Evening star., 1941-01-14
Defense Emergency
Requires Sacrifices,
Nelson Declares
Production Management
Official Points to
Vast Needs
BY the Associated Press.

passing VI sCilCS VI oclCilSC plO0uS~
ton clearly demands personal and
business sacrifices. Donald M. Nell
son. purchasing chief in the new
office OF production management.
said last night.
In an address prepared for the
National Retail Dry Goods ASSocia.
ton, he declared it would be no exag-
geration to say that the future Of
democratic government for perhaps
hundreds Of years might depend
upon the degree Of success attained
by the o. P. M. at Washington.
Nelson added:
I'VE might as we'll decide right
here and now that unless every in
dustrialist, every business man and
every wage Garner is willing to
subordinate his own short-term in
terests to the long-range interests Of
all of us, then this program will fall
short, for the surprising urgency
referred to by the Office of Produc-
ton Management clearly demands
personal and business sacrifices"
Urges All-Out Effort.
The requirements of military and
naval equipment for ourselves and
our friends" we're limited, Nelson
said, by only one thing:
The total capacity of every mine.
factory and mill in the country to
produce such equipment"
This is an all-out effort" he con-
tinued. There are no fixed limits
save the limits imposed by physical
and human capacity employed to
their utmost"
Another speaker, Walter Morrow,
executive secretary of the Retailers
Advisory Committee of the National
Defense Council, said that Govern
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. co-opera-
ton had prevented unjust increases
in the cost of living, despite large
spending on arms production.
For the first time in history" he
reported to the retail leaders, I'VE
have witnessed great emergency
develop with expanding productive
effort without an Immediate upward
price spiral in consumer goods.
Orders have been placed for bill
lions of dollars worts of defense
goods. Obsolete plants have been
refurnished and are going into pro-
duction. Hundreds of thousands of
men and women have gone back to
work. Vast stores Of raw materials
have been accumulated as q backlog
for the expanding processing effort
that is starting.
yet there has been no appreciable
rise in the price Of consumer goods.
Whatever develops in the future.
this is astonishing.
United States Agencies Praised.
Credit for this condition properly
belongs to the existence of the Gov
ernment agencies set up to protect
our civilian consumers and to the
unoficial agencies, retailers, whole
salers and the like, that have been
created to cooperate with them.
Speculative interest. for the first
time in history, has been challenged
effectively. The mere existence of
groups set up to make the challenge
has been wholesome. The knowledge
that speculative profit is certain to
be challenged has brought every one
to realization that in a period Of
grave emergency. speculative profit
is unavailable, sure of detection, and
will not be tolerated"
Frank M. Mayf1eld, president Of
the Retailers Association and head
Of the st. Louis department store
of Scruggs-Vandervoort-Ba told
the delegates to the associations
30th annual convention, in his pre-
pared address of welcome:
This association and the retail
industry have done a magnificent
job in attempting to control price
increases. These efforts should te
continued-but we must not take too
much credit. We might, in the
future. also have to take the blame
Mayfield told the storekeepers to
expect large increase in the public 5
purchasing power during l941-but
to prepare for reduction in the
amount of goods they can sell the
public.
Facts Help Sales.
THE more you tell the more you
SELF was given the stamp Of scien-
tific approval today by DR.. Charles
M. Edwards, jr., associate professor
of retailing of New York University.
Describing the National Retail
Dry Goods Association Convention
results of a two-year survey Of
thousands Of advertisements and
their sales results, DR.. Edwards said:
I'VE learned that an advertise
ment's chance for success invariably
increases as the number of pertinent
merchandise facts included in the
L..