If Dollars Will Do It

If money and equipment were all that is needed to win World War II, the U.S. last week would have had the war wrapped up and salted away.

The House unanimously passed (352-0) a $43 billion Army appropriation bill for 1943, largest appropriation measure on record in any country. The largest single item ($11 billion) was for the Air Forces. The bill brought total U.S. military appropriations for World War II to a colossal $205 billion--$51billion more than the Government spent for all activities (including five other wars) from 1789 to 1940. Said New York's Republican Representative John Taber, who in other days was wont to stiffen with rage at the idea of even a million-dollar appropriation* : "Perhaps it will bankrupt us, but even that is unimportant compared with the necessity."

*John Tabor once roared so loud in wrath at the New Deal that he jarred free the clogged eardrum of Rep. Leonard Schultz, restoring his hearing (Time, May 20, 1940)

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