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6ec. 562. P. L. ~ R.U. S. POSTAOSPaid

Butte, Mont.Permit No. 139

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Lovely Child. e,e too had she 'diedSHE used to live in a little white house with ivy in front. The neighbors allloved her because she was such a cute I ittle devil, with light, cheery laughterand blue, conversational eyes. Her father adored her and would have neverallowed harm to come her way,

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But her father didn't have anything to say about it or, if he did, his voice couldnot be heard. For the bombers came over the town one night and when theypicked up the torn body of the little girl among-the rubble the next morning •she had her bleeding hand firmly withi n the palm of her father. They got himtoo, remember?

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It's too late to bring back the light laughter and the blue eyes. f t's too late todo anything for her. She had to die to let us know.

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How many other childish voices will be stilled in the murder of the night is amatter for our own reckoning. More than that, it is a matter of how much weare willing to give to save the lives of. those we love. Hope may help to winwars. but it is bullets that win them .

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Here are, some of the Butte rescue squad arriving at the site of the coal mine disaster near Red Lodge

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COPPER COMMANDO is the officialnewspaper of the Victory Labor-Manage-ment Production Committees of the Ana-conda Copper Mining Company at Butte,Anaconda and Great Falls, Montana. It I

is .issued every two weeks. . . . COPPERCOMMANDO is headed by a joint com-mittee from Labor and Management; itspolicies are shaped by both sides and aredictated by neither ... COPPER COM-MANDO was established at the recom-mendation of the War Department withthe concurrence of the War ProductionBoard. Its editor is Bob Newcomb; itsassociate editor is Marg Sammons; itssafety editor is John L. Boardman; itschief photographer is Bob Nesmith; itsstaff photographer is Les Bishop .... ItsEditorial Board consists of: Denis Me-Carthy, CIO; John F. Bird, AFL; Ed Re-nouard, ACM, from Butte; Dan Byrne,CIO; Joe Marick, AFL; C. A. Lemmon,ACM, from Anaconda; Jack Clark, CIO;Herb Donaldson, AFL, and E. S. Bardwell,ACM, from, Great Falls .... COPPERCOMMANDO is mailed to the home ofevery employe of ACM in the three loca-tions-if you are not receiving your copyadvise COPPER COMMANDO at 112. Hamilton Street, Butte, or, better still,drop in and tell us. This is Volume 1,No. 15.

In This IssueFRONT COVER WAVE 1Our 'attractive front cover WAVE, Andree God-dard, hails from Butte, and was the first girl to beaccepted from Montana and Wyoming in the firstclass of WAVES. She's made a real record too.since her enlistment. Andree seems to be firstin a lot of things. Get better acquainted withOur charming Andree on p.age 12.

CILDING METAl , 3Here's the second step in the production of gild-ing metal up at Great Falls. After you see thissecond step you can figure out for yourself whatan order it was when 'the Government requestedthat they tune their equipment for the productionof this vital metal used for driving bands for shellsand jackets for bullets.

FROM AllOVER THE HILL 7When machines get out of kilter on. the Hill atAnaconda, the broken parts are sent to 'the boysin the Machine Shop. They do a good job ofkeeping all the departments running full time.That means more war materials. It must be agood place to work for the boys all 'have a goodw~rd to say for each other and for their boss,AI Campbell.

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ON THE INSIDE 10The boys in the Butte Geological Departmenthave a big job confronting them on the insideafter the. underground notes and sketches arebrought in. Last issue you saw them under",ground getting the notes and sketches and inthis issue we show them hard' at work in theoffice transferring those sketches and notes tothe permanent records.

TAKEATIP 13It's smart to take a tip when that tip is for yourown protection. A safety rule is nothing but atip. You can either take it or leave it, but it'ssmart to take it, for it represents the experienceof others who wish they had had the tip insteadof the experience. Here are a few tips againsttaking a chance.

HATS OFF TO MINE RESCUE BOYS.. 14We're mighty proud of the courage and coopera-tion of the men from the Butte Bureau of Safety.These members of the fire crew volunteered tohelp rescue the trapped miners in the recent dis-aster near Red Lodge, Montana. This story willgive an idea as to just what they were up againstas members of the rescue crew.

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GildingMetal

In our last issue we all saw gildingmetal in its early stages at CreatFalls. Now let's go on to the CastingDivision there and see what the nextsteps are in this big wartime job.

