THE CONGRESS: Barlow's Bomb

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Meantime, in 1938 Mr. Barlow had gone to work for hardheaded Glenn L. Martin, airplane manufacturer. He was given working quarters in a shed outside the Martin plant, because, he explained, Mr. Martin was afraid he might accidentally blow the plant up. There, at week's end, Mr. Barlow paced restlessly from the blueprints that covered his walls to his desk, on which reposed a spray of pressed violets which his mother had sent him from California. His latest bomb, said he, could be dropped from high altitudes out of reach of anti-aircraft guns, would explode 30 feet from the earth's surface, and by sending out detonation waves act on objects precisely as depth charges act on objects under water. It was a liquid oxygen-carbon formula. His name for it: glmite (after G. L. Martin).

There was no question in his mind as to its deadliness. The only question was, how deadly? He was looking for a field in Texas or Florida where he could tether goats at intervals of 200 to 1,000 feet from a container of 1,000 pounds of glmite. He would then set off his charge, see what happened. He was convinced that nothing would be left of the goats.*

Mr. Barlow had still not received a nickel of his half-million dollars from the Government, awarded him four years ago. Although the Senate had passed two bills to appropriate the money, the House had turned the first one down, had not yet got around to the other.

The Senate Military Affairs Committee cloaked themselves in secret session this week to talk once again to Mr. Barlow. Present were the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, House Naval and Military Affairs Committees, War Secretary Woodring, Navy Secretary Edison. Upshot: Mr. Barlow was asked to demonstrate his bomb in two or three weeks, not in Texas or Florida but at the Glenn L. Martin airport —and with no live targets. Pleased as punch, Mr. Barlow hoped the House had not forgotten it still owed him half a million dollars.