"Just Too Bad"

From now on, every new building in the U.S. must have a federal license. Even if a building is already well under way, even if a builder has every last bolt and nail on hand, it will take a WPB license to complete it. Stocks on hand for nonwar building may be requisitioned for more essential purposes. On Don Nelson's desk, ready for signing some time this week, is a new order that says so.

This move may sound drastic to the layman, but to the construction industry it sounds almost redundant. As early as last September, OPM worked out a policy that deprived all private construction, not within "reasonable commuting distance" of a defense plant, of priorities on all scarce materials. In October, SPAB reinforced the policy by allowing materials to be allocated only to projects "necessary for direct national defense or . . . essential to the health and safety of the people." Again & again Government men have underlined the no-building-except-for-war theme. But much nonwar building (both private and public) has gone on nonetheless. Lately, as builders' hoards of scarce materials have dwindled, bootlegging has been growing. This week comes the inevitable crackdown.

Already functioning within Don Nelson's WPB is a new construction branch (combining six former WPB divisions that dealt with construction) to see that the tough new order is carried out. Its chief, stocky, auburn-haired engineer William V. Kahler, 43, went to Washington in the old NDAC days from Illinois Bell Telephone (where he was chief engineer of the Chicago area).

Dead-earnest, pink-faced Mr. Kahler intends to make the toughest kind of sense out of his latest job. Said he last week: ". . . The order in effect licenses all construction from here on. If some guy started a project last fall, which is not essential to the war effort, it's just too bad. He made a bad decision and will just have to pay for it."

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