CASTI NG gi'lding metal, which is nine-ty per cent copper and ten per cent zinc,created some scientific headaches whenthe Government spoke up for gildingmetal from Great Falls. The metal's spe-cial uses are of great importance to theUnited Nations, and a vaster productionof gilding metal than anyone had everdreamed of.was necessary.

• Not to get too technical about it,out zinc is a temperamental metal tohandle in this operation. It's tempera-mental, anyway, so it is necessary in mak-ing these' brass wedge cakes to use gasinstead of air because the ai~ would oxi-dize .the zinc. Furnaces are heated up ,to 22000

, and as the molten metal ispoured, every effort is made to keep theair away from it. The zinc loss is heldClown by the use of a hood you can seein the picture at the top left: the metalis poured into molds quite similar to thoseused for copper, except that they havebeen treated differently. With copperthe molten metal is si~ply poured intothe mold; with this gilding metal, it isdischarged into what's called a "runnerbox" with five holes in it. The metalruns-out of the holes into the mold, avoid-

· ing a splash that would damage the cake-and spreading the hot fluid evenly in themold. In the center picture at the left youcan see the "gating" process-becausethe castings shrink in solidifying, thatloss is made up by "gating" or filling upfrom srnal] furnaces-they'" put abouttwenty-three pounds of gating into a mold·to make up the loss. This gating is pouredby hand from small ladles as the molds·move around the turntabl~the turn-

, . table, as readers will recall, is like a bigmerry-go-round except that it stops peri-odically for pouring.

We might pause to remark that youhave got to watch this operation-it'sdoggoned delicate; we got a shot, in thelower left of page four, of Harry Prescott.

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assistant superintendent, and Larry Brady,the foreman, getting a close-up of a pour-ing operation. .

Preparing the molds before they arefilled is a job in itself. At the top left ofpage five we snapped Elmer Bovan blow-ing out the empty mold as it passed infront of him. In the next picture, WaltSchneider is fixing up the mold so that itwill take a perfect cake, while over atthe right Carl Bauer and Gerald Schmitzare swabbing the molds. In the gildingmetal process, lard oil and graphite areused 'instead of bone ash and water, andthat's what they swab the inside of themold with. Charcoal used in the moldscuts out the air.

If you can take the heat (as LarryBrady can do in the picture at the bottomleft of the same page) • you can get a bet-

ter look at the operation; Larry is pokingout a runner box so that the metal canflow evenly into the molds, and the nextpicture shows a view from high up, look-ing down on the furnace and the edge of.the turntable, while at the right we seeclosely how the gating is done.

The hot wedge cakes are dischargedinto a cold water bath and carried up aconveyor for loading and shipping-wegot a shot, through the smoke, of SylvertHolland, Jimmy Curran, Floyd Benson andHugh Bouska, as they swung the cakesaround-you'll see them on page six aswell as Mile Dolack, the stamper, whostenci Is the number on each cake. Thenit's all aboard from Bill Bogh and ArnoldVenetz, as the cakes are loaded on carsand shoved along to brass plants for quickconversion into vital war materials.

When Bill and Arnold finish loadinga car with these cakes of gilding metal,they breathe a sight of satisfaction forthey know that another load is on its wayand it won't be long until these verycakes are converted in driving bands forshells and jackets for bullets. Gildingmetal is essential for other vital war uses,too. Everytime a car goes out from GreatFalls, it means the boys haven't let thegovernment down, for you know it was aGovernm.ent request that the Refineryturn itself loose on this new type of prod-uct. The best part of it is that they havecome through and almost every day aresetting new production records, so it iswith real satisfaction that the boys loadthe cars.

We've followed these cakes fromGreat Falls, and soon we want you to seewhat happens to them as they are proc-essed .

