War Outlay

Government estimates of war spending, once thought visionary, had already become obsolete. Budget Director Harold D. Smith presented new ones: in the fiscal year ending in June, $28 billion instead of $26 billion; in the new fiscal year, $70 billion instead of $56 billion.

In 1940 the U.S. averaged $230,000,000 a month on preparation for war. Last year the spending doubled, tripled and quadrupled, to $1.5 billion a month. But Pearl Harbor really tore off the brakes. Within two months spending leaped to $2.3 billion, to $3 billion by April. By June it will be $3.5 billion; by September, $5 billion. And still it will reach higher, into a statistical stratosphere.

Once budget figures made the citizen wince; now they were a kind of music to his deafened but devoted ears. They were the only measure of war production when all else was secret; and they meant that U.S. industry had scored an E for excellent.

Said Budget Director Smith: "An amazing job. . . ."

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