The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1942-01-27

on January /, 1912, as being just
dandy And the Honorable Archi-
bald MacLeish, poet librarian of
Congress who also heads Office of
Facts and Figures, now confeSseS
OFF will have to issue more in
formation than he thought.
So here you have another gov
eminent press agency setup, a top,
sugar-duper, high hat press agency
working amid the scholarly stacks of
the Library Of Congress, employing
"a people already, though not yet
fully stated and doing a question
able job. 1t Is safe to say ma
jority OF the working newspaper cor
respondents IN Washington who
have most Of the direct dealings
with these government press offices,
can't understand and don't appre-
ciate. Here is war boondoggling on
a scale as yet undreamed Of.
THREE MONTHS
TO PERFORM
| If this is an unfair opinion shot
from the lip 1t is only because all
the activities of OFF don't meet the
eye. From brown October to bleak
mid January is three months OF
chill weather in which the head
should be reasonably clear even in
| Washington, and in that time from
one to "a people working in the Lib
rary OF Congress should be able to
bring forth something pretty tangi-
ble-or what is this much Wanted
productive capacity of the Arsenal
of Democracy, anyway?
If OFF has produced other stuff
OF WarsecretS nature which can't
be revealed, okay-let it live. But if
| its labors to date are what meet the
eye--a fancy table of organization
including divisions labeled Bureau OF
Intelligence, Bureau of Liaison,
Bureau of Operations and Bureau of
Production, plus paper-bound
tract of rehashed pap-then by all
means let it 90 tie way of the other
war dodos, OPM, SPAB, NDMB.
NDAC, and the like.
From its very inception, this Office
of Facts and Figures has operated
behind seven wells of mystery. No
one understood clearly, what it was
to do when set up by the president.
The distinguished director of OFF,
shutting between Two Offices and be-
hind three secretaries, became one
of the hardest men in Washington
to see. And for three months the
puzzle in Washington was, what is
OFF for?
Full blame for OFFS first BRAIN
child, this pamphlet Report to the
Nation" should probably not be
placed on the iambic pentameter
brow of the director. President
Roosevelt asked for it on December
2. All right, he got it. It's his.
HONEYED
REHASH
The pamphlet is being mailed to
newspaper editors OF the country
and no doubt excerpts of it will APP
pear in various places. AS a matter
of fact, OFF has thoughtfully pre-
pared three-part, 5000 word boil
down of the original text which
should be handy for filler. The full
text is simply a repetition of the
pretty facts and great expectations
you have read in your newspapers
for the last 10 months or more.
None of the ugly facts appears. You
will search these 60-odd pages in
vain for any mention of the waste
and inefficiency disclosed by the
Senate committee investigating ma
tional defense or the House Naval
Affairs Commute looking into eX-
cessivc profits.
One average second string reWrite
man on any newspaper, working
with nothing more than morgued
clippings, could have produced the
equal OF this Report to the Ma
ton" in less than a 40-hour non
overtime week. Yet the Office of
Facts and Figures, employing some
Of the supposedly best editorial
brains of the country and with the
full resources Of the Budget Bureau
to call upon, takes six weeks for this
one job alone. The cost of produce
tion in man-nours and dollars Is
undoubtedly tremendous, and the
result is B-minus term paper for
a sophomore course IN contemporary
history.
The booklet will have its uses. Pa
triotic spellbinders will find it
convenient source of trite facts, fig
ures and phrases including the one
which says that 1872 million Amer
leans now face the gravest crisis in
their history.
To give the opus full credit. there
is one phrase In the text which will
probably go down in history. 1t Is,
THE sun never sets on the men and
materials OF the Lease-Lend Act"
! The British should love this new