Detroit Quarter

Business seemed better in Detroit last week than anywhere else in the land. Ablaze all night, automobile factories were running full-blast. Endless trains of heavy trucks rumbled through the streets carrying shiny new bodies. Shoppers crowded the sidewalks. Department stores reported the best sales since 1930. Cinema theatres and night clubs were packed. At least seven Broadway dramas had played to full houses for a week or more. At the swankest cocktail bars in the town, L'Aiglon and the Book Cadillac, waiters got little sleep. Clerks and salaried workers grumbled as rents and food prices went up. Relief rolls had shrunk so low it was hard to find labor enough to finish public projects already started.

Unhampered by strikes which slowed up momentum last year, the automotive industry got off to a flying start in January. Last week the big producers reported their progress for the first quarter.

Chrysler Corp. had the best three months in its history. It produced and shipped 249,064 cars and trucks against 167,842 in the first quarter of 1934. Henry Ford, who promised last autumn to turn out 1.000,000 cars this year, had doubled production. His output of V-8 cars and trucks for the quarter jumped to 386,326 against 194,859 in the same period 'last year--an increase of 98%. General Motors turned out 388,716 trucks and cars against 316,604 for the first quarter of 1934. At week's end the Automobile Manufacturers Association reported that total production for the first three months was 1,109,591 units, highest first quarter since 1929.

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