Word: engels
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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When Congress passed a $466,000,000 bill for Army camp construction last September, it was shooting from the hip. Speed in national defense was urgent; nobody knew just what would cost what. Even Michigan's bushy-haired, stubby Representative Albert Joseph Engel, a mole for figures, voted for the bill without more than five minutes' consideration. But, while other members went on to other urgencies, fact-loving Mr. Engel took time out to study what he had voted for. His conclusion: the Army had underestimated, would have a deficit of around $330,000,000. Sure enough, Congress...
Last week, after turning in a carefully itemized expense account ($248.67), he gave his first report: on Camp Blanding, near Jacksonville, Fla., and Fort George G. Meade, 20 miles north of the capital, Representative Engel's words grated harshly on the ears of the Quartermaster Corps. For he had found plenty to document the suspicion that, at least in Camps Meade and Blanding, the Quartermaster Corps had been guilty of bad planning and blundering stupidity. Examples...
...orders from the Quartermaster Corps in Washington, camp officers bought 26 miles of 60-lb. rail from the Southern Railway. Army regulations required 80-lb. rail. Said Mr. Engel: "It looks to me as though the Southern . . . unloaded some of its light rails. ... I am wondering what is going to happen should the Army ever attempt to send [over it] a trainload of mechanized equipment or railroad artillery...
...Roads built with crushed rock bought from a Florida partnership formed last July cost $1,247,000. Investigator Engel was told by engineers that $547,000 could have been saved by using sand, oil and clay binder...
After Meade and Benning, Mr. Engel's story still had eleven chapters to go. But he had already arrived at an angry conclusion. Said he: "The officers in the United States Army who ... are responsible for this willful, extravagant and outrageous waste of the taxpayers' money ought to be court-martialed and kicked out of the Government service...