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Show SHAKING PUBLIC MORALE One cardinal principle of our kind of government is that public officials should treat the people with perfect frankness. frank-ness. American citizens are entitled, to all the facts, except those which constitute actual military secrets. Are the American people being accorded frankness? The gasoline and automobile situation raises this question. The American motorist is completely up in the air as to the future of car transportation. lie has heard countless varying reports. lie has read conflicting statement after conflicting statement from high Washington officials. He is told, on the one hand, that gasoline rationing is necessary because a lack of various means of transportation makes it impossible to deliver normal supplies. He then hears that the storage tanks are running over with gasoline even in rationed ra-tioned areas, and that civilian consumption is really being reduced in order to conserve tires and cars. Next he reads an official statement that the government may soon have to requisition his tires and his car. Before the ink is dry on that report, he hears over the radio that such drastic action is not contemplated. Then to top it off, the next news report re-port from Washington says it is hoped that experiments now under way will produce a tire that will keep the cars rolling, etc., etc. ' The citizen is lost in a welter of confusion. He doesn't, know whether he is going to have gas or even a car next week or next month or next season. He doesn't know whether the synthetic rubber and the rubber-reclaiming programs pro-grams are going well or badly. And nothing is harder on public morale than this kind of indecision, because it undermines under-mines confidence in , leadership and governmental management. |