STEEL: Battle of Junk

There will be a new drive to win the Battle of Junk, and this one means business. WPB Conservator Lessing Rosenwald had a new general to plan it.

The general is Matthew Fox, balding (at 31), egg-shaped vice president of Universal Pictures who went to Washington a month ago to trouble-shoot for Bob Nathan's WPB Planning Board (TIME, March 2). The committees in 46 States who are collecting old rubber, paper, rags, metal—above all, iron and steel—are doing earnest work, but Matt Fox concluded that more was needed.

He found that the two big untapped sources of metal scrap are 1) auto grave yards, 2) the nation's 6,500,000 farms, where an estimated one to two and a half million-ton hoard of old machinery lies mouldering. To round up the farm scrap, he decided that paid collectors were necessary. The first thousand collectors announced by Rosenwald last week: WPA workers, with WPA trucks, to go from farm to farm collecting scrap (they will ask for it as a gift, pay for it if need be). It will be auctioned to commercial dealers, who must promise to see that it flows into production channels. While they drive around, the WTA men will also keep an eye peeled for old bridges, abandoned streetcar lines, World War I tanks, etc.

When the farm-collection drive is well under way, other thousands will take on the cities. Meanwhile, Rosenwald's Auto Graveyard Section is after 3,000,000-3,750,000 tons of jalopy. If Matt Fox's plan turns up the 4,000,000-6,000,000 tons of scrap that he hopes for, the Battle of Junk will be won.