Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-11-24
Defense Boosts
Buying Power
For Christmas
Best Holiday Sales
In Decade Foreseen
As Pay Rolls Soar
BY FRANK MacMILLEN,
Associated Press Financial Writer.


NEW YORK, Nov. 23.-Let the
children rejoice this year, for Santa
Claus will heft the biggest Christ
mas pack that America has seen
in a decade.
And let the grownups be glad
If they can.
Guns, planes, tanks and ships are
building apace. Men are going back
onto steady pay rolls
There are Sl2,500 10000 of war
and defense orders on the Nations
industrial books, and the next ses-
sion of Congress will provide more.
An official of the National De-
Tense Advisory Council at Washing
ton this week said that within the
next 10 months the income of the
American people will cross the $780,
000, 000, 000-mark, and that $500, 900
men will have jobs who have none
now.
That will soon leave few who are
capable of working still without
jobs. And 1t should make Christmas,
194l, an even bigger one than this.
1929 Records to Fall.
1t will give people more to spend
by a good many billions than they
had in the year of the golden
legend, 1929.
If the flow of money into weapons
is still going on when another
Christmas rolls around. it will add
point too, to what the defense off,
cial. John D.. Biggers. Toledo in
dustrialist who is executive assistant
to William S. Knudsen, had to say
when he offered his estimates of
the coming months:
God knows, I would wish that
1t were any other kind of industry
that would bring us this income"
Yet events, neither abroad, where
the war of diplomacy and steel
was intensified this week, nor in
Washington, where further steps
were taken to speed the defense
program. indicated any reason to
doubt the general correctness of
Biggers' estimates.
Pay rolls were already on the in
crease, and money really began to
flow into stores.
Thanksgiving delicacies. said Dun
& Bradstreet's trade review, were
bought in greater quantities this
year than last, and Christmas shop
pers appeared to be nibbling earlier
than usual, although the full rush
was yet to come.
The Federal Reserve Board at
Washington said department store
sales last week were Is per cent
ahead of a year ago, despite the
fact that the latter was a period
OF brisk business. (Then, the initial
war boomlet was on
Yule Rush Grows.
Later figures, from a trade survey,
indicated the Christmas rush was
growing. A large New York City
store, in the first three days of
this week, found people buying 20
to 81 per cent more than this time
in 1889. And store with outlets
outside this metropolitan area said
business was IS per cent better.
From now until the time the last
weary shopper trudges home on
Christmas Eve, this survey calcu-
lates, America will have spent ST.
300 100000 in department stores
alone, something not surpassed in
10 years.
Other sorts of stores will sluice of
part of the golden stream, theaters,
movies and auto dealers will get
their share.
Steel towns and shipbuilding
towns. from Birmingham to Bath,
factory and mine and textile towns,
will each have its quota of happy
kids who are young enough to have
known only the lean years and the
empty stocking.
And the wheels still are whirring
IN the big factories. In the steel
mills this week production vas at
81 per cent of capacity. More raw
steel was turned out. production
men guess, than in any one week
in the country's history.
Widening Effects Seen.
Both war and fatter pocketbooks
for workers played their part. Said
Iron Age:
Defense work is forming an ever
increasing proportion of total steel
business, but on top of all that is q
tremendous demand from manu-
facturers who are to a large extent
pursuing their normal lines of &C.
tivity, but at an increased pace. The
automobile industry. the railroads,
refrigerator manufacturers and
many other makers of household
equipment are among those whose
needs have increased"
And as business rushed along to-
ward the finish line of 1910, investors
too. had their place in the cheering
section.
The year-end pay-of in dividends
began to get under way in handsome
fashion in what promised to be the
best year since 1886 and 1897, when
corporations rushed to meet the re-
quirements of the since-repealed UNI
distributed profits tax.
This year the excess profits taxes
levied for defense cut into profits,
Wall Street men said, but, since they
applied to only part>of the year, and
the rush Of business had been so
fast, there were many companies in
q position to supply Santa with
pleasant checks to tuck in papps's
sock.