The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-02-07

EdsOn process of mov- ing into half of 8 brand new ST. 100000 building up near the capitol. Originally, its five floors were in- tended to house the social security outfit but all handsome Paul V. Me- Mutt gets out of it now will be an appropriately handsome and lush chain of suites for his headquarters organization, who will have to make out as best they can, walking in ankle-deep carpets, sitting in hip deep leather upholstery, and work ing on polished mahogany and wal nut.
 Construction engineers with tears in their eyes and what-can-we-do plea in their voices stagger through long corridors of the other offices, trying to take care of myriad re- quests for desks, lights, partitions and furniture. They broke ground in August, 1899 and in spite of strikes and inability to get supplies, they got their job 98 per cent done only to have the defense crowd and thc army ordnance people pile in on top of them. The engineers were smart in getting the 4,000 tele- phone installations completed early, and the buzzer system is all right, too, so executives can reach for tele- phones and push buttons to get things done, even if some of the outer office people have to sit on the floor to do it.
 CALLING ALL
 STENOGRAPHERS
 But that's only the beginning OPM is expanding so fast it doesn't know from one day to the next how many employees it has. The last di- rectory showed about 1000 names. But the main divisions, the three P's of Purchases under Donald M. Nelson, Priorities under Edward L. Stettinius, and Production under John Biggers are spawning new offices and branches all over the lot. Departments scattered in various buildings around town are getting together for the first time, some of them being pushed out of temporary quarters by army offices crowding in on behind.
 The reserve of stenographic help in Washington has long since been exhausted There were 130,000 white collars on the government payroll in Washington last year Some 25,000 have piled in since then, and they're, coming in now ot tl,a rofa If 100' 0,. y,,nra O 5o1,
 Girls outnumber the men 10 to one. They're mostly from towns of the midwest and south. They have passed civil service examina- tions and are in what's known as the Reservoir. When OPM or any other government agency wants new clerks, it notifies civil service and the telegraph wires start burning. Come to work at $1,200 a year. Hopes high, green as grass, with little or no experience, they come.
 ROOM WITH
 ONE-SIXTH BATH $40
 It's 1917 all over again, when Washington, then 100000, had to absorb thousands of these war workers, and there were temporary barracks and boarding houses in front of the Union station. Now Washington and suburbs make a city of a million, but as every war is bigger and bladder than the one before, you know just what to ex- pect.
 A room, or half room with two meals day thrown in, now rents for $40 a month, and in most rooming houses that means a one- sixth interest in the bath room. And in spite of Washington's big gest building boom, last summer, finding place to live is still the biggest problem.
 Supplying the help won't be quite so tough for this war as it was for the last. Civil service has anticipated the demand and filled its reservoir, for one thing, and there are more unemployed to draw from. In 1917 harried ex- aminers gave tests all day and all night graded the papers and told those who had passed to report for work within "A hours. This time, the shortage has been anticipated, but getting people here and put ting them to work is one thing. Finding a place for them to live is another. Nobody thought of that, but maybe prefabricated knock down houses will do the trinlD