The Basic Needs

Day before Franklin Roosevelt gave new and sweeping powers to War Manpower Commissioner Paul Vories McNutt (TIME, Dec. 14) he went over the final draft of the order with a group which included McNutt, War Secretary Henry L. Stimson, Navy Secretary Frank Knox, and WPBoss Donald Nelson. When the President came to the section stopping all enlistments in the armed forces, Secretary Knox is said to have begged:

"Paul, give me just three more months for naval enlistments."

And McNutt replied: "Frank, when the President signs that order, I won't give you three minutes."

As his first act on receiving his new power Paul McNutt conferred with the joint Chiefs of Staff to determine the basic military needs for 1943. As boss of all manpower, Paul McNutt well knew that military needs come first. But with an eye on the manpower pool for war production, he also needed justification from the Army and Navy of their needs.

From global-minded General George Catlett Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, came justification for a 7,500,000-man Army in 1943. Best WMC estimate now is that the total armed forces will require 9,700,000 men by the end of next year. Best WMC estimate for a total labor force for 1943 is 65,000,000. But, excluding unemployables and women with young children, there are only 60,000,000 men & women in the U.S. between the ages of 14 and 60 who might be able to work or fight.

Faced with such a 1943 squeeze, Paul McNutt will have to do some fancy juggling, make some tough decisions. Two facts affecting all the people emerged: dependency will soon be out as the sole reason for military deferment, many more women will have to go to work in war industry--perhaps enough to boost the total from the present 4,000,000 to 20,000,000.

Last week Paul McNutt took his most drastic step to date in ordering some 600,000 workers in 34 categories in the Detroit area "frozen" in their jobs. The order does not force any person to stay at his present job, does make him provide good & ample reasons for wanting to change. In the works were similar freezings of 110,000 merchant seamen, 1,500,000 West Coast aircraft workers, and thousands of Southwestern railroad track workers. But these are only samples of what must still come.

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