In self-congratulatory advertisements last week, Gimbel's Department Store in Manhattan announced a sale of Army DDT sprayers good for murdering anything from spiders to tsetse-flies. Modell's Sporting Goods Stores advertised Army sleeping bags ("warm as toast") for $5.95. From warehouses all over the U.S., $600,000,000 worth of war-hoarded Government goods were on their way to civilian stores. And these would be just a drop out of the enormous bucket.
The Army, the Navy and other wartime purchasing agencies were brooding over at least $90 billion in leftovers (World War I's surplus: $7 billion). Included were 40,000 surplus homing pigeons (with...
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