Evening star., 1941-07-20
BarOmeters in Defense Effort
Forecast Pinch on Consumers
Rigid Control of Essential Commodities in Ofins,
With Limitation to Needs Not the Wants.
of the Public FOreseen
By Marquis ". CMIds.

If the pattern of the present war
crisis follows that of 1917 and l8, civil
ians will soon feel the pinch of the
war demand in a thousand and one
restrictions on first the so-called lux
uries, motor cars and radios, and then
on the neceSsities-food, clothing and
shoes. Patterns and colors will be
standardized The use of gasoline will
be curtailed NoW-common objects will
disappear from the shops and sub
stitutes may Or may not take their
place
Within the defense organization here
in Washington, something like tug
ofWar is going on over the issue of
civilian supply. and, in fact, over the
very goods that both civilians and war
suppliers require. Because of the re-
sulting confusion, it is not possible to
see clearly the effects on the average
American family. But it is possible to
make certain surmises. Substantial
straws show which way the wind is
blowing And the history of the last
war gives some clue TO what may be ex-
pected.
Dollar-a-year men in the Office of
Production Management have hesitated
about cutting into the consumers supply
of essential goods. When they have
proposed cuts which would mean eventu-
al rationing of consumer goods, they
have met with stout resistance from
businessmen who are beginning to
realize big profits from the new streams
of purchasing power that the defense
program is shooting into the economic
system. Manufacturers with profitable
consumer contracts would rather not
have defense jobs. Dollar-a-year men
with business connections have natural
ly been reluctant to take drastic action.
Coming Sometime.
1t is Leon Hendersons Office of Price
Administration and Civilian Supply
shortened to Opacs which has con-
sistently argued the need for bigger
cuts out of the consumers share. And
this is curious since Henderson's Office
was set up ostensibly to protect the
consumer. But Henderson and the young
economists he has gathered around him
argue that since big cuts will come
eventually, it would be far better If
defense planners could decide now how
much they will have to have. Then
the consumers share could be divided
up in an orderly fashion.
Soon or late. and probably soon. in
Hendersons belief. if the defense pro-
gram is pushed through on the present
scale, American families will have to
adjust to far more drastic restrictions
than came at the end of the last war.
Gasolineless Sundays and meatless days
may not be the method employed but
most essential commodities will be ra-
toned on some basis of rigid control
This may be just around the corner or
it may not come until next winter.
Bernard M. Baruch tells how it was
done and how far the civilian regu-
latorS proposed to go in his book Amer
ican Industry in the War" which has
recently been republished He describes
the objectives of the War Industries
Board as follows:
80 The board set out to prevent
competition among those buying for
the war, and to regulate the use by the
civil population of men, money and
materials in such a way that civilian
needs, not merely civilian wants. should
be satisfied; and to do all of this
with the least possible dislocation and
destruction of the essential features of
our ordinary industrial life.
National Purpose Paramount.
Through application of the principle
of priorities, the processes of manu-
facture and trade were made to move
in response to national purpose rather
than in response to the wills of those
who had the money to buy. Through
price fixing, men were discouraged in
any unwholesome ambitions to make
inordinate profits out of the war.
Through the conservation work of the
board, many wasteful trade practices
were reformed and millions of hours of
human labor were made more fruitful.
Before the war ended, the American
method Of industrial control was COM
ing to be applied, through the medium
of international' executives, to the sew