The President Can Requisition

The President of the U.S. can now requisition private property needed for defense. Until he signed the bitterly fought property requisition bill last week, his power to do this was vague and general. Now it is definite and specific.

He got the power just in time to use it. Priorities Chief Donald Nelson last week told a Congressional committee that 1,378,000 Ib. of copper, some of it "undoubtedly Axis-owned," lay in U.S. warehouses, untouchable despite the acute copper shortage. Not only will that copper now be requisitioned, but also carloads of machinery, steel, silk, rubber, tin plate, manganese and other hoarded, hidden and frozen inventories. Economic Defense Board and OPM agents combed New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco freight yards for them last week (TIME, Oct. 20).

The new Presidential power over private property is not as complete as he has asked for. Dictator-fearing Congressmen limited it so that:

> The act automatically expires June 30, 1943, or when the emergency ends, whichever comes first.

> The President, before seizure, must determine an immediate need which will "not admit of delay or resort to any other source of supply" after "all other means . . . have been exhausted."

> The Government must pay "fair market value" of the property.

> Seized property no longer needed must be returned by Dec. 31, 1943, if the original owner wants to buy it back for "a fair price."

> Authority to requisition or require registration of firearms used for sport or individual self-protection is specifically excluded.

> Requisitioning of equipment in actual use in any operating business is barred.

This week an executive order is expected to put the law into actual operation. It will also name a requisitioning tsar, probably tough-minded Brigadier General Philip B. Fleming, hitherto Wages & Hours administrator. OPMites eagerly awaited the order to see whether Administrator Fleming would be given real power to deal with non-cooperators.

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