Jimmy Gets Going

Justice James F. Byrnes, warming up to his new job as head of the Office of War Mobilization, made news pop like a string of firecrackers. At his first press conference--generally a time of exuding good will and generalities--he was ready with four crackling announcements:

> First off, to disclaim any political ambitions. (Said he, of one rumor: "I have no ambition to be Vice President; I would not want to be Vice President; under no circumstances would I seek the nomination for Vice President.")

> He had appointed Elder Statesman Bernard M. Baruch as his personal adviser.

> He would move squarely into the tax situation by "conferring"--an obvious euphemism--with Treasury officials.

> He hoped to work closely with Congress, yet cut down overlapping investigations.

All Washington agreed that Jimmy Byrnes's new powers are ample, that the President expects him to boss the home front. Now came signs that Byrnes, unlike too many timid czars before him, really intended to use his powers.

Boss's Blueprint. By week's end Jimmy Byrnes had determined on a six-point program. Some points were a matter of record, others just a gleam in his shrewd blue eyes. Together, they presaged the most drastic Federal action yet taken to untangle the home-front snarl:

1) Coordination of all Washington's rambling and often conflicting agencies, with his office as the nerve center. (One of his first directives invited all his lesser czars to dump their troubles on his desk.)

2) Closer cooperation between administrative agencies and Congress.

3) Attempts to iron out production "bugs" and smooth the flow of raw materials. (To succeed at this, Jimmy Byrnes will have to work hard on WPB.)

4) Quick arbitration, by OWM, of conflicts between civilian supply and Army-Navy needs.

5) A united Administration front on the tax problem, thus far plagued by intramural fights over compulsory savings and sales taxes.

6) Elimination of some of the red tape that strangles Government action.

These jobs had been crying for a taker for three years. By recognizing that they are OWM's plain duty, Byrnes pointed his new agency aright. And by giving a formal job to aged Bernie Baruch he had started with the right kind of help.

Bernie Baruch ran the famed War Industries Board in World War I, showed such a grasp of total war that the German military men later wrote of his handiwork in awe. In World War II, from his favorite bench in Lafayette Park across from the White House, he has been an informal adviser to Franklin Roosevelt and many members of the war cabinet. But not until this week--except for his brief tour of duty investigating the 1942 rubber scandal--did Bernie Baruch lose his unofficial status. He will still serve without pay or title.

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