The Hunt

James F. Byrnes, Czar of the home front, is focusing a chill eye on the tremendous procurement programs of the armed forces, hoping to find some spare or surplus materials to be turned over to civilian use. For the supply of civilian goods is rapidly shrinking. Questions: Will the civilians actually get any more? Are there any spare materials?

One Man's Luxury. Civilian manufacture has been slashed fantastically in many ways. Example: the manufacture of kitchen utensils was cut from 1,000 articles to eight. But WPB belatedly learned that one man's luxury may be another man's necessity. In the North, rifles are used mainly for sport ; but in the West and South, rifles are a tool used to kill rabbits and deer which ruin crops. Window screens, unneeded in some places (New York City), are vitally necessary to protect Southerners from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Long ago WPB was forced to dole out more ammunition for civilian rifles.

WPB had relaxed long since from its Spartan attitude that the U.S. must suffer for suffering's sake. Last week WPB relaxed again, granted permission to make ten household articles from carpet sweepers to pot cleaners, instructed textile spinners to set aside a certain percentage of yarn for civilians (winter underwear). But these were unsatisfactory, catch-as-catch-can patching attempts.

To provide an overall plan, short, sharp-eyed Arthur Dare Whiteside, boss of WPB's Office of Civilian Requirements, is sweating his small staff twelve hours a day. Their first task: to find out what is the bedrock level of U.S. civilian needs. This is a Gargantuan job. In peacetime, 300,000 consumer articles were turned out by U.S. factories. In wartime, OCR Boss Whiteside thinks bedrock may be a mere fraction of these, some 1,500 to 2,000 articles. Soon OCR Boss Whiteside will have his list, will know for the first time what items are needed, what items are short.

Defeat for Dreamers. When these bedrock facts are firmly in hand, OCR will try to wangle an increase in certain civilian articles, the resumption of manufacture of others. The bulk of additional goods will be in "irritation items," large in U.S. usage, small in material requirements: needles, razor blades, nails, bobby pins, repair parts for household appliances and cars. OCR knows better than to ask manufacture of washing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators (200,000 are still frozen).

But with war production down a sickening 8% in June, there is now little hope for the increase. In the current quarter, demands for steel are 6,000,000 tons over supply. Demand will probably be just as top-heavy in the final quarter. Neither OCR Boss Whiteside nor anyone else in WPB will take an ounce of steel for civilians, if the armed forces need it.

And materials are only one part of the problem. Another is manpower. Ideally, civilian articles should be turned out in plants too small for efficient war work. But thousands of such plants have locked their doors, unable to compete with high wages in big war plants. OCR has no power to reopen them.

Less & Less. The best bet to ease civilian shortages is still better distribution. Last week WPB's Executive Vice Chairman Charles E. Wilson sharply increased Whiteside's powers, gave him the last word in WPB over inventories and distribution. No longer will caches of goods gather dust in sleepy towns while acute shortages in mushrooming war centers hit production.

Answer: with all the juggling of materials and supplies, there will be less civilian goods overall in a month, still less in six months.

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