Shot in the Arm

Since World War II began, professional mourners have repeatedly hung crepe on the door of small business. But small business bullheadedly refused to die. Last week this stubborn survivor got a shot in the arm. Needle wielder was droopy-lidded, deadpan Robert Wood Johnson, boss of the Smaller War Plants Corp. The shot: a new plan for civilian production in small plants.

Fortnight ago, Johnson, who came to SWPC last January from Army Ordnance (which had drawn him from the presidency of Johnson & Johnson), turned in his commission as brigadier general, in order to devote his time to civilian business for smaller war plants. His reason: small war plants have got about all they can reasonably expect in war contracts.

From now on, the job of SWPC will be to get idle small plants humming on civilian items, which calls for a civilian chief.

Desk Policies. After 20 months of war, many small plants without war contracts are hanging on by their eyelids. Basis of Johnson's new plan is decentralization of SWPC control. Said he: "Policies generated behind a desk frequently do not fit conditions throughout the nation." To make certain that SWPC policies do meet the needs, Johnson has made the 14 SWPC districts in the nation virtually autonomous, has called in local retailers, bankers and credit men to do the spade work that should get idle small plants to work. (Best example of how the plan is working: Manhattan retailers found a surprising number of plants in their area which could increase civilian goods production tomorrow with materials already cached in Manhattan warehouses, where they have been frozen under a months-old WPB blanket freeze order.)

Last week, fast-moving Mr. Johnson, still trying to get some of these materials released by WPB while he looked for other caches, got substantial encouragement for his small business plan. WPB allocated 125,000 tons of steel in the next quarter, a boost of 25,000 tons over the current quarter, for the manufacture of such civilian items as bobby pins, needles, stoves.

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