X-Day is Coming

Had the nation finally reached its wartime production peak? By last week, not yet a fortnight after Dday, there were significant and contradictory changes already appearing in many & many a war plant of the nation. The U.S. was still spewing out a rising total of munitions every day. But like the first ripples of a change in the tide, the U.S. last week could see a ripple of cutbacks flowing across the country.

P: In Baton Rouge, La. a $25,000,000 alumina plant began to close down.

P: In Kearny, N.J. the Federal Shipbuilding yards laid off 800 workers, planned to lay off another 700. These were Federal's first layoffs since Pearl Harbor.

P: In Washington the Navy let word leak out that it had reduced all of its fighter-plane production, even that of Long Island's famed Grumman Aircraft (Hellcats and Wildcats). Before long the Navy, pleased at the low losses in small landing craft on the French beachhead, expects to cut back this program, which has had a longtime No. 1 priority.

Casualties. The shocks were small and dispersed, like news of casualties, which hits individual U.S. homes but does not move the nation. But at some point the cumulative effect of the plant shutdowns would show. In Philadelphia the Defense Plant Corp. had spent a reported $16,000,000 to build an up-to-the-minute plant for Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Co., to turn out an order for some 800 stainless-steel Army & Navy cargo planes. With only four planes built, the Services cancelled their contracts for all but 25. WPB talked of new make-work contracts for Budd, the WPB solution to the Brewster shutdown (TIME, June 12). As Budd began to lay off 2,000 workers, contracts were in the offing to convert the plane plants to shell making. But mass production is five months away.

There were other telltales. For one: manufacturing employment has steadily declined since last November. By last month the U.S. had 1,000,000 fewer workers than it had six months earlier. For another: Donald Nelson said that it is finally time for U.S. industry to take the first steps toward manufacture of peacetime goods.

Was WPB pulling off all the wraps to let industry reconvert to peace? Far from it. Sternly Nelson warned that war production still came first, that "the next three months will in some ways be the most critical we have yet faced."

Three More Months. Barring unexpected catastrophes of battle, the war peak will be reached in three more months, stay on a plateau for a little while, then start downward. Some war items may even be stepped up (e.g., tank production, only a trickle for months, was ordered into high gear last week when beachhead tank losses in France were bigger than anticipated; in addition, Rear Admiral Emory S. Land announced that merchantship production would soon be stepped up). But a scheduled cut in overall war production is at last in view. Then the U.S. will be smack up against many of the manifold problems of reconversion, must face up to the task of supplying jobs to those laid off by the cutbacks and shutdowns.

Lift the Lid. In haste, WPB belatedly lifted the ban on the widespread use of over-plentiful aluminum and magnesium for civilian goods and authorized industrialists to make working models of postwar products. After July 1, said WPB, business may buy machinery and tools & dies for civilian-goods manufacture, preferably out of Government-owned surpluses.

To make sure of swift reconversion, WPB emphasized that anyone may make anything if facilities are free of war work, and materials are available. Thus, Donald Nelson said, the U.S. would avoid the "grave danger of shackling the U.S. with a regimented economy."

To Build the Ark. But WPB's action was like slipping a raincoat on the economy to prepare for the deluge of cutbacks and contract cancellations to come. The big job of building the ark was up to Congress. In galloping haste, War Mobilizer James F. Byrnes hustled up Cap itol Hill last week to warn Congress that by the closing months of the year "many persons may be unemployed." He demanded quick action on legislation for contract termination, manpower regulations, unemployment insurance, etc.

Already, said Jimmy Byrnes, the Army and the WPB have estimated exactly how much war production can be cut when Germany collapses. Soon the Army will send out instructions which will automatically go into effect on X-day. Mindful of the upcoming political conventions, he said: "To recess without action is a responsibility I don't think Congress should take."

Adventure in Adversity. Then from Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch came the weightiest warning of all. In a letter to Jimmy Byrnes, Mr. Baruch whacked WPB as well as Congress for delay in putting into effect the Baruch demobilization plan (TIME, Feb. 28). Said the letter: "The nation is still months away from being prepared to meet the great adjustments that will come on X-day when one of our enemies is defeated.

"For the good of all of us, but mostly for the sake of our soldiers and sailors, let us hurry, hurry, hurry, not only in winning the war, but in being ready for the peace. If this transition is to be handled without unnecessary unemployment, without further inflation and chaotic confusion, the government must be ready for the swiftest action. . . . Further delays will turn the adventure in prosperity that lies within our grasp into an adventure in adversity."

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