Nibble at a Mountain

Retiring from his post, Surplus Property Boss Will Clayton last week turned in an accounting, 294 pages long. Its chief news: in four months, the new and still creaking machinery to dispose of surplus war property had got rid of only $85,007,000 worth. This was a fair bite out of the $465,207,000 in surplus property now on hand, including $19,830,000 in motor vehicles (see cut), but hardly a nibble at the mountain of surpluses ahead.

Typical example: when World War II began, there were approximately 900,000 machine tools in the U.S. Now the Federal Government alone owns between 500,000 and 600,000 tools--"over 25 years normal prewar production of the machine-tool industry." The Federal Government has not the merchandising organization to sell these tools piecemeal. Yet if it dumps them on the market it might 1) make fortunes for speculators; 2) swamp the machine-tool industry.

Last week Clayton revealed that the Administration has a new plan: to let the companies themselves dispose of cutting tool surpluses, i.e., make them federal sales agents and pay them a commission on sales. (In a similar test plan, tried with aircraft parts, the commission was 30%.) The plan will be stretched to cover radio equipment, may be broadened again if it pans out. Chief argument in favor of it: disposal would be in the hands of those who knew the market best, could feed in surpluses without disrupting it. Biggest objection: disposable surpluses might be held off the market indefinitely and end up as junk, while a manufacturer sold his own new product.

The plan will be put before the new three-man surplus-property board (TiME, Oct. 2). Washington gossiped that one of the jobs, and the chairmanship, will go to Sam H. Husbands, 53, president of Defense Plant Corp. (RFC Boss Jesse Jones once said Husbands "knows more about banks than any man in the U.S.") Another job is expected to go to James Sheppard, Los Angeles attorney. Lieut. Colonel Joseph P. Woodlock, onetime executive of the Crucible Steel Co., now executive assistant to Will Clayton, is an outside choice for the third job. But Washington also gossiped that the President may soon ask Congress to junk the board and hand the job back to one man.

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