Blind Alleys

The U.S. citizen stumbled deeper into wartime's crazy house of shortages. Now he was hopelessly lost among the mirrored walls. What had looked easy began to look difficult-maybe impossible.

No more new tires? Then you recap. No-now there was no "camelback" for use in recapping, either, except for a few "essential" autos. But you still have your old tires. Well, maybe-but Leon Henderson hinted last week that the U.S. might requisition tires from private cars to keep doctors, police, defense workers rolling. Well, you can take a taxi. No-taxi tires wear out too"; taximen predicted they'd be off the streets in a few months.

Soon you would go by streetcar (if the tracks hadn't been torn up for scrap), buy a Victory bicycle-or you would walk. A Senate committee heard a forecast that 1,000,000 autos would be stranded by July; 12,000,000 by the end of 1943. Already used tires with a few thousand miles still in them were selling for $50 apiece in Phoenix, Ariz.

A new typewriter? Not unless your rationing board says yes.

A telephone? Yes; after some delay, and only if you haven't got one. But no changing old phones to other types or other locations ; no new extensions.

A radio, phonograph or refrigerator? Too bad; after present supplies run out, no more can be made.

A suit? All right-but only one pair of trousers, shorter coat, no trouser cuffs, tails, vents, belts, pleats, tucks, bellows, gussets, yokes or patch pockets. Suits will use some 26% less cloth. Civilians will get only 10-20% as much new wool as they got last year.

Clothes for your wife? All right-but with the same kind of skimping as in men's clothes; no patch pockets, no matching wool cloth hats, bags, three-piece suits; styles will have to conform to a basic "silhouette"; no more rubber for girdles, brassieres or false bosoms.

Do you want to swim? Not in your own pool-shortages of waterproof paint, of chlorine to purify the water. And less chlorine means more tattletale grey in the laundry.

Do you want to grow a garden? No; this time the Agriculture Department wants no radishy "Victory Gardens" in tindery back yards. Its advice to city dwellers: leave the gardens to fanners, sublimate the urge with flower boxes, spend the difference on Defense Bonds.

Do you want to knit for soldiers? Stop it; knit only if the Red Cross says so; wool yarn is precious.

In effect, the U.S. citizen could go stand in a corner for the duration. And even if he sat quiet, he must watch the lights to save electricity.

What to do? Eleanor Roosevelt had one answer in a hopeful Cosmopolitan magazine article. Take a vacation, said Mrs. Roosevelt; you need one in times like these.

But, remembering the war, ,the average citizen could not feel justified in weeping, either over this advice or over his own plight. There were no new pillows to cry in, anyway: WPB had ordered all duck and goose feathers reserved for the Army.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.