The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-08-19

ufacturers-Will get government as-
 sistance If they want it and a head
 start over big business in resum-
 ing the production of civilian goods. There is no question about the | legality of this move. The Smaller War Plants act, sponsored by Sena- tor James E.. Murray of Butte, Mont and his senate small business con- mittee, set up the SWPC in WIPE and charged it by law not only with "mobilizing the productive capacity of small business concerns in aug ment war production" but also with 'insuring that small business con- cerns will be utilized in the production of , materials for both war and essential civilian purposes" "DEGREE OF ESSENTIALLY"
 The important word here is "es- sentiap and, according to Gen. pardon-Mr. Johnson, everything in Washington is a matter of degree A, B or c; one, two or three and degree or essentiality" is the newest of the degrees. Thus, small business firm wanting to get back into the production of garbage pails or can openers or refrigerators certified as necessary by the Office of Civilian Requirements, it would have the degree of essentially nec- essary to get government help on contract.
 This marks an important transi- tion in the war production effort Heretofore, tFt Smaller War Plants Corporation las devoted all it's en- ergies to b-lping the little fellows get orders to make war materials. Now it i.5 to step into the field of civilian consumers goods, and 1t is possible there may be some scram- bling to get in on the ground floor of reconversion.
 Entrance of the SWPC into this kind of business is a curious devel- opment, and in way is an admis- sion that the corporation has ob- tained about all the war business it can for the little fellows. An OWI survey covering the first quarter of 1943 indicated that, of the concerns employing 125 people or less, only 58 per cent had war contracts, 10 per cent had been unable to get war contracts and 32 per cent had not tried to get war contracts because their products were not required for war or because their existing civil ian business was all they could handle.
 FEWER REQUESTS
 o c h iv, ,ofnt, me-" says Chairman Johnson "our figures or any others" Nevertheless. he points out that the number of requests for assistance coming into the SWPC offices are only fourth or a sixth of what they were orig inally, and this is taken as an indi- cation that the need of small busi- ness for assistance has declined pro- portionately, for the amount of busi- ness handled by SWPC is not the true index that it is doing it's job When SWPC has nothing to do, its job will have been done.
 Small business today is in good condition" says Johnson, with one reservation. Where there is suffer- ing, the suffering is acute. It is un- fortunate that in country needing full capacity production there should be any unused. We should, there fore, take advantage of the open ca pacity' of small business and put it to use"
 Putting this "open capacity" to work on civilian products is the SWPC idea for remedying this situa- tion.
 Just how these views coincide with those of Senator Murray's small business committee remains to be seen. There have been a number of executive sessions with Johnson on the job he has done, and some dissatisfaction with the results. The committee is to issue report next month. The general idea of having SWPC convert part of its energies to aiding civilian goods production at this time is understood to have been approved by Senator Murray and the committee