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·Here we see the hot wedge cakes being removed from' the con-·veyor and transferred to the floor for inspection. The fellows·handling the ticklish task are Sy~ert Holland, Jimmy Curran,·Floyd Benson and Hugh Bouska. Every cake must have' the·charge number st~nciled on it before it is shipped. . That's

Mike Dolack putting on this finishing touch in the upper rightshot. Bill Bogh and Arnold Venetz finish the job by loadingthe cakes into box cars for shipment to brass plants. where theyare quickly converted into driving bands for shells and bulletjackets. Later you'll see what happens to them

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·'FI!ODl,AII~·,.·• • ~ ... t. "

Over ·the_. ,. I

. 'd, .," ~" . Hill~.:,;

. '.,When madiinery parts go on the frib atAn~conda they are 'sent in to t~eMachine'Sho'p 'for repair. The .boys get them:back,in good working condition in a jjffy·

IT'S a mighty inte~esting sight to gothrough the Machine Shop at Anacondafor there you see parts in for repajr fromall over the Hill. The day we went throughthe first person we looked in on was LloydGililland. That's Lloyd in the upper shot.He was working on an iron planer but hewasn't planing iron but an oversizedbrick. He explained that they had beenhaving trouble with the bricks used in thelining of the converters and decided thatthey were too thick. Lloyd was planingthem down.

We moved on to Tom Walton, in themiddle picture, who was cutting gearsand key ways. It's accurate work andthe fact that Tom has been at it and other

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milling work for the-Iast forty years teltsits own story as to his dependability. A lotof different departments depend on himto keep going full time. Then came WillieLoberg, Louis Corazza, Anton Kapuscin-ski and John Manion, in the bottom pic-ture on page seven. Willie and Louis werecaught removing Tex rope sheaves for adrive shaft of a Symons crusher which wasin for repair. Anton and John were clean-ing and working on a counter shaft drivefrom the converter building.

You've seen a lot of the locomotivesused around the Hill. Ernie Gaskell andBob Clucas were installing a motor on thewheels of one of the electric locomotives.You can see how it is done in the lowerleft picture. We told you that parts werebroughtIn from all over the Hill and toprove it John Thill and John Gutcheck inthe upper left shot were assembling aRoot blower from the zinc concentratorwhich was in the shop at the time for...general repairs.

Bert Ashlock is custodian of thetools. Take a look at the picture in thelower right which shows only a small partof the tools and figure out what a job itis to know them all. Maybe the fact thathe's been working with tools for the lastforty-two years is the reason he's able togive such quick service to the men com-ing in for a twist drill such as he's holding.He likes this work. He says there's nevera dull moment with the men coming ir;"and out for tools. He also added: "They'rea nice bunch. They can't be beat as agroup." In addition to checki ng the toolsin and out, if he has a spare moment hefixes gages and makes keys. But his real

as\

A casing for a centrifugal pump usedat the Zinc Plant was out of kilter. JimDorsey, in the center right picture, wasmachining it as we passed-along. Next wecame to Walter Smith, in the lower leftshot, who was operating a sixteen inchAmerican lathe. For the last twenty-two

. years Walter has been working on thissame lathe. He said: "I don't know whichis worn Out the most-the lathe or me."But we'd say they are both in good shape.Neil Sheehan. apprentice, and John Har-rington, shop' foreman, were lookingover a blue print when we snapped themfor the lower right shot. They had beendrilling 'a shaft for ring rolls to be usedin the Phosphate Plant when they thought. it necessary to refer to the blue print.

Burke J. McCl.!e is the regular as-sistant master mechanic and has beenaround the Machine Shop for the lastthirty-five years. He was home sick, so wegot a picture of Tom Barry who is assist-ant construction superintendent and wasfilling in for Burke. That's Tom with AICampbell in the upper right picture. AI ismaster mechanic and superintendent ofthe Tin Shop, Machine Shop, BlacksmithShop, Converter Machine Shop and of alloutside repair and construction work. Oneof his men said about him: "The men nev-er say a word against AI. He has a way ofhandl ing situations so everyone is kepthappy." Perhaps it's because they arehappy-anyway we know that AI andeach of his men do a real job in keepingthe parts ill repair for the machinery onthe Hill .

pride is in the toots and you should see~ them shine.

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LOOK at the concentration of the boys in the-main office of the Geological Departmentin the upper shot. They are posting the underground notes and planning future devd~opment work. In this way future work is planned by the Department to develop anew ton of ore. for each ton mined. Virgil Chalnberlain is posting undergroundnotes on a fifty scale geologic pla~ map which is part of the standard mine records

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On theJ'nside

AFTER tne boys from the GeologicalDepartment go underground and take de-.tailed notes and sketches, they bring themback to the office and combine the newnotes with the information available inthe office. This office information in-cludes the previous surveys extendingover forty-five years. As a result of thesketches, notes and office information,they recover faulted ore bodies; developknown veins with the least amount ofwork; and keep ore located for futuremining to offset the current- shipments.That means new ore and work for thefuture. Separate level maps are preparedon four different scales; one inch equalsfifty feet to 'picture every detail in eachmine; one inch equals one hundred feetto picture the relations of, each mine toadjoining mines; one inch equals twohundred feet to picture. the relations ingroups of mines; and one inch equals fourhundred feet to picture the whole Buttedistrict for broad scale general develop-ment projects. The boys are kept plenty:busy both on the inside and outside.

