Slide-Rulers v. Maxon

The new Washington term for the academicians who used to be called "brain-trusters" is "slide-rule boys." Last week the slide-rule boys were engaged in a struggle for survival with a man fresh to the capital--Lou Russel Maxon, second-in-command to Prentiss Brown in OPA.

The slide-rulers in OPA number well over a hundred. They date from Leon Henderson's day. Among their leaders are John Kenneth Galbraith (Ph.D., ex-professor of economics), who supervises price control; Paul O'Leary (Ph.D., ex-professor of economics), in charge of rationing; Harold Rowe (Ph.D., Brookings Institution economist), who directs the food division. They closed ranks for a show down soon after Price Boss Brown asked Lou Maxon to leave his big Detroit advertising agency to try to persuade the U.S. people that OPA was no whipcracking bully, but their friend (TIME, March 22). Stocky, sandy-haired Lou Maxon, 42, looks like a shortstop. His bright blue bow tie goes excellently with his bright red face.

The battle began the moment Maxon sat down. Fortnight ago the slide-rulers petitioned Boss Brown to remove Maxon, as he was using "public office to further private interests and private views." The OPA boss, good & mad, retorted with a sharp memo to his staff: henceforth, all "plans, orders, field instructions, questionnaires, enforcement regulations" were to clear through Lou Maxon. Last week Prentiss Brown went further. Henceforth OPA's 2,700 lawyers, backbone of the slide-rule cabal, will merely give "legal counsel." Messrs. Brown and Maxon stood shoulder to shoulder.

"A Job to be Done." The fight within OPA was typically illustrated in an argument over sugar for home canning. Messrs. O'Leary and Rowe said there was not enough sugar to give housewives an extra supply; consumers must give up a lot of ration coupons to get canning sugar. The slide-rulers stubbornly insisted nothing else would work. But Prentiss Brown went to the Agriculture Department and the War Shipping Administration, worked out an arrangement to import 200,000 tons of Cuba sugar for home canners, who will get it without surrendering ration coupons.

Lou Maxon said last week that the fight would go on to a finish, no quarter asked or given. Said he: "The trouble is, these fellows don't understand the American people. I think I do."

One thing seemed certain: OPA was not big enough for both factions.

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