First Blow

Gasoline was now rationed in the 17 eastern States. The blow came with a flat, crunching impact that smashed the breath out of 8,500,000 people to whom the automobile had been the most luxurious of all necessities. Uneasily they had seen the blow coming. Now, when it came, some U.S. citizens took it badly. Many others, who would feel the pinch worse, took it in patriotic silence.

No Traffic. This week an observer in heaven would have seen in one spreading glance at the Eastern Seaboard that the greatest of all wartime changes yet had come to the U.S. For the traffic had shrunk to a trickle. All the great, wide, sweetly curved, excellently engineered highways were nigh bare of automobiles. Streets were almost empty. Red lights and green lights blinked mechanically on & off, but nothing stopped or scrambled on. Gas stations stood idle, and many gas tanks were dry. Parking lots stood empty in cities. Traffic cops had little to do.

X or A? OPA's sugar rationing had been clamped over the U.S. sweet tooth with hardly a twitch from the nerve. But now OPA's drill burred deep into the rawest nerve of the U.S. citizen. Getting to work and home again was a tough problem; getting shopping done and business trips made was suddenly a matter of elaborate planning.

The public immorality that went with bootlegging came back to the U.S., in one swift week. Citizens, thousands of them, chiseled or lied to their rationing boards, drove off with X cards and 6-3 cards-- giving them more than those who could not or would not think up reasons why they should be given preferential treat-ment during a war.

OPA's makeshift plan was based on an estimated 401,000,000 gallons thought to be available until July 1--a supply sufficient to give everyone the basic "A" ration of three gallons per week until then, if too many did not ask for more. Too many apparently did. The meek, mild Milquetoasts who took the basic "A" cards totaled only 20% in some areas, less than 25% in the 17 States as a whole. (Leon Henderson had figured on 337%.) Some favorite chiseling dodges:

> Owners switched cars and motorboats to commercial classifications in order to rate unlimited gas supply. Station wagons were listed as trucks and "ambulances."

> Hordes of officials and quasi-officials demanded X cards (entitling them to all the gas they wanted). A resident of Barnstable, Cape Cod purpled with rage when offered an A card, turned the card down and stalked off.

> People asked for B cards (for business) so that they could drive to work, even though public transportation was readily available. One man reported that he had an "allergy to trolley cars."

Not Cowed. In Washington, the people's representatives set the people no high example. Congressmen asserted their right to X cards, stood ready to fight any suggestion that they should sacrifice, too. A sly resolution by California's Senator Sheridan Downey asking Congress to waive "any special rights, privileges," raised a fearful storm, was crushed by a 62-to-2 vote. (Pepper of Florida was Downey's lone supporter.)

Senator Barkley trumpeted: "I do not propose to be cowed . . . intimidated. . . . Our constituents ought to send some honest men here if we cannot be trusted to buy only the gasoline we need in the performance of our duties. . . ."

Pain & Remorse. At week's end the hullabaloo subsided. The citizen closed his garage doors. The real sufferers took stock.

> Rationing boards braced themselves for a flood of appeals. Loudest wails came from salesmen accustomed to burning five to ten gallons a day in covering their territories. Best they could get was usually a 6-3 card, good for little more than one gallon per day.

> States worriedly computed their impending losses. New Jersey figured to lose $6,175,000 in gas taxes. Little Rhode Island, with a total annual budget of $17,700,000, expected to lose $1,000,000 in funds which it had counted upon from gas taxes, horse racing, summer tourists.

> Some 90,000 gasoline dealers, with deliveries to their pumps down 50%, figured their income had dropped 30% already, would go on down.

The Government took stock too, and then got a grip on its stick. A dawning fact was that trucks, not subject to rationing at all, could and probably would become the source of a rushing, illicit supply.

Upon all holders of B and X cards OPA turned an icy stare, ordered their names made public, promised an investigation of their applications, reminded them that they were liable to $10,000 fine and ten years in jail if they had represented their status falsely. They might even lose their cards. Suddenly remorseful, many a citizen hastened to return his high-rating card. In Nassau County, N.Y., citizens who thought it over coughed up 500 X cards. Motorcycle patrolmen stopped drivers, examined their cards. X and B card holders had to explain where they were going and why. Holders of A cards were not bothered.

A grim reminder came from WPB. Rubber, which had almost been forgotten in the uproar, might make the gasoline prob-lem academic. At the rate people had been riding around before gas rationing began, rubber was wearing out at the rate of 3 1/2% a month. For the sake of rubber, if not for the sake of gas itself, the whole country is likely soon to face gas rationing. Like the East, it will probably grouse a bit and chisel a bit, for men do not like to have their habits forcibly changed. But in no other country in the world does gas shortage mean half so drastic a change in the basic pattern of human life, and grousing and chiseling are far different things from a storm of opposition. There was every sign that, at its first real taste of the hardships of war, the U.S. people would give a good account of themselves.

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