BIG CORPORATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 93, 21 April 1942, Page 5

BIG CORPORATIONS

PRIORITIES IGNORED

WASHINGTON, April 19. The War Production Board has officially charged America's largest producer of steel, the Carnegie Illinois Corporation, and the fourth largest producer, the Jones Laughlin Corporation, with having "repeatedly and deliberately violated the priority regulations and accepted profitable civilian orders while refusing military orders." It added that the Department of Justice will, through the Court, direct the companies to comply with the laws. Specifying the charges, the Board disclosed that the Carnegie Illinois concern published and distributed to employees a manual instructing therm to give preference to civilian customers and disregard Government orders of | priorities for military supplies. On February 21 the Government instructed the Jones Laughlin Corporation by telegram that the production of oil pipes, casings, and tubing for civilian use must be halted at the lajtest by March 14 for urgent military reasons, whereupon the Jones Laugtilin firm, which hitherto had not produced these pipes, immediately used la.rge quantities of high-grade steel for the production of 570,000 feet of pipe and sold 88 per cent, of the total production to civilians. The board concludes: "The com- 1 panics have deliberately prevented in- j dustrial mobilisation for the success- J ful prosecution of the war." The Carnegie Illinois Corporation is a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation.