Me I'll Take Care Of

Shoe rationing started the rumor that clothes rationing was coming. Fed on fear and selfishness, the rumor grew fast and fat. By this week it had snowballed into a buying wave that no denial from Washington could stop; department-store sales averaged up to 100% above this time last year; soft-goods counters were stripped bare; women went hog-wild over anything wearable at any price, of any style.

> One Cleveland shopper ordered 75 pairs of stockings. Another got four coats, sizes 10, 12, 14, 16, for her growing daughter.

> A Los Angeles matron bought 16 dresses, four suits, three coats, the cheapest $69.95. One hefty customer grabbed a size-12 dress off a rack, told the salesgirl: "Yes, I'm too big for it, but I can always find someone to buy it from me if I can't have it altered."

> A Pittsburgh shop sold $30,000 worth of coats in a day.

> A New York greybeard ordered the whole stock of suits a Fifth Avenue firm had in his size. Another man tried to buy all the size-32 shorts in a store. A girl bought 27 pairs of white cotton gloves.

Store executives faced the flood with bitterness. Said one: "The American public has not yet decided to do without things during the war." Said another: "Patriotism? Sense? Everywhere it's me--me I'll take care of."

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