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Show was needed. So far, the war Production Pro-duction Board has not succeeded in achievnig really efficient harnessing harn-essing of materials. ment some months ago after the other governmental information bureaus had made an almost complete com-plete failure of the job. So far, Mr. Davis doesn't seem to have been able to make a great deal of headway. But, according to reliable re-liable reports, he is working stubbornly, stub-bornly, and is determined that eventually the American people shall be promptly and truthfully told everything it is possible to telt them. He is said to have the ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS National and International j Problems Inseparable : Some of the most effective criticism of the government in its handling of the war effort has been based on the theory that there has been a definite and lamentable la-mentable lack of frankness in telling the people what is going on. Many officials, this argument runs, seem to regard the people as children, from whom unpleasant unpleas-ant truths must be kept. One of the most common sayings in Washington circles today is that "the people aren't awake." The defenders of the people say that the people are more completely awake than a good many of the bigwigs in government and that the extent of popular bewilderment bewilder-ment as to the course of the war is directly attributable to a stupid stup-id kind of censorship. In the newspaper fraternity, a peak of disgust was reached during dur-ing the long drawn out trial of the eight Nazi saboteurs. The high Army officers who made up the trial court seemed to work on. the principle that the people should be told absolutely nothing. noth-ing. Not until the strongest kind of pressure was brought to bear were newspapermen even permitted per-mitted to view the trial chamber. cham-ber. And even then they were allowed in for only a few minutes min-utes and the presiding General stopped all proceedings until they had left. That is simply one example out of many that could be cited. There has been much criticism Of what some authorities regard as the refusal of the Navy to tell the whole truth about Dutch Harbor Har-bor and the occupation of certain Aleutian Islands. And lately, a San Francisco Judge brought serious se-rious charges against the ranking Army General in the Far West. Defenders of this General say that, in truth, he has done a first-class job, and they have much evidence to substantiate that. But again, as Time phrased it, ' "The trouble seemed to lie in the Army's tell-the-people-nothing attitude.'' There are obvious difficulties in the way of deciding precisely what information would be of benefit to the enemy, and so must , be suppressed and what can be told the public fully and frankly. But it seems virtually certain that in a long series of incidents the military authorities have leaned over backward to an extraordin-! extraordin-! ary extent in refusing to release j news which, according to the American tradition. should and must be told. And the fault is by no means confined to Army i and Navy authorities. Time and I time again, various non-military ! officials of the government have made completely conflicting statements state-ments about the same subject as, the oil, rubber and automobile problems. Under those circumstances, circum-stances, it's no wnoder that a very considerable ' part of the population is lost in a welter of main hope tor ironing out i this unfortunate business lies in Elmer Davis, the cool and canny . head of the Offce of War Information. Infor-mation. Mr. Davis, it will be recalled, re-called, was given his appoint connaence oi zne president, ana he isn't frightened by either the . military or the civil brass hats. j In the meantime, Mr. Davis' OWI is apparently doing the best job possible undr the" circumstances. circum-stances. On August 8, it issued a statement on the war situation which is hearteningly different from the usual Federal publicity ' releases. The statement is not glowingly optimistic. It isn't full of high-sounding phrases. Instead, it is simple, factual and impressive. impres-sive. It points out that so far our Allies have done most of the ' fighting, and that this state of I affairs can't continue indefinitely, j On the subject of production, it j says that "we have done pretty ! well, but not well enough." It ob- serves frankly that "we could lose this war" and that it's going to take an infinitely greater effort ef-fort than we have so far made to win it. And it says one thing that every American should re-membr: re-membr: "We are fighting fanatical fanatic-al men out for world domination and we can beat them only if we want to beat them as badly as they want to beat us." In conclusion, it's a reasonable guess that, in the future, the American people will gradually get more and more accurate information on all the phases of the war than they have had before. be-fore. There is a definite and growing movement against unnecessary un-necessary and unreasonable censorship, cen-sorship, either direct or indirect. And there is a growing feeling that John Jones, who must do the fighting, working and paying that total war demands, is entitled to every fact, good or bad, which would not be of real aid to the enemy. You can look for greater governmental gov-ernmental control over the production pro-duction and flow of raw materials mate-rials of all kinds. This control will be exerted by the War Production Pro-duction Board. The very heart of the mass-production mass-production system is rigorous contrlo of this kindfl In peacetime peace-time we made better and cheaper cars than any other country ' made because the auto industry had developed an astonishing system sys-tem whereby every part, from a it was needed at the moment it Ecrew to an engine, arrived where |