A Matter of Conscience

Diagnosing the U.S. state of mind repeatedly for 39 wartime months, Government officials of all ranks and stations have almost always discovered alarming symptoms: jitteriness after Pearl Harbor, overconfidence after the drive across France, a lamentable tendency to spend money on whiskey instead of on war bonds. With a mixture of guilt and frustration peculiar to the civilian soul in wartime, the nation was willing to admit that its patriotic conscience was not completely clear. But last week--while dutifully opening its mouth for the latest dose of official criticism--the vast patient could not stifle a groan of protest.

There was nothing so terrifying about the newest pill: Jimmy Byrnes's midnight curfew on bars, nightclubs, theaters, and other places of entertainment. In most U.S. cities bars close by 1 a.m. and most U.S. citizens go to bed betimes, anyhow. Even on those it most directly affected--nightclub owners, entertainers and swing-shift workers--the curfew would work no insurmountable hardships. But many a U.S. citizen asked suspiciously which home-front ailment the curfew was designed to cure.

Still, Small Voice. To thousands the official explanation--that the curfew was designed to save coal, manpower and transportation--was simply bunk. Mumbled a Chicago barfly: "Turn off the furnace and let us drink in our overcoats." Everywhere citizens pounced gleefully upon a shattering rebuttal: "It's going to be summer pretty soon."

The truth about the Byrnes order was that it was mostly psychological, in orgin and intent. Last October Assistant President Byrnes went to Europe and got religion about the war. The curfew was a Byrnes attempt to operate the U.S. conscience.

And Texas Too. In San Antonio, Texans asked if the curfew applied in Texas too, and many added: "If it does, we'll just have to start getting drunk an hour sooner next Saturday." The only ordinary citizens who would really be inconvenienced were swing-shift workers. Many of them thought their lives were uncomfortable enough anyhow; there is something chronically annoying about working from 4 in the afternoon until midnight.

Swing-shifters go after recreation in the small hours of the night, and in war-boom cities, dancehalls, bowling alleys, cinemas and skating rinks have swing-shift hour periods. Last week a Los Angeles aircraft local of the United Automobile Workers protested to Byrnes: "We seriously feel this order will retard production . . . rather than speed it."

How would the War Manpower Commission enforce its curfew? Most WMC offices did not know. Said an official in Seattle: "The curfew shall ring, but for whom the bell tolls we know not." Most police forces eyed the new rule without enthusiasm.

Days of Indecision. New York's Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia hurried off to Washing ton, D.C. to find out what it was all about. Returning, he refused at first to say whether it would be enforced in New York City or not. Manhattan's hundreds of nightclub, bar and restaurant operators who customarily stay open until 4 a.m. on week nights, 3 a.m. on Saturdays, hoped for a reprieve. Cried Billy Rose: "The Mayor doesn't like it. If he did he'd be jumping all over the lot shouting hooray for it." Said the Mayor: "Billy Rose is a showman--he uses such terms as colossal and terrific."

At week's end the mayor ended all the hopeful cheering by announcing his considered decision--the curfew would stand in New York. And everywhere else--in Reno, where gambling houses had stayed open all night, in Chicago. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami--night spots decided to observe it. In the comparative calm which followed this reluctant acceptance, a Detroit bartender gave the new rule a name. "First we had the race tracks closed," he said. "Then we had the brown out and now we've got the Byrne-Out."

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