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Show Wimttm KAJ Iy DRkw Pears an Washington, D. C. SHOE FIGHT ' A hot fight is raging backstage ' Between the WPB and the OPA over , shoe leather. Inside fact is Unit 1 Me Ehoes you are wearing are interior in-terior not entirely because the best ' eather is rightfully being allocated ;o the armed forces. That is only part of the story. i i Another reason why your shoes J are inferior and your shoe bill higher high-er is that certain' Industry moguls n WPD's leather andshoe branch , lave been blocking a program to 1 prolong the wear of civilian shoes jy the application of wax and oil .rcatments to soles. The process :osts only two or three cents a shoe, but many manufacturers don't ike it because it isn't flossy enough. They say that consumers prefer hoes with a high, light polish on Jie sole, though they admit that .his polish robs the sole of some of its wearing quality. Bureau of Standards experts have : estifird at hearings of the senate ivar-mobllliatlon committee, headed 9y West Virginia's Sen. Harley Kil-;ore, Kil-;ore, that the use of oil (by actual , '.est) prolongs the life of shoes 14 , j ler cent, while soles treated with j ivax preparations last from 30 to 41 J ler cent longer. i I This has been corroborated by ' .eading industry spokesmen, lnclud- ng Paul C. Wolfer, a vice prcsl-icnt prcsl-icnt of the Douglas Shoe company, I a ho is a consultant In the standards I iivision of the OPA. Wolfer not : Dnly urged general adoption of oil-! oil-! ax treatments but intimated that ; :he government should crack down ' j m the shoe industry and require it. I In addition to cutting down the ! nation's shoe bill, another factor , ; Wolfer emphasized was wartime :onservatlon of leather. So far, however, how-ever, the OPA has made little progress prog-ress in selling the oil-treatment idea ,o the WPB. Some manufacturers aave adopted the sole treatments voluntarily, but only on a very limited lim-ited scale. The big shoe companies, OPA :laims, are antagonistic. In this, ihey have the potent backing of the WPB's leather and shoe branch, leaded by Lawrence B. Sheppard, a vice president of the Hanover Shoe company. Before the Kilgore committee, Sheppard expounded at length on "manufacturing difficulties . . . lack ot conclusive tests,", and other objections ob-jections to a government order requiring re-quiring the oil treatment of soles. His statement was effectively contradicted con-tradicted by other witnesses, who brought out that tests had been adequate ade-quate and that facilities for sole ;reatments could be installed throughout the country with little difficulty and at small cost. NOTE: The Kilgore committee has finally sent a hot note to Donald Nelson demanding that he Issue an order to compel the general adoption adop-tion of sole treatments by shoe companies. DESK ADMIRALS The navy is doing a magnificent job whenever it goes into action in the Pacific, but members of the Truman Tru-man committee are not convinced that this is true of all the desk admirals ad-mirals or their flunkies in Washington. Washing-ton. Among other things, they are casting a curious eye at the manner in which Adm. Ernie King and his staff preserve the myth of being "at sea" when actually they sit at desks in Washington. To make the myth more realistic, Admiral King lives most of the week on a yacht in the Potomac. It is a small yacht and his multitudinous staff has no room to live there with him. However, they draw extra pay for the hazards of life "at sea." So when payday arrives, the paymaster pay-master carries a satchel down to Admiral King's yacht to pay off the staff. The paymaster knows full well that the men are not on the yacht. However, he goes through this ritual, then comes back from the yacht to the navy department, where he finds the men and give them their pay. STEEL-WAGE DISPUTE Hard-working Will Davis, chairman chair-man of the War Labor board, is haying hay-ing a tough time selecting a panel to settle the vital question of wages in the steel industry. He proposes a panel of three, one representing labor, one the steel industry, one the public, with three alternates. But though he has called up all sorts of people and literally begged them to serve, their patriotism seems deficient when it comes to labor disputes. Meanwhile, the steel companies, faced with retroactive pay for whatever what-ever wage decision is finally banded down, are getting restless. MERRY-GO-ROUND C,New Mexico is more aroused over the Bataan atrocities than any other oth-er state, because the entire New Mexican National Guard, being able to speak Spanish, was sent to the Philippines and those who survived j were captured there . . . FDR may i have a hard time carrying the state. C. "The Shortest Route to Japan" is the slogan of the Korean Affairs In- j stitute, which has just openeti of ! flees in Washington. It is urging I use of Korean bases onlv 600 miles from Tokyo. |