THE FUTURE: Road Through the Woods

“During the first six months of 1952,” Defense Mobilizer Charlie Wilson said last week, “we shall move through a wood of shade and sometimes darkness. But then I believe we shall come out into the clearing.” To a group of Congressmen who wanted to know how dark the woods might be, Wilson and Deputy Manly Fleischmann handed a light meter (for the first quarter):

¶ Consumer-goods makers will take an overall cut from their present 58% of 1950 peak production to about 50%. They will get an estimated 11½% less steel, 28% less copper, 17% less aluminum. Though some products might not be cut at all (e.g., electric light bulbs), less essential items, such as aluminum window-blinds, may be trimmed to 15% of their peak production. ¶ Automakers will be allotted enough steel, copper and aluminum to turn out 930,000 cars in the first three months, v. 1,605,611 in 1951’S first quarter. But if they can boost output by utilizing existing stocks and substitute materials, they will be authorized to turn out 1,006,000 cars. ¶ Housebuilding will be maintained at 800,000 units a year, freight cars trimmed from 9,000 a month to 6,000, steel for hospitals and schools cut to 45% of the total demand. Even the military’s metal supplies will be cut wherever Wilson believes they exceed the needs for immediately “doable” production. For example, the military’s structural steel will be cut from their requested 192,000 tons to 171,000 tons.

With arms deliveries still only a trickle, many a Senator wondered where all the metal was going. It is now going to arms manufacturers, said Wilson, who are getting ready for mass production. They are chewing up supplies at the rate of $8 billion a quarter, will use still more until the peak of $10 billion a quarter is reached in the last quarter of 1952. By then, if Wilson’s calculated risk on maintaining a guns-and-butter economy proves sound, the tremendously expanded production will be pouring out enough additional steel and aluminum to end the worst metal shortages and allow civilian production to start rising again.