For Veterans Only

At long last, Housing Expediter Wilson Wyatt, who wants 2,700,000 new housing units built in the next two years, took drastic steps to implement his hope. In a sweeping order which will change the whole shape of the U.S. building industry, he put a stop to all "nonessential" construction, directed that all building materials should go instead to housing for veterans.

Projects already started (to the point of pouring the concrete or laying the bricks) can be completed. But U.S. builders will have to abandon about $14 billion of construction now in the blueprint stage ($4 billion for expensive, non-veteran homes, $10 billion for theaters, office buildings, etc.). Said the Wall St. Journal: "The drastic order, if tightly enforced, will halt what is potentially the largest nonresidential building spree in history."

The new Wyatt order places the building industry under stricter supervision than it had in wartime. It means considerable hardship for contractors who are not experienced at handling small jobs, and for steam-shovel operators, steelworkers and other workmen who cannot readily convert to housebuilding.

It seemed to Wilson Wyatt high time for stringent measures. The U.S. building-materials industry is far behind schedule. At current production rates, it will turn out this year only 504,000 bathtubs (as against 1,025,000 needed for the housing program alone); only 15,900,000 square feet of radiators (40,500,000 needed); only 350,000,000 concrete blocks (425,-000,000 needed). Large commercial builders, who have the advantage in the market and usually get what they want, had threatened to use almost the entire supply themselves.

With the big builders forced to stop competing for materials, Wilson Wyatt hoped that the small house would have a chance.

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