Painless No. 3

U.S. citizens got Ration Book No. 3 by simply dipping into the mailbox. For Ration Books 1 & 2 they had had to wait in line and fill out questionnaires. The slick new red-tape-slashing scheme had gotten its inventor, Philip Holzer, 24-year-old OPA clerk (TIME, May 3) a temporary draft deferment and had given the U.S. Post Office its biggest delivery.

Bespectacled Clerk Holzer, who broke through OPA's you-can't-do-that rules to put over the mailing scheme, was scheduled for induction last May. But Holzer knew his own plan so much better than his superiors that OPAdministrator Prentiss Brown got his induction stayed. Fortnight ago the crucial stage of the mailing safely past, Good Bureaucrat Holzer reported to Fort Myer, Va., was assigned to the Navy as an apprentice seaman in the Seabees. Given the Navy's usual week furlough before going on active duty, Clerk Holzer turned up at the New York OPA office, spent the week helping mail more Ration Books No. 3.

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