Shirt on Your Back

OPA last week tried to revive two major civilian war casualties. The casualties: children's low-priced clothing, and cheap rayon and cotton clothes for adults. Both have disappeared almost completely from the market because of OPA's regulations. Under them, manufacturers can make more money by finishing "grey goods" (rough, unbleached cloth) into fancy-looking materials, such as splashy prints, than by finishing it into plainer cloth for cheap clothes. What cheap goods there are for sale are so poor in quality that they will scarcely survive one wartime laundering.

Less Profit. OPA Boss Chester Bowles admitted all this as he gave out OPA's new plan. The complex pricing system on infants' and children's inexpensive clothes will be reduced to a dollar-&-cents basis which any housewife can understand at a glance. Furthermore, manufacturers will get a smaller percentage of profit as the fanciness of the finish increases. Thus, the incentive will be to turn out cheap instead of expensive goods. Bowles estimates that this will save consumers $17,000,000 a year on cotton goods, another $21,000,000 on rayon. And it will distribute between the manufacturer, the jobber and the converter the 5% boost in the cost of cotton goods caused by the amendment of cotton-loving Senator John H. Bankhead to the Stabilization Extension Act (TIME, Oct. 9). In addition, OPAster Bowles hopes that most clothing prices will be rolled back 1.5%. But the main goal is to keep them from rising higher while giving the public something to buy.

Shuttling Operators. One big hitch is that the cheap cotton goods will probably not be on the market till next spring or summer. Whether their quality will measure up to OPA hopes, no one can say. For although specific standards of material and workmanship were set for the first 30,000,000 children's garments which will be made under the new plan, enforcement is probably tougher in the textile industry than in any other field.* A complex business, its operators can weave in & out of regulations as deftly as a shuttle on a loom.

But this time, OPA is backed by WPB, whose potent weapon is its power to allocate cloth. WPB is ready to divert materials to manufacturers who will agree to turn out cheap clothing. They have already allocated 40,000,000 yards to make the infants' and children's clothes called for under the OPA plan.

*But last week Pacific Mills of Lawrence, Mass, paid OPA a fine of $2,165,842.02, the biggest cash settlement for alleged ceiling violation in the history of the Price Control Act. The company denied any violations, but paid the fine to avoid "expensive and energy-consuming litigation."

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