Basement Bedlam

To proper Bostonians it looked as if a riot had broken out. A crowd of 5,000 pushing, milling people surged against the brawny arms of bluecoats. But it was not quite a riot: it was merely the first big postwar men's-wear sale at Filene's bargain basement. Filene's had been getting ready for 36 months, by picking up slow-selling lots of merchandise (men's suits, topcoats and overcoats) from other stores. It had everything from $65 suits with John Wanamaker's label to bulky lumps of cheap woolens. Last week it put close to 6,000 garments on sale. Price: $11 each.

At the opening gong at 8:30 a.m., a reinforced sales force of 200 (normal: 25) was washed aside by the tide of bargain hunters. The hunters fought their way to the racks and crawled over them like Japanese beetles on a bush. By 11 o'clock, the racks were stripped bare. Filene's rang up an estimated $65,000 in sales and, to boot, had netted an inestimable amount in good-will advertising.

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