Records of the Board of Directors Records of the Chairman of the Board of Directors Records of the Office of the Secretary Records of the Research and Statistics Section Records of the Planning and Research Branch Records of the Operating Analysis Branch . Records of the Industry Survey Branch Records of the Reporting Branch Records of the Statistics Division Records of the Office of Information Records of the Office of Reconversion Records of the Office of the Chief . Records of the Agency Contact Division Records of the Labor Policy Division . Records of the Surplus Property Division Records of the Office of the Chief of Operations Records of the Contract Division 60 Records of the Publications Officer Records of the Industrial Production Division Appendixes: I. II. III. INTRODUCTION The Smaller War Plants Corporation (SWPC) was created by an act of Congress approved June 11, 1942 (56 Stat. 351), "to mobilize the productive facilities of small business" in order to increase war production. The Corporation, under section 4 of the act, was empowered to make loans to small business concerns in order to enable them to finance plant construction, conversion, or expansion or to acquire equipment, facilities, machinery, supplies, or material. It could lease or sell land, plants, equipment, machinery, supplies, or materials to small business. The Corporation could also enter into contracts with Government agencies having procurement powers--obligating the Corporation itself to furnish articles, equipment, supplies, or materials to the Government--and could arrange for the execution of such contracts by letting subcontracts to small business concerns. In order to carry out the provisions of the act, the Corporation was to be given a capital stock of $150 million subscribed for the United States through the Secretary of the Treasury. This amount was increased to $350 million by an amendment of December 8, 1944 (58 Stat. 799). Payment was to be subject to call by the Board of Directors of the Corporation. Management of the Corporation was to be vested in a board of five directors, who were to select a chairman and a vice chairman from the board members. The broad powers given to the Board of Directors by section 4 of the act-including control of financial operations and expenditures of the Corporation--were restricted, however, by other sections of the same act. According to paragraph c of section 4, the Board itself was to be appointed by the Chairman of the War Production Board (WPB). This paragraph was amended on April 27, 1945, to provide that the President should appoint the Board members as well as the Chairman. By section 1 of the act of June 11, 1942, the Corporation was placed under the jurisdiction of the WPB Chairman, who was directed to appoint a deputy in charge of small business. The responsibilities of the WPB Chairman, in relation to the Corporation, were defined in section 2 of the act. The WPB Chairman was to arrange for a complete inventory of all productive facilities in the United States that might be used for war production, to call the attention of Government procurement officers to the potential productive capacity of plants operated by small business concerns, to obtain information concerning the extent to which Government prime contractors let subcontracts that might be handled by small business concerns, and to provide the necessary incentive to small plants to convert to war production. The WPB Chairman was further to certify to the SWPC and to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) or to any of its subsidiaries the funds to permit small plants to convert to war production and also to certify to Government procurement officers regarding the competency and capacity of small business concerns or groups of small business concerns to execute a specific Government procurement contract. The WPB Chairman was also directed to make sure that small business concerns were supplied with the necessary raw material. The powers of the Board of Directors of the Corporation were further restricted by a provision of a supplemental appropriation act of July 25, 1942 (56 Stat. 713), transferring to the WPB, for administrative expenses of the Corporation, $7 1/2 million of the funds authorized to the Corporation by the act of June 11. On July 11, 1942, the WPB Chairman appointed Lou E. Holland as Deputy Chairman on Smaller War Plants and also as a member of the Board of Directors of the Smaller War Plants Corporation. The Deputy Chairman and the members of the Board of Directors took office on July 16 and, at the first meeting of the Board held on that date, Mr. Holland was elected Chairman of the Board. When the Deputy Chairman became head of a Smaller War Plants Division established in the WPB by WPB General Administrative Order No. 2-51 of September 8, 1942, the result was a "dual personality" organization for the Corporation: (1) the Smaller War Plants Division of the WPB, headed by Mr. Holland as Deputy Chairman under the WPB Chairman; and (2) the Smaller War Plants Corporation under the Board of Directors, with Mr. Holland as Chairman. The functions of the Bureau of Finance and the Contract Distribution Branch