Nibble at a Mountain

Retiring from his post, Surplus Property Boss Will Clayton last week turned in an accounting, 294 pages long. Its chief news: in four months, the new and still creaking machinery to dispose of surplus war property had got rid of only $85,007,000 worth. This was a fair bite out of the $465,207,000 in surplus property now on hand, including $19,830,000 in motor vehicles (see cut), but hardly a nibble at the mountain of surpluses ahead.

Typical example: when World War II began, there were approximately 900,000 machine tools in the U.S. Now the Federal Government alone owns between 500,000 and...

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