Word: wpb
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Dates: during 1942-1942
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...decided-but by week's end, except for firing Libbey and bucking the Army on field agents' priorities, he had not yet acted. Washington watched closely, to see whether Nelson's new toughness was in the biceps or larynx. WPB's hour was late. The problems were multifold and urgent...
With a few exceptions, WPB has never yet enlisted the real No. 1 men of U.S. industry, as Baruch's Industries Board did in World War I. Many of its staff members failed to produce on the old National Defense Advisory Commission, on OPM and SPAB-but still hold similar jobs under new titles. One high WPB official admitted last week: "You could take the entire WPB personnel-stenographers, clerks and brass hats-line them up single file, fire every other one indiscriminately, and come out with a better organization...
...Midwest stocks, even if made available, are blocked to the East by price hurdles as OPA, ODT, OPC, and WPB play their separate games for political control. It costs at least one cent more per gallon to bring oil east via the Great Lakes than it does to haul it by rail from Texas. Another difficulty is that gasoline still is more profitable to sell than fuel oils. Higher fuel oil profits in the East, smaller gasoline profits in the entire country might perform strange wonders...
Only trouble with this scheme is that many a scrap owner may sniff higher prices, hold out for still fancier prices. Meanwhile WPB had its Industrial Salvage Committees going hot & heavy in 400 U.S. cities. Chief argument: patriotism. Thus Manhattan milliners surprised everybody, chipped in 150 tons of scrap (partly from eight huge hat-making presses); Maryland State officials collected a batch of square-cornered World War I tanks, started them on their last mile into a roaring steel furnace...
...WPB put more steam behind its junk-your-jalopy campaign, in New York and New Jersey asked auto dealers and junkmen to turn in at least 420,000 old autos by year's end (normal: less than 100,000). Since each jalopy yields 1,500 lb. of steel scrap, 30 lb. of lead, 25 lb. of copper and 22 lb. of zinc, the junk-auto scheme could mean a fat addition to U.S. metal supplies...