of the WPB were abolished by Order No. 2-51, effective September 15, 1942, and their duties and records were transferred to the newly established Smaller War Plants Division. The organization of the Division was defined in WPB Administrative Order No. 2 of November 2, 1943, as amended on January 7, 1943. (See appendix III, chart 1.) The "dual personality" organization was abolished under the administration of Gen. Robert Wood Johnson, who succeeded Mr. Holland as SWPC Chairman on February 8, 1943. WPB General Administrative Order No. 2-86 of March 18, 1943, transferred the Smaller War Plants Division of the WPB to the SWPC and authorized the eventual transfer to the Corporation of certain administrative functions formerly performed by the WPB for both the Smaller War Plants Division and the Corporation. One of these functions, the establishment of a field organization for the Corporation separate from the WPB field organization, was accomplished--after discussions between WPB and SWPC officials--by the issuance of WPB General Administrative Order No. 2-94 on May 1, 1943. Other administrative functions were transferred from the WPB to the SWPC in July 1943 when, with the new fiscal year, the SWPC came into control of its own administrative funds. WPB General Administrative Order No. 2-94, in addition to separating the SWPC field organization from that of the WPB, defined the principle upon which the division of activities between the SWPC and the WPB was to be based. WPB activities were to be centered on "production and the servicing of production in all its phases" and SWPC activities were to be concentrated on "sales and procurement of business for smaller businesses. In effect, Order No. 2-94, which was referred to as the "divorce" or the "paper divorce," directed that the WPB Chairman divest himself of all control over the SWPC that could be relinquished under the law. From May to September 1943 plans were underway to develop an organizational pattern that would reflect the Board of Directors' responsibility for the agency's performance after the transfer of the functions of the Smaller War Plants Division to the Corporation. Although the new plan of operation had been set up by the time Chairman Johnson left the Corporation on September 10, 1943, a number of general administrative orders and an organization chart (see appendix III, chart 2) documenting the plan were not approved by the Board of Directors until September 24, 1943. Under this plan the Chairman of the Board served also as Executive Director of the Corporation and, in this capacity, directed and assumed operations in accordance with policies promulgated by the Board of Directors; selected "dollara-year" men; and discharged the duties and responsibilites (under sections 1 and 2 of the Smaller War Plants Act) that had been delegated by the WPB Chairman. The Board of Directors, as the governing body of the Corporation, established policy. It also approved the appointment of "dollar-a-year" men. The provisions of the plan remained in effect during the so-called "interregnum" (September 1943-January 1944) when Albert M. Carter, a member of the Board of Directors, served as Acting Chairman. The "interregnum" came to an end on January 12, 1944, with the election of Maury Maverick as the third and last Chairman of the Board of Directors of the SWPC. There was a complete reorganization of the Corporation during Chairman Maverick's administration. The Board of Directors adopted a resolution making Maverick the General Manager of the Corporation and granting him authority to direct "general and administrative management functions," including the appointment as well as the selection of personnel. By taking this action the Board officially withdrew from its earlier policy of approving administrative personnel in the higher brackets, and it allowed Maverick wide latitude in forming an organization of his own choice. To develop a new plan of organization, Chairman Maverick secured the services of Dr. Luther Gulick, an authority on organizational methods and procedures. Dr. Gulick's first revison of the organizational chart was officially approved on February 28, 1944 (see appendix III, chart 3), and a number of amendments to the general administrative orders that were drafted by him were issued on the same day or shortly thereafter. Dr. Gulick was retained as a consultant throughout 1944, and he continued to make changes and refinements in the reorganization of February 28. Organizational changes made in the summer of 1944 and shortly thereafter reflected the shift in emphasis on the part of the SWPC from war production to cutbacks in war contracts and reconversion to peacetime activities. This change in emphasis was necessitated by the passage of three acts: the Contract Settlement Act of 1944 (58 Stat. 669), approved on July 1; and the War Mobilization and Reconversion Act of 1944 (58 Stat. 788) and the Surplus Property Act of 1944 (58 Stat. 773), both of which were approved on October 3. Section 20(g) of the Contract Settlement Act of 1944 directed the SWPC to disseminate information among small business concerns about interim financing and termination settlements and to help |