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HERE you see Don Podesta of the. Geolog~ical i?epartment posting. underground notesto the permanent office records. Each linefrom these underground n~tes tells a verydefinite story to the boys of the Depart-ment. They all reali%e the importance ofaccuracy in posting office records

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IN the chief sampler's office are. left toright, Harry Colvin, Charlie Potter, ChiefSampler George Vivian, Bill King and EarlWilliams. Assistant Chief Sampler Prc3-ton (Peke) Ramsey, is not in the picture.The underground samples are taken to theassay office. Assay returns are sent to them,ine sa".'plers and their reports are sent tot~is office' for checking and compiling intothe many necessary Sampling Departmentreports

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, HER·E'Sanother shot of the Geological De-partment showing Chester Steele, Mur'Gidel and Ed Shea. That's a pJan map of the1600 level of the Butte District there on thetable. In and on top of the cabinet you

• can see unusual specimens of ore from thedifferent mines

'rill It HortsWE just took a gander at the calendar,and we see that by next Monday a lot ofus folks are going to have dug down tomeet the first payment on the income tax.Because~too many of us put off the agonyof payment until the last minute, we arepurposely late in showing the simple, easyway of filing a return on the back page ofthis issue. If you've been puzzled abouthow to do it, we hope it helps you.

But that isn't what we started outto say. We'd like to reply, here in ourlittle editorial column, to a loud-mouthedguy we overheard on a bus the othernight, and we invite you to listen in. Let'squote this guy first:

"What's the end of this taxing busi-ness going to be?" he blabbed. "We haveto foot the bill for everybody and every-thing. Every morning you wake up,something else is taken away from you.~ou can't do this and you can't do that.Something I always paid a nickel for nowcosts a dime. I can't drive my car. Ican't fish. I can't go hunting. What'sthe sense of living in this country, any-~ay?"

Well, anybody could have told himthat, if he didn't like it here, he couldalways move some place else. But whatstnould be added is the little word:WHERE?

That's it-WHERE? This particu-lar blabber-mouth hadn't stopped to fig-ure that even freedom costs. something.~ou buy it with your time and your ener-gies, or you buy it with your own sweatand blood; if you can't contribute your.weat and blood on the actual battlefield,~ou pay the freight for the fellows who~n and do. You're buying guns andplanes and tanks these days when you payyour taxes. You're paying your insurancepremium on your life; and the lives ofyour family. You're paying burglarly in-~urance against people like Hitler.

It may be true, as some people say,that we are winning this war. But wehaven't won it yet. We won't have anyreal freedom again, or much of anythingelse, until we HAVE won it. So let's fig-ure that, when we send in that incometax return, we're just buying our share ofthe right to live in a free 'Country.

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People ~ ..PlacesA COUPLE of issues ago, we men-tioned the broadcast given by our EditorialBoard representatives from Butte, overstation KGIR. The boys tal~ed about theLabor-Management Committee, who cem-pose it, how it operates, and so on.

We didn't think more than a men-tion of the program was needed then, but10 and behold!, the comments that havecome in about it have been really good.Quite a few folks have suggested that weshow a picture of our team, and this weare delighted to do now that Old Tight-Slacks Nesmith has furnished a printtaken at the time of the broadcast.

That's the gang at the bottom of thepage, with Master-of-Ceremonies John K.Claxton at the left, Denis McCarthy (rep-resenting the Butte Miners' Union), BillMcMahon (representing the ACM anddoing a good pinch-hitting job for Ed Re-nouard) , and John Bird (representing theAFL).

Quite a number of listeners have toldus that they didn't thoroughly understandthe functions of a Labor-ManagementCommittee before, an~ this program reallyhelped them know what it was all about.We're glad of that, and maybe it's ourfault we haven't explained it better. It'ssimple enough, and it is this : To getlabor and management thinking alike andpulling together so that we can bury Hit-ler fast.

