THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW THE nation began the long road back this week— back to a civilian, peacetime economy. Press and radio were filled with countless predictions, many of them conflicting and...
...Lend-Lease Foreign Economic Administrator Leo T. Crowley...
...Acting on the advice of Price, Truman ordered the end of all voluntary censorship by press and radio...
...Here, in greatly telescoped form, was the home-front situation one week after the end of hostilities: * * * Unemployment Wholesale cancellation of war contracts led to creation of an immediate unemployment problem, with the scope and duration depending almost entirely on what steps are taken in the next 60 to 90 days by business and Government to prevent the temporary decline from developing into a major depression...
...Michael M. Miller, psychiatrist at St...
...It was the first time in more than two years that the nation had a free labor market...
...Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO-PAC, estimated that 10,000,000 may be unemployed in six to eight weeks...
...Miller's views were vigorously challenged by members of Congress as "grossly untrue...
...The reports of the Army and Navy boards of inquiry into the Pearl Harbor disaster have never been made public...
...Although many wartime controls were ordered relaxed, President Truman announced that he would continue wartime labor, price, and inflation controls into the reconversion period...
...Joseph C. O'Mahoney, Wyoming Democrat who headed the famed TNEC investigation, as the most effective way to head off the greatest depression in history...
...Censorship Liquidation of the Office of Censorship headed by Byron Price was ordered immediately after Japan's surrender...
...Travel All curbs on taxicabs were abolished, as were the ban on state and local fairs and on conventions if they don't exceed 150 persons/Restrictions on civilian railroad travel were ordered kept, but may be relaxed soon...
...Arnold revealed that the Army and Government scientists had developed television-controlled bombs, automatic rockets that are drawn to their targets, and other "Buck Rogerish" weapons which have made obsolete many of the deadliest weapons of World War II...
...Veterans will be given preference when they apply to U. S. Employment Service offices for private employment, and will be granted a right-of-way to jobs on the Federal payroll...
...New Weapons...
...Home Front Transition Meanwhile, the Truman Administration moved on a variety of fronts to speed the reconversion process...
...We already have rockets that are drawn automatically to their targets by the presence of heat, light, or metal...
...Drinking...
...7, 1941, said last week: "The sooner the proceedings of this naval court of inquiry are published, the better I'd like it...
...Leading scientists, however, have predicted that it will be only a matter of a few years before other nations learn the secret and get into a position to manufacture their own atomic bombs...
...Rep...
...To meet some of the more urgent problems associated with the "human phases" of reconversion, the Administration this week summoned Congress back to session Sept...
...The second step in the State Department reorganization came when President Truman announced acceptance of the resignations of two Department weak sisters—Archibald MacLeish and Julius C. Holmes, both assistant secretaries who were appointed to their posts by Mr...
...Until further notice the Government's civil service system will receive applications for Government jobs from no one except veterans — Federal employes laid off from another agency...
...Robert Wagner, New York Democrat, called his Banking and Currency Committee into session this week to begin public hearings on the Full Employment Bill—the bill whose passage was demanded this week by Sen...
...The new super-bomber, he said, far surpasses the deadly B-29, and can range & more than 2^2 times further—or at least 5,000 miles...
...Rationing was halted on gasoline and stoves, but retained, for possibly several more months, on shoes and tires, although supplies of both are greatly in-> creased...
...Press and radio were filled with countless predictions, many of them conflicting and contradictory, on what lies ahead for America...
...Other Federal authorities put their guesses at 7,000,000 unemployed by Christmas and 9,000,000 in 1946...
...We dare not risk mass unemployment, for without full employment the capitalistic system will be rocked to its foundation...
...Secretary of Agriculture Anderson said he expected an earlyj end of meat rationing, perhaps in September...
...John W. Snyder, President Truman's top reconversion official, estimated the jobless at 5,000,000 in three months and possibly 8,000,000 by Spring...
...Army, Navy, and Marine spokesmen predicted discharge of 7,500,-000 men within the next 12 to 18 months...
...Only 10 per cent of all Congressmen drink "other than for social purposes," he said, and about 40 per cent drink socially...
...It is necessary, "in this final stage of the war economy," he said, to "assure the general stability of prices and costs and the maintenance of purchasing power which are indispensable to the shift of business enterprises from wartime to peacetime production and of individuals from wartime to peacetime employment...
...Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, who was relieved of his commander of the Pacific fleet after the Japanese struck Dec...
...Surely every student of modern history knows now that totalitarianism is the product of such crisis...
