Evening star., 1942-06-21
War Cash Talks,
But Criticism Is
Just as Loud
WPB Officials Get
Roking in Congress,
More Toxes Needed
BY JAMES MARROW AND
WILLIAM PINKERTON,

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Wide World Business Writers
NEW YORK, June 20. Dollars
talked this week but not loudly
enough to drown out grim and criti-
cal voices.
Big shots" and dollar -a-year men
Of the War Production Board got a
raking in the sharpest criticism of
the agency since its creation last
January.
Meantime, Americans tried to make
up for past neglect by scurrying
around for rubber scrap and speak
ing of new oil pipe lines in punches.
Expenditures for armaments,
climbing to $1,000, ,000, 900 weekly,
meant $4,000 100000 would have
been spent in the fiscal year ending
this month and that in the coming
year the figure would climb to s70,-
00O, 900 900.
But, while the money torrent con-
tinued-all going out-the President
pointedly reminded the House Ways
and Means Committee that:
Continued delay in shaping the
proposed 81 billion dollar tax bill
was depriving the Treasury of SUBJ
stantial and badly needed revenue
and that taxation appeared to be
the only phase of the administra-
tions anti-inflation program def
nitely behind schedule.
Treasury Plan Shelved.
The President made the statement
a few hours after the committee had
pigeonholed the Treasury's latest rec
ommendation to limit the annual
net income of individuals to s25 900
and married couples to $4,000. after
deductions for taxes, contributions
and debt liquidation payments.
Donald NJ Nelson, WPB chief,
stepped into the tax picture by op-
posing the proposed "a per cent ex-
cess tax on corporations on the
grounds it might endanger the full
success of our war production pro-
gram"
That program, he said, is "over the
hump" but he warned that the
American people haven't even got
to the foothills" of the incon-
veniences, hardships and discom-
forts to be endured if the produc-
ton program were to be maintained
The criticism of Nelson's agency,
uble-barreled since it came from
both houses of Congress, was
sharper on the senatorial side.
A Senate committee said some
WPB dollar-a-year men were i'm
peding and delaying the production
program because of private interests
and called for change in men and
methods.
A House subcommittee exonerated
the dollar-a-year men of charge
they had used their jobs to further
their own business but said there
was abundant evidence of con-
fusion, red tape and the lack of a
clearly defined authority" in the
WPB.
Nelson Not Included.
Members of the Senate committee
made it clear their report meant no
reflection upon Nelson.
Senator Wheeler, Democrat, of
Montana, in a separate move, urged
appointment of a rubber car
having no connection with private
rubber or petroleum companies.
| He was one of three Senator'S
the others we're Smith. Democrat, OF
Sovth Carolina and Butler, Demo-
Graf, of Nebraska, who called on the
/ practdnt,t - sfhrooD tho yUpD hntfla
neck"
! Smith, asserting that all the WPB
officials handling the synthetic rub
Der program were big shots from
the various rubber companies" said
They are doing everything in
their power to keep their little play
houses from being upset-either now
or after the war"
Soon afterward a bill was being
prepared to put the rubber program
under an independent agency.
The Senators complaint against
the WPB came quickly after start of
the 16-day Nationwide rubber scrap
salvage campaign last Monday. The
drive may determine whether
motorists OF the Middle West must
undergo gasoline rationing along
with those in the East.
Plans Drive in Fats.
(The WPB, meanwhile, Informed
the Nations housewives that cam
paign would begin in July to get
them to save 500,000,00O pounds OF
wasted cooking fats yearly
Where only one pipe line to ease
the Eastern gas shortage seemed i'm
possible a few weeks ago because of
the need to conserve the steel, this
week two lines were assured and at
least one more was given the bless
ing of the House.
After the recent WPB approval of
a 550-mile Gall new steeD line from
Longview, Tex, to the Salem, ILL.,,
area, Petroleum Co-ordinator Harold
Ickes okayed another line in Florida
made of pipe dug up elsewhere)
from st. Joe to Jacksonville.
The House additionally gave the
nod to at least one more line from
Tinsley, Miss, to the Savannah, Ga,
area and approved construction Of
barge canal across Florida.