SOCIAL NOTES

No fooling, your editors get around,and it's some fun. Marg Sa'mmons castsa big vote for ravioli as dished up by Mrs.Pete Fontana in Great Falls; Marg andBob Newcomb and the Jack Clarks wentthere for dinner a while back, and hopeto be invited aga'in soon •••• The partyin honor of the twenty-fifth wedding an-niversary of the Jack Donovans at Ana-conda was swell. Mrs. Donovan said for

us to come out early before th~ crowaand take pot luck with them and werewe glad we did. We would have misseda lot of the excitement otherwise. Everyfew minutes the door bell was ringing andit was more flowers. We knew we likedthe Donovans awfully well, but we foundout there are a whale of a lot of otherpeople who do too. Friends started com-ing eady to the reception and seemed asthough everyone stayed late. We did.

FRONT COVER WAVE

A couple of issues back COr;PERCOMMANDO ran a letter from a readerrequesting that a picture of a WAVE beused. The editors right away started outto find a good looking WAVE and arepleased as punch to be able to introduceMiss Andree Goddard, who was the firstgirl to be accepted from Montana andWyom'ing in the first class of WAVES tobe enlisted in Seattle.

Another r~ason we are so pleasedwith our front cover W.AVE is that Andreeis a Butte girl-the daughter of Mr. andMrs. Charles Goddard and the sister ofCharles Goddard of the Geological De-partment.

I After her enlistment, Andree wassent to Madison, Wisconsin, to studyradio communication~ at the Jjniversity.Upon her graduation from the U. S. NavalTraining School on the Uni~ersity campus,she was promoted to the petty officerrating of radioman, 'Third Class.

,Andree is now ~ssiriant to the Chief

Master at Arms at Corpus Christie, Texas.She expects to work in the radio controltower there and will send the messagesdirect to the planes. She is. looking for-ward to' this, for she was one of the firstgirls to fly a plane at the Butte ~unicipalairport and was classed as a darned goodflyer. We' II bet she'll be on her toeswhen getting the message to the boys.

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'E VERY safety rule ever made has as itsbasic purpose the prevention of accidents.iThese rules are generally adopted fromexperience which, in many cases, resultedin serious injury. This is especiallv true ofaccidents due to handling explosives. Inthe Butte mines for the year 1942, 3.030'.-861 individual blasts were fired with onlysix accidents. Four of these lost no time,one lost ten days, and the other lost thesight of an eye.

We believe that a great part of thisgood record has been due to three factors:

1. The manufacturers of explosiveshave, through scientific research, prog-ressively bettered dynamite, blasting capsand fuses insofar as safety is concerned.

2. Our Engineering Research De-partment has been chiefly instrumental in'providing for uniform capping and crimp-ing of fuses, adoption of bunch blasting,painting ends of fuses white to preventshort fusing, and in many other ways in-creasing the safety in handling explosives.iThat's Sam Pattison making up primersin the upper and lower shots.

. 3. The third, and by far the mostimportant item in this good experience,has been the very general compliancewith Safety Rules, and sensible practicesamongst our miners in handling explo-sives.

For the benefi t of some of the neweremployees who have come to Butte fromother mining districts we would like tocall attention to the reasons behind afew of the numerous rules for the safehandling and use of explosives.

Rule No. 254: "Rejected powder andblasting caps must be taken out of themine and destroyed in an approved man-ner." This rule has been adopted becauseevery miner has his pet theory regarding.the safest way to dispose of unused anddeteriorated explosives. We have foundby experience that the only safe way is to

Take· a Tip',

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It's risky business to take a chance. It's good businessto take a tip ~hen the tip is a. safety rule. for your pro-tection. Experience has been the teacher t and thesafety rules are the lessens learned by others. So now'sthe time to take a tip and don't take a chance

remove such explosives from the mineand destroy them by burning.

Rule No. 263: "The practice of dou-ble priming is prohibited," was adoptedas a result of experiments following aseries of blasting accidents in many ofwhich it was alleged that the prematureexplosion was due to running fuse. Inves-tigation disclosed that the heat gener-ated by a burnir:tg fuse is not sufficient toignite powder but that when two fusesare placed side by side, the heat gener-ated by both these fuses is high enough toignite the powder: When a blasting chargeis double primed we have two fuses andtwo caps in the same hole and the heatfrom the burning fuse is likely to ignite.the powder near the collar of the hole orat any other point along the course of theexplosive charge. .

