Twenty Years at “Hard Labor”
THE year 1944 marks the twentieth anniversary of the launching of Surplus Record on the stormy seas of the publishing world. Looking back, we recall that our minds were flooded with trepidation, with fear and trembling which month after month accompanied the slow progress of our little craft. Failure by similar enterprises was a constant reminder adding pressure to the need to sell enough advertising to keep our own fragile bark afloat.
However, we were convinced that there was a sound economic basis for the existence of an industry devoted to the buying and selling of surplus industrial machinery and equipment, and we charted our course accordingly. If there was a need for that kind of business, then there was a need for a publication devoted to its interests. There should be an organ to express the thoughts governing the industry and to voice factual information to a nation extravagantly prone to discard valuable capital goods considered obsolete.
Step by step the soundness of this conservation idea was cemented and we became more courageous in our expressions. The industry was growing. More people, entered the field, more rebuilding plants came into existence. The climax was reached in 1941 when the nation at war needed every ounce of metal, every piece of machinery to carry on its gigantic battle against time and the elements of world destruction.
There is no doubt that giving nation-wide publicity to the used equipment dealer has contributed mightily to the war production program. A single critical used machine which might have taken months or even years to build, has been known to plug a gap in a war plant so that production of the implements of war could flow steadily to our Army and Navy.
Little did we dream, twenty years ago, that the birth of an idea, the launching of a fragile little boat, might become a contributing factor to the winning of the greatest war of all time. Yes, sir!