The Pain and the Necessity

It is only human nature that the man whose whole life has been and will be in the trade should hesitate and hang back, that in a painful necessity he should see the pain more clearly than the necessity. So said the London Economist March 28, discussing British businessmen appointed to Government posts.

The same criticism has been flung at $1-a-year men in Washington. Last week it exploded again in a report of the Senate's Truman Committee.

Early this spring a certain Robert R. Guthrie resigned from a WPB post because, he said, WPB $1-a-year men generally were putting a brake on all-out war production by resisting all-out conversion of civilian industries to war work. In particular, Guthrie named Philip D. Reed, $120,000-a-year chairman of General Electric, $1-a-year head of the Bureau of Industry Branches. WP Boss Donald Nelson, embarrassed by the fuss, asked the Truman Committee to investigate.

No Divorce. The report came in; Nelson saw it with dismay. He asked Senator Truman to hold it back, protested that since the Committee had begun its sleuthing--in fact, even as Guthrie went away mad --conversion had ceased to be a problem. Civilian production had long since been sliced down, although consumers had not yet really felt it much. But Senator Truman, who likes sensations, was adamant. For greater efficiency in the future, he argued, WPB needed a shaking up anyhow. He issued his report.

The disgruntled Guthrie, the report said, had been dead right. There had been damaging delay. Generally at fault were the $1-a-year men, whose integrity was not questioned, but who had been, the report said in fancy language, "unable to divorce themselves from their subconscious gravitation to their own industries." Specifically at fault was Philip D. Reed, "with [whose] ability or accomplishments" the Committee was decidedly not impressed.

Purp, etc. Some of the explosion fragments nicked Nelson. The Committee, admitting that Mr. Nelson was doing a good job, said "Sorry."

Nelson would not abolish the $1-a-year system, but last week he was ready to joggle some elbows around WPB. That, reportedly, was one reason why he asked Truman to hold up his blast.

For more than a month, at Nelson's invitation, trim, grey-headed Dr. Luther Gulick, Federal trouble shooter, had been peering into WPB's innards. Dr. Gulick has already made recommendations: 1) to clarify authorities, sometimes so fuzzy now that industry branch chiefs are not sure whom they can fire; 2) reorganize the Production Requirements Plan ("Purp"), which after July 1 will finally be charged with the monstrous job of controlling all critical materials, from primary producer to factory.

Gulick's recommendations will probably be carried out within the next two weeks. Nelson, who always figured that his first job was to get industry converted in a hurry--with whatever makeshift machine he could put together--was ready to do some more tinkering to get his machine in high speed.

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