We all know that, as a general thing,when dynamite is ignited it wilt burnharmlessly. Almost every miner has seenpowder burn at one ti me or another andprobably few, if any, have seen it explode;but we know that once in a while whenpowder is ignited it does explode. Whenit burns inside a drill hole it is probablymore likely to explode than when it burnsfree where we can see it. When we haveone fuse in the hole the heat is not enoughto ignite the powder but when we havetwo fuses the heat' from both of themmight ignite the powder. If this happensand it turns out to be one of those timesin which burning powder explodes wewill have a premature explosion,

Rule No. 266 is obviously important:"Do not blast without giving proper warn-ing and guarding all approaches." Viola-tion of this rule has caused a number ofserious injuries in the past.(J Explesive accidents frequently de-stroy all the evidence by which_we mightlearn the cause. Just a few years ago therewas such an accident in a drift in whichall the avai lable evidence pointed to theprobability that the miner was making up

primers when a rock, probably, dropped'on t,he explosives. This accident demon-strates the wisdom of Rule No. 267: "Donot leave powder and blasting caps to-gether at the face while loading. Keepthem separated, and be sure there are noloose rocks overhead while making up'. ..primers.

Explosives are being continually im-proved as rapidly as explosive chemistsare able to make new and safety combi-nations. Consider the fact that explosivemanufacture is one of the most dangerousof all jobs, and yet that industry as awhole has one of the best accident ratesof any of the manufacturing industries,This is because the men who work inexplosives manufacture know positivelythat one guess is all they get. Therefore ..they do not guess-they do it right every,time and then they know it is safe.

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CAMERA BUNTINGCaptain H. J. (Bud) Ritter and his wife stopped in the CreatFalls Drafting Department to say "hello" to the gang. The fel-lows wanted him to have a picture to take back to camp andhere it is. The "gang," left to right, are Carl Etterer, Charlie

Hill, Clen Eiber, Cerald Shepherd. Clarence Kathary, L, Raddon,C. Ackerman, J. W. Porter, Sam Neill and Bill Carter. The low-er picture is a shot of the boys going off shift at Anaconda.See how many you recognixe. Maybe yoa,w'rein it yourself

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• •Hats Off to the' MineRes~ne Boys

JUST as COPPER COM!V1ANDO wasready to go to tpress, word came of thedisaster at the ~oal mine near Red Lodge, .Montana. We felt that no time shouldbe lost in giving honor to the men fromthe Butte Bureau of Safety for theircourage and fine cooperation in the vol-unteer rescue work at the mine. Theyare"; John A. Johnson, United States Bu-. reau of Mines: Emery Olsen, Charles S.Matthews, Joe Peretti, John Popovich,Horace Bates, Robert Lee, John Powers,Tony Pavlinac, John Zoldak, Aldo Favero,

. Elmer L. Robitaille, George W. Lavelle,Thomas M. Furlong, Ed Castern, Ed Wu-del, Carl Newquist, Ray Doolittle, Wil-liam Jenkins. Lou Venner. All are mem-bers of the fire crew. Charlie Matthewsis foreman of the crew and John Powersis the boss. Here's the story of the quickresponse on Butte's part in helping theirneighbors in time of trouble, CIS told byJohn Boardman of the Safety Bureau:

"The Bureau of Safety of the Ana-conda Copper Mining Company receiveda call from Mr. Owens of the MontanaCoal and Iron Company at Red Lodge,Montana, at 1 1 :35 Saturday, February 27.Then, we called Mr. Carrigan, man-.ager of the Anaconda Copper Min~ngCompany, for authorization, which wasgranted, and called Mr. Owens and as-sured him of our cooperation. We thennotified J. A. Johnson, United States Bu-reau of Mines, who in turn called his SaltLake office. 'We asked Colonel Frederick,United States Army, of Fort Harrison, touse the parachute trooper plane.

