The Pinch

SHOES

Any U.S. citizen who spent his airplane ticket #1 early last fall and is now down at heel can count upon his toes his chances of going barefoot. For the OPA's intent to keep shoe rationing "at about the current level" meant the civilian would get not more than two pairs of leather shoes a year. (In 1941 he used 3.7 pairs, and almost that much last year.)

Last week G-Man J. Edgar Hoover himself added a lurid footnote to the shoe shortage: shoes, he said, were the third biggest item in a mounting flood of hijacking. (The first two: liquor and rayon.)

Sober speakers at last week's National Shoe Retailers Association's annual meeting in Manhattan gave the reason for the new crime wave. Said Tanners' Council Vice President Merrill A. Watson: "World leather supplies . . . can be covered by one word. That word is 'scarce.' " The facts about that scarcity:

P: This yearns cattle leather supply is guesstimated at 23,000,000 hides, down 18% from the 1942 high, down another 10% from last year. Total leather production for the year will be down 5-10%.

P: The military, though it takes only 10% of total shoe production, will now take 30% of the sole-leather supply, 40% of the cattle side upper leather. Reason: the Army's new high-cuff boot, now specified for soldiers in combat areas, takes three and a half times as much leather as an ordinary men's "dress" shoe. The Navy is now consuming 28% of all calf leather. Civilians this year will get 18% less leather.

P: Long after the collapse of Germany, leather will probably be scarce: even the minimum Lend-Lease and UNRRA needs will sop up most of the expected drop in military demand. In 1943, long before much "rehabilitation" was militarily feasible, the Army shipped almost 9,000,000 pairs of shoes for Lend-Lease account.*

Fewer Shoes. Last year's total shoe production was down 5% from 1942, in turn down 3% from the 1941 peak; 461,573,000 pairs were produced (9% above 1939, the prewar high). This looked like a lot, but 47 million went to the military, and another 100,000,000 or so were heavy workshoes or fabric and composition numbers ranging from canvas beach & tennis shoes to strictly fireside slippers.

That left a mere 300,000,000 pairs of leather shoes--about half for women, one-quarter each for men and for children and adolescents (OPA and the shoemakers long ago began counting on men to provide women & children with extra coupons). Shoe stocks are now down to 200,000,000 pairs, a dangerous new low.

The shoemakers have only shaky hopes of selling many ersatz shoes. Plastics are already short. There are not even enough plastic shoes to ration. Wood for heels, failles for uppers, fiberboard for inner-soles, and even the cements that hold them together, are also on the critical list. And the shoe industry, with average wages of $29 a week v. $52 in war industries, is suffering from acute manpower shortage: in December, it had 26,000 (13%) less workers than a year ago.

Less Chichi. Nonetheless, most of the chichi left in shoes is in ersatz materials--a red fabric rose or composition cherries at the toe of a plain leather pump, multicolored raffia beach sandals, bright wooden clogs, etc. The only frivolous style note in 1944 women's shoes is the high ankle strap (see cut, p. 82). The real style is the "classic" day shoe that can go anywhere and keep going.

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