Tobacco companies set a new cigaret production this year. They made 258 billion tax-paid cigarets in their fiscal year ended June 1944, 13 billion more than in record-breaking 1943. They produced more billions for the Army and the Navy. But despite this fabulous production, the U.S. public has oversmoked its way into a national shortage.
Shoppers in Dallas, Texas, checking at newsstands, bars, drug stores and hotel of the lobbies, failed to find a single package of the so-called top brands—Lucky Strike, Camel, Chesterfield, Philip Morris, Old Gold. Big jobbers reported that ship ments from factories were from 10...