"In the meantime, we had requestedH. ]. Rahilly, Assistant General Superin-tendent of Mines 'and underground firechief, to provide a rescue crew and askedDan Crowley, foreman of the rescue sta-tion, to prepare the apparatus and equip-ment. As most of the rescue crew aremen on shift at the Leonard Mine, sometime was required to get them out andready·to leave. However, by 1 :30 p. m.all was in readiness and we were notifiedthat the plane was en route from Helena.The rescue crew of fourteen men andequipment was rushed to the airportwhere it arrived simultaneously with theplane at 1 :50 p. m. The plane was loadedand took off for Billings at approximately2: 15 p.' m., arriving in Billings at 3 :36p. m. The Montana Highway Patrol hadassembled a sufficient number of auto-mobiles at the Billings. airport to trans-port the men and equipment to RedLodge. From time to time additionalequipment and suppl ies have been sentfrom Butte with the cooperation of theHighway Patrol. On Sunday, Mr. Rahillyand six' additional volunteers. left Buttewith the Highway Patrol. They too tookwith them additional equipment. Twenty-three sets of apparatus have been sent

over at the time this is written, and more'will be sent.if they are needed.

"The breathing appartus sent tothem and used by our men carries a sup-ply of oxygen and chemical materialwhich absorbs the deleterious productsof respiration in such a manner as to ren-der the wearer independent of the sur-rounding atmosphere. The men can re-main in irrespirable atmospheres withoutdanger as long as the oxygen and chem-ical supply lasts. Before men are per-mitted to undertake this kind of workthey must undergo a course of trainingin the use and' care of the apparatus."

Here's what the volunteers for theRescue Crew from Butte were up against -when they reached the mine: .

"When an explosion occurs in acoal mine, it fills the entire mine withirrespirable gases. The coal miners callthese gases 'black damp' and it IS likelyto be a mixture of carbon dioxide, carbonmonoxide, methane and sulphur. Thesegases are dangerous to life in that some.of them are asphyxiating in nature, othersare poisonous, and still others are explo-sive. A coal mine explosion usually dis-turbs or destroys the ventilation systemof the mine by blowing out stoppings andventilation doors and damaging the ven-tilation fans. This leaves the mine fullof gas with no means of clearing. the at-mosphere and the passageways are ob-structed with debris, broken timber, fal-len rock, coal, and wrecked mine cars.

"In disasters of this -nature in coalmines, it is very frequently possible formen at work in parts of the mine whichhave been unaffected by the explosion tobuild barricades and seal themselves inareas which contain enough fresh air. tosustain them for a matter of days. Incase there is time or opportunity to dothis, then the men can be saved by therescue workers after re-establishing themine ventilation. The rescue crew whoare equipped with the apparatus can pro-ceed into the irrespirable atmosphere toa distance limited only by the time ca-pacityof their apparatus. These men ofthe rescue crew go in beyond the freshair, clean up the obstacles, rebuild stop-pings and ventilation doors and locate theplaces where the trapped victims havebuilt barricades, or they recover thebodies of the dead.''' .

It isn't a nice picture,. folks, and wethink the efforts to save the lives of theirfellow miners 'constitute a degree ofheroism equal to that of the 'boys on thefiring line at the Front. COPPER COM,..MANDO, as the spokesman of the Labor-Management Committees. representingthe interest of labor and managementalike, takes this opportunity to 'applaUdthe fine and heroic work done by thesemen. We say "Hats Off" to them!

~~l?u~c!J~g(!IJ. . .. ~ .. ~

The Straight DopeWE'RE back from .our regular trek East; -this time we-got into some really fruitfulconfabs in Washington. The large-scalesize of this war was brought home to usclearly in conference with Donald M. Nel-son, with L. A. Appley of the War Man.Power Commission, with Clyde Vande-burg of OWl and others. But the realmeat, the stuff you can get your teethinto and chew on, was tossed at us by asmall group of men back from the fight-ing front.

They were banged up some, but-riottoo much to speak out about how toughthis war is. We asked one man h.ow longhe thought it would last: all of u.s areasked it often enough. His stab at it wastwo years. We askedhim why.

"Because those babies aren't goingto quit .until they're licked," he said, "andit's going to take two years to do it. Backhere' get a lot of ~ab from the home folksabout how the Germans are crumblinginternally, that they're ready to throw inthe sponge .... Don't kid yourself. TheNazis have committed too many crimesagainst the other nations. They knowthey would be shown no mercy at thehands of nations whose people they hadbutchered and sold into slavery. TheNazis have no choice but to fight to thebitter end. Maybe some of them dofigure that there is no hope, but there isno choice either. The only hope theyhave rests with their winning this war-they will be shown' no mercy if they lose,and they know it."

Planes and More Planes'ONE of the men at the Washington edi-tors' conference we attended asked thsquestion: "What's the situation withregard to this country's plane produc-tion?" He was told that it is good andthat it is getting better. American planeproduction now exceeds the estimatedproduction of the three Axis powers.

