To Arms

Last week the U. S. economy was still far from armed. But it was far enough along for a fitting. A few plates and greaves fitted comfortably. Vast sections of the leviathan's flank were still naked, quivering freely. Here and there a real squeeze was felt, a gusset threatened to break. Items:

> N. A. M.'s President Walter Fuller reported progress in N. A. M.'s survey of production facilities. Of 20,000-30,000 manufacturers reporting, two-thirds as yet had no contracts or even subcontracts for defense. Yet they were prepared for them, "ready to abandon 'business as usual.' "

> Where the defense boom had hit, it hit hard. Steel production, near capacity for weeks, dropped off two points because of repairs, breakdowns, a few strikes. But orders piled up faster than ever. Detroit, knowing its days of unrestricted automaking were numbered, maintained production at an all-time February high.

> All this buying power sent department-store sales up 19% (over 1940) throughout the U. S. Prices continued creeping upward. Retailers and wholesalers bought ahead, piled up big inventories without a qualm.

> Eleanor Roosevelt's warning to housewives proved none too soon. At the New England Housewares Show in Boston, makers of aluminum ware could not promise deliveries, saw some of the business go to enamelware instead. In Chicago wholesale houseware sales fell off because of the metals shortage (aluminum, nickel, copper). For the same reason Westinghouse dropped three models of refrigerators. (In Manhattan Canada's Controller of Metals reported that Britain's civil use of aluminum had dropped to 2% of its pre-war volume.)

> While Jesse Jones talked complacently about his stockpiles of rubber, tin, manganese, etc., users of synthetic rubber (for gaskets, tubing, other specialties) found it very hard to get. Practically all the Neoprene Du Pont could make was going for defense.

> Although Wall Street stayed in the doldrums, the New York Stock Exchange reported that 577 of its 829 listed common stocks had paid dividends in 1940. Average return on average price: 5.7%. Headlined the Wall Street Journal: "Capitalism Is Not Dead."

> In Des Moines, over 1,000 farmers from the U. S.'s richest farm land gathered at the National Farm Institute to hear Henry Wallace, Claude Wickard, Dean Acheson, other Washington bigwigs speak for all-out aid to Britain, against the isolationism for which the Corn Belt has been famous. They were greeted with thoughtful, friendly applause. Said one farmer: "I'm in the cattle business, and I'm doing all right. But if importing Argentine beef is going to help our defense situation, let Argentine beef in."

With farmers, manufacturers and Government beginng to agree on policy, the U.S. economic air was heavy with change last week. All of them pointed in one direction: arms.

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