...In a general order to his home-front lieutenants, the President called for "a swift and orderly transition to a peacetime economy of free independent private enterprises with full employment and maximum production...
...He added, however, that "we plan to adjust our Lend-Lease program immediately...
...Net effect of this latter action was to authorize the granting of wage increases without reference to the Little Steel Formula if such increases do not mean an increase in prices...
...We cannot afford to drift...
...President Truman decreed that parties to labor disputes which interfere with reconversion shall be subject to the same penalties that were applied to disputes in war plants...
...Elizabeth's Mental Hospital, a Federal institution at Washington, D. C. Dr...
...Alcohol is a damaging factor in American legislation and diplomacy as a result of immoderate drinking by members of Congress and State Department officials, according to Dr...
...The time is coming," he said, "when we will not have any men at all in bombers...
...State Department Shakeup The late President Roosevelt's ill-conceived and ill-fated 1944 reorganization of the State Department became a dead-letter last week as Secretary of State James F. Byrnes reshuffled the Department's top 'personnel...
...He charged, too, that the State Department and U. S. diplomatic corps are "stuffy with drunks," and that foreign ambassadors find liquor to be the "most potent weapon in foreign policy when dealing with Americans...
...Louis L. Ludlow, Indiana Democrat, announced last week that as soon as Congress reconvenes he Will introduce a resolution calling on Administration officials to "exert their utmost efforts to secure a postwar agreement of the United Nations to ban the atomic bomb and to collaborate in developing it as an instrument of peace...
...H. H. Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, asserted last week that the U. S. has clinched world air supremacy with a new, as yet unnamed super-bomber, the atomic bomb, and other startling military developments...
...Miller, who is pioneering a new type of clinic for alcoholics, said "alcohol is a major factor in Congress and exercises a most damaging effect on legislation...
...announced that Lend-Lease will be continued to Allied nations now cooperating in the redeployment of U. S. military forces...
...Sparkman, Alabama Democrat, asserted that, like himself, "50 per cent of the members of Congress are teetotalers," and added that "there is no group of men in the U. S. with a higher degree of sobriety, excluding certain religious and temperance groups...
...Labor Controls Most of the wartime restrictions on labor remained -—in theory at least...
...Moreover, the President continued the authority of the War Labor Board over disputes and gave the WLB permission to permit non-inflationary wage increases...
...Rationing And Food OPA ordered the end of rationing of canned fruits, vegetables, and fuel oil, but kept the lid on meats, fats, oils, butter, and sugar for the time being...
...O'Mahoney declared, "the inevitable result would be an unemployment crisis that would dwarf all previous crises...
...Atom Control...
...Demobilization President Truman authorized Selective Service to reduce draft inductions immediately from 80,000 to 50,000 per month, with those taken limited "to the lowest age groups," probably under 26...
...Roosevelt last year...
...5. Meanwhile, Sen...
...Taxes There was no clear-cut program in sight, but Washington experts predicted that taxes will be reduced moderately by Jan...
...With the war in Japan ended," he wrote Secretary of the Navy Forrestal, "the explanation of military expediency, which Congress agreed to be desirable when the war was in progress, cannot be seriously urged for now keeping the matter secret...
...1 for all Americans...
...Army officials said they would release 120 million tons of coal in the next 12 months and that this should eliminate the expected civilian shortage...
...If the Government which planned our economy for the common defense should now neglect to plan for the general welfare," Sen...
...The WPB freed a tremendous amount of steel, copper, and aluminum for civilian production...
...Manpower The War Manpower Commission abolished all manpower controls immediately, leaving everyone free to go anywhere in search of a job or turn one down without threat of being drafted...
...Names And Notes In The News Pearl Harbor...
...Undersecretary of State Joseph C. Grew resigned to make way for Dean C. Ache-son, able, alert Department assistant who had earned the right to be second in command...
...Meanwhile, Canadian and British officials disclosed that the U. S. is the sole custodian of the manufacturing secrets of the atomic bomb...
...We dare not take a chance that the soldiers returning from this war will be unable to find jobs...
...David I. Walsh, chairman of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, this week called on »m« the Navy to give Congress a report of its investigation of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor...
...There were many guesses on the probable extent of unemployment...
...Even the riotous rejoicing of V-J- Day was clearly accompanied by a brooding concern about the future...
...Materials The War Production Board wiped out more than half of its 400 controls over materials that were needed for war...
...The people themselves were confused, hesitant, apprehensive...
Vol. 9 • August 1945 • No. 35
