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Show Washington, D. C. CLOTHES RATIONING AVERTED Few people know how close the country was to clothes rationing a few months ago, at the peak of the war. The key figure who helped prevent pre-vent it was shrewd Pittsburgh department de-partment store wizard Irwin Wolf.. Wolf and WPB boss Donald Nelson Nel-son held several conferences on the problem, at which Wolf pointed out that retailers, worried about shortages, short-ages, were buying all the clothes in sight, and hoarding huge amounts of one item while having no stocks of other goods. Finally, Nelson asked Wolf to sit down with Joseph Weiner, head of the civilian supply section of WPB, John Davidson, representing the wholesalers, and Earl Reed, another key WPB official. After going over several involved proposals, they re-, tired from the conference room and drafted a simple order which limited lim-ited all retailers to the same amount, of "stock they had during the previous pre-vious year. The proposal was immediately imme-diately adopted by Nelson, and clothes rationing was avoided. Nelson now calls Wolf's plan "one of the saviours of the civilian supply situation in the U. S." NOTE One effect of Wolf's program pro-gram is that merchants will carry over only small amounts of "ersatz" merchandise in the postwar period,: will hot be stuck with poor-quality merchandise to unload on the money-flushed public. AFTERMATH OF V-DAY The White House has just received a confidential report showing that 66.4 per cent of American families have saved only 11.6 per cent of the money put aside by the nation during dur-ing war time. In other words, the upper one-third bracket of the people tucked away 88.4 per cent. The same report points out that, immediately after V-day in Europe most plants which continue operating operat-ing will cut overtime, thus dropping wages from 15 to 25 per cent. One, of the problems officials face is a; wild rush to cash war bonds, not for lush spending, but for bare necessities of workers in middle, and lower-income brackets. All these figures now have President Presi-dent Roosevelt concerned about what will happen in the first weeks immediately after the war. The president's economic advisers are telling him that continued prosperity in the postwar period will require his greater personal attention to domestic problems. They figure that, K the nation can successfully come through the first few weeks after the armistice, ar-mistice, then the demand for peacetime goods, long denied the public, will pick np national prosperity. However, the first weeks of readjustment are going to be tough. DOLLAR-A-TEAR MEN The full effect hasn't yet percolated perco-lated down from the top but, before he left for China, Donald Nelson signed a new set of rules governing the appointment of and the continued employment of WPB dol-lar-a-year men. It has been felt first in the textile, clothing and leather divisions but gradually is beginning begin-ning to result in changes elsewhere in the agency. Dollar-a-year appointments for the war emergency period were okayed by the White House four years ago, the appointments to be made at the discretion of the agency chiefs without with-out regard to existing law. Criticism Criti-cism of the early dollar-a-year appointments ap-pointments gradually resulted in a tightening of the policy, but Nelson never really put his foot down until 'ast month. Major dynamite in the order is Nelson's pronouncement that aNo person may be employed on a dollar-a-year basis who would be required by his position posi-tion on the War Production board to make decisions directly direct-ly affecting his own company or its competitors." The same section bans dollar-a-year employment em-ployment of all lawyers, all trade association officials, members mem-bers of WFB industry advisory committees, or any individuals convicted of anti-trust violations. viola-tions. Dozens of dollar-a-year men within with-in WPB are daily called upon to formulate policy affecting their own industries, and consequently their own companies and competitors. At the same time, Nelson's order does not reach the even more serious problem of salaried employees in a position to make decisions affecting the companies from which they came to the government or to which they will go when they leave Washington. MERRY-GO-ROUND ft Jesse Jones, at the age of 70, has just com through a major operation, opera-tion, now appears to be in better health. C. Maury Maverick, who had spent a lot of time in France during World War I but saw little of its culture, cul-ture, can be given credit for the army's plan to supply competent guides to conduct servicemen on tours of historic monuments not only in France but in Egypt, Greece and every part of the world immediately im-mediately after the armistice. |