The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-10-09

E$ M reOrganlZa [ l 0 n
 was the White
 RA.om House. Severa.
 months ago Nell son proposed the appointment o1 General Electric's President Charles E. Wilson as vice chairman of WIPE in charge of production.
 The idea was turned down. It was September before the Wilson ap- Ipolntment could be cleared and the WIPE reorganization begun from the top down.
 Unofhcially, one of the reasons that may have held up the appoint ment of Wilson to WIPE may have Eeen the fact that WIPE already had in. a top job Wilson's boss. G. Els chairman of the board Philip D. Reed, then chief of industry branches. Reed got all involved in the famous Guthrie case, in which Reed was charged with de- laying conversion of private indus try to war production.
 Nelson backed Reed but in the end Reed was relieved of his Washington job and sent to Lon don as deputy representative of the combined production and re- sources board of the U. s. and Great Britain. With Reed out of the picture, the way may have been cleared for the Wilson ap- pointment.
 RETAILERS CONFORMING
 Thus far, there has been no great rush of suits filed against re- tailers by citizens seeking to collect treble damages or $50, whichever is greater, for being charged prices in excess of ceilings set by general maximum price regulation.
 This provision of the law went into effect July 30, six months after the new price law went into effect. In one of the first suits, 8 man in Baltimore collected $50 for being overcharged 2 cents on a tube of toothpaste.
 ! Idea of this seemingly drastic provision was to stop chiselers. It was at first feared that filing of these suits might become a racket for shyster lawyers and chronic nuisance suit filers, but it hasn't worked out that way.
 Conclusion of OPA officials is that observance of their price regulations has in general been extremely good, or else consum- CTS don't take time to check.
 Amazing stories continue to pile up on the size of Washington s new Pentagon building, which is to be Army headquarters. This weeks prize goes to John E. Haines of Minneapolis. Minn., who came down to Washington to check up on the work of 34 steam filters and three engineers who were installing air conditioning controls in the 25 miles of offices which Pentagon contains.
 Haines went to the building and got his pass without trouble. Con- tractors and engineer officers did not know where the steamfitters were working, but they knew they were there. Haines went to the fourth floor and walked Its miles of corridors, inspecting the air conditioning control installations as he went along.
 But he didn't find his 34 steam filters and three engineers. Then he made the rounds of the third floor with the same result. Then the second floor. then the first. He was in the building all day. from g in the morning to 5 at night. He found that the controls he was sent to inspect were right. But he never did find his workmen, so he went back. to Minneapolis. NO SUGAR INCREASE
 Chances of an increased sugar ration are said to be slim. Secre- tary of Agriculture Claude A. Wick ard has reduced the estimates of the sugar stockpile from 26 million tons to 2.1 million tons-a drop of bil- lion pounds.
 Real tipoff on the sugar situa- ton, however, is the fact that the governments interdepartm t a sugar committee, made up of rep- resentatives from WIPE. OPA. War Shipping Administration, Com- merce, Interior and Agriculture. is negotiating for the purchase of the Puerto Rican crop for this year, and possibly for the Cuban crop of next year.
 Not only will this winter in Washington be colder, because of fuel oil rationing, but next sum- mer in Washington will probably be hotter, because of the threat ened seizure of many air condi- tioning units in public buildings. War Production Board people are now considering the necessity of moving the big air conditioning units into war plants where tenn. perature control Is important to ef- ficient manufacturing.
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 Bottleneck history of the war In three Ms:
 ieli--Machine tools.
 l042-MaterialG.