But, the editor was told, there aresome points to remember: Ihis countryis, in everysense of the word, ·the arsenalof democracy. It is supplying, in con-stantly increasing number, much of theplane requirements of the United Na-tions. It must send these planes to thefour corners of-the earth. And, in addi-tion to all that, it must produce for ourown Army and Navy, the biggest singleair force of them all.

The war for supremacy of the ai r isa war of design. A plane with speed andmaneuverability at a certain level mightbe good today, but it might be outclassedtomorrow by an Axis plane with greaterspeed and fire power. In short, the speci-fications aren't written by us-they'rewritten by the enemy. If we're going tobeat him, we've got to beat him withbetter weapons than he's got.

BOB NEWCOMB.

• IS

For Incomes of S3,OOO or LESS Received' fromWages, Salaries, Pividends, Interest and Annuities

Ii\ Your namt, ad~re$S1® list your income. '5' Indicate your famifv statu ..\Y_ and occupation. ~IIi\ t.a\ Subtract your credit ® Read your tax directlv~ Your depend~nt$. \31 for dependent$. from the table;

No Complicated ·Cilc~iations

,

With Simplified Forll ·1040·A

Only 6 Things to Do

No Difficult Figuring

0P'l10NALUNITED STATES

INDMDUAL INCOME TAX RETURNnflSUTURN f!1AlaflLED 1NST'E40 OF FORM INO ., crnzEHS 0. ,... ill tho. .....n

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CAlENDAR YEAR1942

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.THE Federal Treasury is offering again this year to peoplewhose 1942 income was $3,000 or less, a simplified inc~me taxform which' may be filled out in five minutes or less. This isknown as Form l040-A. It may be used by any taxpayer whose'$3,000-or-less income came wholly from .wages or salary, divi-dends, interest or annuities.

Last year when this time-saver was first introduced, over10,000,000 individua~ income tax returns were filed on it. Peo-ple who had previously spent hours working over the regularreport-form were enthusiastic about the e~se and speed withwhich they could now complete their annual income tax chore.

This year; with an estimated twelve million ,new taxpayersfmng for the first time, the Bureau of Internal Revenue confi-.dently expects that nearly twenty million taxpayers will benefitfrom. this short-cut way, saving in the aggregate millions ofhours of time and innumerable headaches.

Incidentally, this simplified Form 1040-A is also a boon tothe Internal Revenue Bureau, for it greatly reduces the amountof time previously spent with so many millions of taxpayers inanswering questions and helping them make out their returns.

A glance at the picture shows how quick and simple ·Form,1040-A makes this income tax filing job. l=here are only 6things for Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer to do; write down their names,address and occup.1tion, the names of their dependents, theamount of income received during the year, the amount of de-'(luction allowed on account of dependents; check the squarethat shows their family status (whether married or single, etc.I •

16 •

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IICIIC.lTE lOUt STAnIS ON JlU I._" ruClN(; OlEa _ (.1)111 THE UPIJCAIlL II.OCJ(

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Then they simply rea~ from the form exactly what their tax is.and write it down on the return.

That's all there is to it, and it is over in a few short min-utes. Then the taxpayer just signs, makes his payment, and thejob i~done. This year the return does not even have to be notar~ized, Congress having decided in its tax-streamlining programthat people should be' spared that bother and expense.

This form has no entries for deductions, since average de-ductions, including the earned income credit, have been al-lowed for in figuring the taxes in the table. It is to be noted thatpeople whos~ legal deductions are unusually large wo~ld prob-ably pay less tax by using the longer Form 1040. But for mostpeople in the $3,000-and-under bracket, Form 1040:A is notonly a time saver, but a money saver, too •

In spite of the fact that during the last two years the In-. .ternal Revenue Bureau has increased its personnel, they willundo·ubtedly be rushed and crowded, as March 15th approaches,by the great increase in taxpayers necessitated by wartime highemployment and wartime low tax exemptions. So people whofile early will be doing themselves a favor, .as well as making areal contributior:- to the s~ooth worki~g of the ':Iation's taxmachinery. Blanks are ready now and may be obtained from alllocal Internal Revenue off-ices, also at most banks and at many'pJaces of .employment.

Deadline for filing returns is March 15, 1943, and returnscoming in late subject the tardy filer to a penalty. So on everycount,· it's smart to file early and avoid the rush.