Toward midsummer, we began to hear rumors that the French needed more equipment than our humming plant could deliver. By this time Secretary Johnson’s action had reacted to our advantage. The inventory of raw stock, semifinished, and finished parts which they had left on our hands when they canceled our order enabled us to get rolling without the protracted delay which would have been inevitable had our pipe lines been drained before the big freeze. And so, almost overnight, we had the machines humming again and the empty parking spaces around the plant filled up with cars. But this rumor of new plants was a horse of another color. First of all, we had no capital with which to construct a new addition, nor did it seem likely we could get it had we wanted it—which we didn’t. Having faced the cold shadows of a vacant factory, we had no appetite for more of the same. The punitive attitude of our own government had completely dammed up all sources of private capital for expansion of munitions plants. Actually, the long depression had all but dried up investment in any private venture. The fear and uncertainty which had cast such a pall over the land had been intensified by the drift toward government domination of business and the rise of bureaucratic dictation. Among other things, there was the sensitive factor of profit control. For instance, the Internal Revenue Bureau of Mr. Henry Morgenthau’s Treasury Department dictated, through its review of income tax returns and its rules and regulations, the amount a manufacturer might charge against the cost of his product for the use of his tools. The manufacturer, having in mind the many elements of this problem, such as the wear and tear on machines, the life cycle of the product he was selling, and many other complex factors, would charge against each item of manufacture what he judged to be its proper share of the cost of the tools. The more he charged, the less was his profit for a given year. In the long run the whole thing washed out. But the Internal Revenue Bureau, sitting in judgment of each case and anxious to prove high profit in order to assess higher taxes, was interested in reducing this depreciation charge as far as possible. Bearing no responsibility for the survival of a company, and having little knowledge of, or interest in, the technical details of the manufacturer’s problem, it tended to set up over-all rules which, even though applicable to one case, might be far out of line for another. And since munitions manufacturers were generally unpopular, they had two strikes on them from the beginning. Real investors, understanding this handicap, were not interested in risking their dollars on this kind of enterprise, nor were the enterprises interested in seeking their money.