Why Not Stay Home?

Colonel John Monroe ("Steamboat") Johnson, director of the Office of Defense Transportation, pushed his way through the milling mob jampacking the lobby of Chicago's Hotel Stevens. The farther he had to push, the madder he got; almost everyone he bumped was wearing some convention badge. Near the crowded elevators, his eye fell on the long list of conventions and meetings on the bulletin board. This was more than ODT's boss could bear. He roared: "There are more damn conventions in Chicago this week than there should be in the entire country!"

In Chicago during October some 85 conventions were scheduled. Samples: Interstate Post Graduate Medical Association of North America (3,000 attendance); Small Brewers' Committee (150); American Dental Association (300); American Train Dispatchers Association (200); American Bakers Association (300); Grand Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons of Illinois (200).

Johnson had traveled the 770 miles to Chicago to attend a two-day meeting of U.S. railroad men. Their agenda: how to handle the increasing load on the railroads.

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