the vision of the super-structure above. Pershing needs, 1,500,000 boys in khaki and over the shoulder of each is his protection against the Hun. Everyone of these rifles is a splendid monument of the accomplishment of tool steel and special alloy steel.
Every day of our present existence it happens that over a million shells scream over the miles of battle line in France. This curtain of high explosive and shrapnel is another direct expression of the wonders which the modern high speed and special alloy steel have accomplished. We are told that a 3" shrapnel shell contains seventy drilled holes or a drilling of 19¼" in depth. That means that 1,600,000 feet or over three hundred miles of drilled holes are shot away every twenty-four hours on the battle fronts of Europe.
In a publication "Fighting Industry" published by one of our largest twist drill companies in this country, we note that the drilled holes in various implements of our militant harness are as follows:
| 8" shrapnel shell | 70 |
| Springfield rifle | 94 |
| Torpedo | 3466 |
| Machine gun | 350 |
| Aeroplane | 4089 |
| 3-ton auto truck | 5946 |
| Light ambulance | 1500 |
| 3" field gun | 1280 |
| Gun caisson | 594 |
| Anti-air craft gun | 1200 |
| Self-binder | 500 |
| Thresher | 420 |
| Motorcycle | 1160 |
Four million men must work with tools in order that two million men may fight in France. These men can not, "just be given a tool and told to use it." It is necessary that they have years of careful training and actual experience in order that they might effectively make use of the intricate tools and machinery which the mother of modern industry is striving to place in their hands. At present every tool steel mill in America is straining its furnaces, hammers and rolling mills to their maximum capacity. They are working days, nights and Sundays and still the demand is far in excess of the supply. Conservative estimations show that with all the added machinery and equipment which is in the process of construction at this time, it will still take at least two years and a half before the tool steel industry of America will come any where near meeting the demand for its product.
As we gaze with belated pride upon the huge structure of our present Preparedness, does it not seem strange to think that the most vital pillar of its whole foundation should have been forgotten and neglected so long and which is therefore now caused to endure such an abnormal and terrific strain? We are at last forced to realize that tool steel is the very essence of our whole existence.
Of course, the great importance of tool steel in this national emergency does not stop with the actual weapons of warfare. Besides the railroads, automobiles, tramways, elevators, bridges, buildings, shoes, clothing and in fact, every branch of the intricate mass of manufactured products so vital to our daily existence, nations are crying for bread. Victory hangs on our food supply. Our threshing machines, our reapers and our harvesting machinery are all working over time. But before the threshing machines can thresh wheat and before the reapers can reap and before the tractors and other farm machinery can contribute their great service to humanity, it is necessary that the American production of tool steel must pass its rigid inspection and yield forth in full measure the great service which it is called upon to give.