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Show www Washington, D. C. I Vll'ST ON CIVILIAN GOODS Tho Truman commilleo Is about to Issue a report which will be good news to manufacturers, to say nothing noth-ing of the housewife who has been scrimping along with a worn-out refrigerator, re-frigerator, no washing machine and an electric Iron that blows out fuses. Tho Truman committee will recommend rec-ommend that the War Froduction board go much further than the army has been willing In restoring production of civilian goods. The committee will not urge anything near unlimited production, but it will point out the following important impor-tant facts: (1) War contracts are being cancelled can-celled at an increasing rate. The war department cancelled lO'i billions bil-lions In contracts as of January 31, while the navy cancelled 2Va bil-Uons bil-Uons up to February 5. This means more factories and more men available avail-able for civilian production. (2) Tremendous stockpiles of steel and other materials have been accumulated ac-cumulated far more than can be used for the war. Already aluminum alumi-num plants with a capacity of a half-billion pounds a year have been closed because the supply of aluminum alu-minum is so great. (3) The military was slow in curtailing cur-tailing civilian production. Now it is slow in letting the country get back to civilian production. Therefore, the Truman committee recommends that while we cannot "soon resume full-scale civilian production, pro-duction, we can produce limited quantities of a few score additional items classified as essential. " SOME REVEALING FIGURES The impending Truman committee commit-tee report will reveal that 100 big corporations hold 70 per cent of all the war orders; furthermore, these 100 first companies of the nation had only 30 per cent of the country's business before the war and the Roosevelt administration was supposed sup-posed to help the little fellow! Norman Littell, hard-hitting assistant assist-ant attorney general, will get a boost from the Truman committee for hurrying hur-rying up government payments to the farmers and others whose land was seized by the army and navy. The committee will recommend that all government purchase of land be handled by Littell. American labor doesn't look so bad when contrasted with British labor. The Truman committee will find, despite the national service act, long operating in England, there were 1,633 English strikes involving a manpower. loss of 1,676,000 man-days. man-days. Taking into account the larger larg-er population of this country, U. S. strikes were only .025 per cent worse than England even without a national na-tional service act. President Roosevelt didn't know it, but the Truman committee had prepared pre-pared some devastating evidence supporting him on one of the most controversial phases of the tax bill renegotiations of war contracts to recapture excess war profits. Nevertheless, all the members of the committee , except Mead of New York, Kilgore of West Virginia and Wallgren of Washington voted to over-ride his tax bill veto. LOUIS BROMFIELD, THE PROPHET Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard ts chuckling over a letter he has receivel from the Reader's Digest, signed by William Hard Jr., associate editor. It is the last, pathetic pa-thetic note of a correspondence begun be-gun last summer when the Digest published the Louis Bromfield article, arti-cle, "We Aren't Going to Have Enough to Eat." At the time, Wickard wrote to the Digest, refuting Novelist Bromfield, offering to write an article to tell the other side of the story and saying we would have plenty to eat. But the Digest declined to hear the other side. They confided privately to Bromfield Brom-field that they were embarrassed by reactions to his story, but publicly they stood on his gloomy forecast. He had said: "I would rather not think about next February. By then, most of our people will be living on a diet well below the nutrition level." February has now come and gone. People are eating well despite Bromfield. Brom-field. American farmers have written writ-ten the refutation. Actually, we have a greater accumulation of stored foodstuffs than at any time in history. his-tory. Wickard couldn't resist the temptation temp-tation to rib the Digest, and recently sent to Editor DeWitt Wallace a few figures about the overflowing granary. In reply, he received merely a short note from William Hard Jr., saying, "Mr. Wallace Wal-lace is home, fighting off a cold." MERRY-GO-ROUND ftEach day, White House reporters are given a list of the President's appointments, beginning usually at 10 a. m., with cabinet officers, military mili-tary and naval advisers, diplomats, congressmen or other callers. Recently, Re-cently, reporters were startled to note on the calling list: '"2:30 p. m. Mrs. Roosevelt." C.Reports from Bolivia Indicate that the new government, which the state department refuses to recognize, is becoming more and more entrenched. |