Mr. SHERLEY. Was there any difficulty in getting yarn as well as getting it made into cloth?

Mr. ROSEN WALD. Yes, sir: there was great difficulty.

Mr. SHERLEY. So you had to enlarge the plants capable of making the yarn?

Mr. ROSENWALD. I would not say that was true, because I do not think that that was gone into, but we did get the yarn manufacturers here and urge them to work as many hours as it was possible for them to work and to make a price as low as possible, to enable us to get the cloth as rapidly as possible and at as low a price as possible. We had a good many of the yarn makers here. I would not say all. but a very large number.

Mr. SHERLEY. Was there any arbitrary distribution of the yarn among the cloth people?

Mr. ROSENWALD. Not from our committee.

Mr. SHERLEY. You did not undertake to say to the cloth men “ We will give to you the yarn necessary to make so many yards of cloth," and then say to the yarn men" Deliver so much of your output to this cloth manufacturer"?

Mr. ROSEN WALD. No, sir; we did not.

Mr. SHERLEY. That was left as a matter of arrangement between the cloth and yarn people?

Mr. ROSENWALD. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHERLEY. Was any effort made to ascertain what cloth there was in stock in the country even though it was not fully up to the standards of the Army requirements as to khaki?

Mr. ROSENWALD. Well, I would not be able to say that there was, but the people who know what the situation is, without making any inquiries, know that the stocks in the country as to khaki cloth are practically nil, because khaki cloth of a weight such as is used for uniforms is not a commercial article and khaki color is not a commercial article in any cloth. Of the weight and construction that the Army uses it is practically not at all a commercial article.

Maj. WONSON. I can best explain this by the authorizations which. Mr. Rosenwald has exhibited to you. These sheets represent the quantities of goods necessary to equip the first 1.000.000 men. That was our original authorization. About the 1st of July we were authorized to recommend the purchase of equipment sufficient to equip and take care of another 500,000 men; about a week or a week and a half ago another authorization was received to take care of an additional 456,000 men. The first chart that I have here lists on the left the articles that the committee is recommending. The total length of the line from this end to this end represents the entire quantity that is necessary to completely equip and take care for one year of an army of 1,500,000 men, which is all that is contemplated at the present time. The red line shows the quantity already contracted for, the black line shows the quantity delivered. To this point here [indicating] the line represents the quantity sufficient to initially equip an army of 1.000.000 men. That is what we were asked to do on the 1st of May. The various short spaces show the upkeep for one year: the space over here shows the initial equipment of an army of 500,000 men. We follow that through every day, adding every day in length to the red line for the purpose of taking care of purchases or recommendations made during that day.

The black lines are those of deliveries, which are weekly reported to us by each contractor.

This chart represents the requirements for 1,000,000 men, based on the time that these goods are actually needed. This chart was made up early in May, showing the amount of goods needed in June, the amount needed in July, August, September, October, and so on. The deliveries on this chart are not up to date, because as soon as I learned that it was not planned to have only a million men on the 1st of September I discontinued this chart and the following chart and have substituted another chart, based on the Army as the General Staff has planned it. That chart was not sufficiently completed to bring down here at the present time. In the same way the red line shows the requirements that have been covered by contracts and the black lines show the deliveries that have actually been made. I have the totals here showing all the requirements, deliveries, and so on, if you gentlemen would care to look at them.

Mr. ROSENWALD. That will give you some idea as to whether or not in our judgment there will be enough on hand to supply these

men.

Maj. WONSON. This table shows the deliveries of last week, the daily deliveries as reported to us, with the total at the end of the week, and the total deliveries on the contracts that we have recommended. Of course, the Army had some equipment on hand at their posts and depots on May 1.

The CHAIRMAN. What is bobinette used for?

Mr. ROSEN WALD. It is mosquito netting; in ordinary parlance, it is the same as mosquito netting.

Maj. WONSON. It is used for the purpose of making mosquito bars, and it is of a much higher grade than the ordinary mosquito netting, being very much stouter so that it will stand the service.

Mr. SHERLEY. Do your charts show that you are now going to be able to supply the depots where wanted

Mr. ROSENWALD (interposing). That is not our business.

Maj. WONSON. We do not know ourselves about that, but we say that they will deliver at the various quartermaster depots to which the contracts are assigned sufficient quantities to take care of the Army as it is planned, based on a delinquency of 25 per cent on deliveries. On several articles that are very essential, including flannel shirting, the meltons from which the uniforms are made and the shoes-those being the most important articles of equipment-there will be much less than 25 per cent delinquency. Some are overdelivered; meltons have been delivered ahead by about 5 per cent. Mr. SHERLEY. Are those deliveries and the dates of them based upon an understanding of the time it will take to further distribute them to the points where they are needed?

Maj. WONSON. We have no knowledge as to what that time would be. On meltons and flannel shirting we have allowed two weeks, which seems to be reasonable.

