The Daily Alaska empire., 1944-12-18
Forgotten Mothers
lWashington Postl

tWaSnlngton POSty
 baby crop of record dimensions has been one the major by-products of The trouble, believe it not is to get the newcomers clad It happens that of all the items of clothing those for young children in shortest supply, particularly in the low-end brackets Even superficial investigation will show startling contrasts. Women's dresses pecialy in the upper register, plentiful and cotton dresses, told retailing for $80 But it is a different story in the market for low-end children's garments survey recently conducted by the Office of Civilian Requirements of the WIPE found that the head of the list of goods in the textile field such essentials diapers training pants girls panties boys briefs, chdren's union suits creepers. The of the mothers is thus complete It has been assaling the of candidates at the recent election with such force that inquiry appears inevitable The members who dropping back the Capital full of the mothers grievances Thep will seek to know why retail stores able to fill less than 50 per cent of the demand for babies
 The culprit, far can make out, doesn't to be the Office of Civilian Requirements. OCR do nothing but recommend, and this it seems to Max, the OPA regulation which gives the manu- facturer the profit percentage on all textile items The result is that the economic pull is away from the low-end market If manufacturer gets the same percentage a hgh-prced garment, this is the item he is going to manufacture And he has been doing precisely that He has neglected to provide enough of the cheapest garments, which the low-end baby clothes, because the incentive is lacking. Thus the babies of America have been out ot luck, while the woman who wishes to spend $50 a cotton dress can get all the dresses she wants Our mothers let alone babies have been forgotten in the wartime bonanza
 Several remedies have been suggested for the parlous situation of the Nations offspring. The textile division of WIPE, which allocates the material to the textile mills might be reconstructed. Most of its members in the textile trade, and, of course they have common interest with it. revision of General Max might be undertaken. But with the so far advanced the time has arrived to attempt radical solution. This would be to combine OPA and WIPE There never any sense, anyway, in the separation of the two agencies and if MT Donald Nelson had not been eager to shed the functions he obtained under his first executive order there need never have been separate OPA. Neither in Britain Canada has there been any such division of the functions of pricing and programming They obviously belong together.
 Something certainly will have to be done to suage the mothers of this country who searching in vain for baby garments in stores which still have endless stocks of high-priced womens The present situation is thoroughly negotiable It pen alizes mothers with limited budgets-the very persons who entitled to first consideration in any control scheme. It encourages noncompliance and black markets. For the mothers with money clothe their babies, but at price, and the price in many cases isn't legitimate.