Word: bedrock
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...United Nations have already agreed on lots of blueprints for a masonry-constructed peace. But every time they break ground for an actual structure they hit the bedrock of national interests. Last week word went round Washington that President Truman and Secretary of State Byrnes had put off the U.S. crusade for freer world trade until after the November elections. The two ex-Senators knew that when a Congressman scratches a constituent-even a "world-minded" one-he finds a high tariff interest. They did not want to do any scratching before the elections...
...Nobody Knows . . ." The Friend observatory is as practical as any backyard astronomer could wish. The supporting base is a perpendicular concrete column, 16 feet long, anchored in bedrock eight feet below the surface on the highest hill of the orange grove. To this block is bolted the large telescope - a 16-in. reflector in a 12-ft. galvanized iron tube. On the lower side are ascension and declination meters and counterbalance weights. The observatory is roofless. A square wooden platform provides working space. The lenses were ground in a small Escondido garage-workshop...
...provide an overall plan, short, sharp-eyed Arthur Dare Whiteside, boss of WPB's Office of Civilian Requirements, is sweating his small staff twelve hours a day. Their first task: to find out what is the bedrock level of U.S. civilian needs. This is a Gargantuan job. In peacetime, 300,000 consumer articles were turned out by U.S. factories. In wartime, OCR Boss Whiteside thinks bedrock may be a mere fraction of these, some 1,500 to 2,000 articles. Soon OCR Boss Whiteside will have his list, will know for the first time what items are needed, what...
Defeat for Dreamers. When these bedrock facts are firmly in hand, OCR will try to wangle an increase in certain civilian articles, the resumption of manufacture of others. The bulk of additional goods will be in "irritation items," large in U.S. usage, small in material requirements: needles, razor blades, nails, bobby pins, repair parts for household appliances and cars. OCR knows better than to ask manufacture of washing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators (200,000 are still frozen...
...overall basis, the U.S. is still no where near bedrock. The civilian-supply problem will remain a problem of specific tight spots at specific regional pressure points as long as an inventory cushion remains - and as long as U.S. distributors continue to stay in business in large numbers despite their troubles. But the pressure upon inventories and upon little businessmen is bound to increase. Next year, unless present danger signals are heeded, the breakdowns may be wholesale - and destructive in a strictly military sense...