Mr. ROSENWALD. We have recommended that this first equipment be sent by express to every cantonment.

Mr. SHERLEY. Of course as to uniforms you are only dealing with the first stage of them?

Maj. WONSON. Yes.

Mr. SHERLEY. You are only supplying the cloth?

Mr. SHERLEY. Are there any complaints from manufacturers to the effect that they have been ready and prepared to undertake the work, but have had to wait some time before being allotted a particular quantity or given the exact specifications, or what not, in connection with their work?

Mr. ROSENWALD. There have been in certain lines, such as shoes, where the quartermaster is supposed to supply the lasts. The quartermaster is supposed, as soon as a contract is let for shoes, to forward sufficient lasts to the manufacturer in order to care for that number of shoes within a given time; we find that in some cases the quartermaster has neglected to take care of this thing and the result is that certain manufacturers have not had the lasts so that they could begin the work and they were delayed, some of them as long as a month and six weeks. Many of them we had no way of knowing about until the thing had run along for a month.

Mr. SHERLEY. The shoe situation, however, is satisfactory now, from your statement?

Mr. ROSENWALD. This report will show exactly, and it might be well for you to look at it.

Mr. SHERLEY. Have you been buying some blankets from Canada? Maj. WONSON. Yes; the specification blanket used by the Canadian Army.

Mr. SHERLEY. Did you get any cloth from Canada?

Mr. ROSENWALD. We got some duck from Canada, I believe.

Maj. WONSON. We got some uniform cloth, some meltons, from Canada.

Mr. ROSENWALD. And I think we got some duck, some cotton duck.

Maj. WONSON. I do not remember about that.

INDEX.

A.

Page.

Adjutant General's Office, additional employees.

Advance payments to contractors__.

Agriculture, Department of:

Federal Horticultural Board, pink boll worm, control of
Rent

57, 611

242

124

715

Alaska:

Fisheries Service.

166

Military and post roads, construction and maintenance of__
Alaskan Engineering Commission:

662

Arlington Building, rental of, by Navy Department__
Armories and arsenals:

224

Assembling artillery ammunition, increased facilities for
Barracks building, extension of____

799

792

Small-arms ammunition, increasing facilities for the manufac-

Plants, erection of..

Picatinny Arsenal, Dover, N. J., additional buildings.

Proving grounds, additional land, etc., for

803

720, 833

774, 847

963

Maj. WONSON. Yes.

Mr. SHERLEY. And unless there is something to show the state of manufacture of that cloth into the uniforms, and then a further statement of deliveries to depots and a delivery from them to the cantonments and camps, no conclusion can be drawn as to the ability to actually equip the men.

Maj. WONSON. In order to work intelligently with the figures that I have we also carry sets of figures for the articles to be made from this material. For instance, on cotton cloth, I am carrying records for cotton breeches and cotton coats, so that I have a check as to what is being delivered on time of those articles. I have obtained from the Quartermaster Department the records of the contracts that have been placed for cotton coats and cotton breeches, and we are keeping in contact with the dates of delivery, so that I am not depending on my delivery of cotton cloth except to insure that the cotton cloth and woolen cloth delivered is adequate for the needs of the contractors who are making the clothing.

Mr. SHERLEY. So that you are prepared, then, as to cotton coats and trousers, to state that you will be in a position to equip this army, as it is now determined to be called?

Maj. WONSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHERLEY. Does that also take in the question of time for distribution from the depots?

Maj. WONSON. It takes in an element of time, but how much we can allow on that or how large a factor that will be I really do not know.

Mr. SHERLEY. You have just taken that thing arbitrarily?
Maj. WONSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROSENWALD. We have made an allowance of 25 per cent for fall downs on the part of the contractors, etc.; we have allowed a 25 per cent leeway in the making of our figures.

Mr. SHERLEY. As to the other matters, such as shoes, underwear, and hose, you are dealing with the finished articles?

Maj. WONSON. We are dealing with the finished articles.

Mr. SHERLEY. So your knowledge there has in mind the delivery of those things at the various depots?

Maj. WONSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROSENWALD. At the quartermaster depots. You see, that is not even our business, but we have done this because we thought we ought to do it, although we are not concerned, as far as our direct business is concerned, with anything beyond the delivery of the materials to the quartermaster; but in order to satisfy ourselves. we have kept after these other things.

Maj. WONSON. In the matter of shoes, allowing for a 25 per cent delinquency in deliveries, which does not exist, we should have an excess of over 400,000 pairs on the 1st of September.

Mr. ROSEN WALD. May I state right there that in spite of that we might have complaints that we can not fit everybody in shoes on the 1st of September; there may possibly be a howl that we can not fit everybody because there are 90 sizes of shoes. Now, in order to keep a supply of 90 different sizes of shoes on hand, it requires an normous surplus stock. Gradually that is going to be supplied, but n the 1st day of September the surplus might not be sufficient to