Short of War

When the U. S. again goes to war, three master agencies will rise overnight in Washington: 1) a Selective Service Administration, to draft man power; 2) a War Resources Administration, to draft and rule industry for the duration; 3) a Public Relations Administration, to mold the mass U. S. mind to the uses of war. Last week the top personnel of the Resources Administration was selected.

Without warning Assistant Secretaries Louis Arthur Johnson (War) and Charles Edison (Navy) suddenly announced the creation of a civilian advisory committee to work with the joint Army & Navy Munitions Board. Its personnel: Able Edward R. Stettinius Jr., young (38) whitehaired chairman of U. S. Steel Corp.; American Telephone & Telegraph's President Walter S. Gifford; Sears Roebuck's Brigadier General Robert E. Wood, who, as Acting Quartermaster General, directed U. S. Army purchases in 1918; able though little known John Lee Pratt, a retired vice president of General Motors; M. I. T.'s Physicist Karl T. Compton; Brookings Institution's Economist Harold G. Moulton.

These gentlemen, with others to be selected later, undoubtedly would head up the potent Resources Administration in wartime, through it would strictly control the production, financing, prices, labor of all U. S. industry. Their job in peace is to review the minutely detailed plans for industrial mobilization drawn up by the War & Navy Departments, bring to bear the imposing sum of their knowledge and experience to spot and correct any defects.

Omitted from their roster by his own desire--although it was announced that the committee would consult him--was aging, ailing Financier Bernard Mannes Baruch, who set up and headed the 1918 War Industries Board. Mr. Baruch's friend and Wartime coworker, Columnist Hugh S. Johnson, who months ago was ruled out of rearmament councils, called this "bumptious folly." Omitted from the official announcement was any explanation of the speed with which Mr. Stettinius, et al. were picked. Plans for allocating U. S. production could be almost as useful to warring friends of the U. S. as to warring U. S. Army & Navy.

Buried in the announcement was a notation that the Army & Navy Munitions Board, which coordinates peacetime plans for wartime procurement and up to now has reported to the Secretaries of War & Navy, hereafter would report directly to Franklin Roosevelt. Louis Johnson's sidetracked superior, Secretary of War Harry Hines Woodring, was inspecting the Panama Canal last week.

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