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    "label": "Report, The Road to Tokyo and Beyond, Third Report to the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives by the Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion",
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    "title": "Report, The Road to Tokyo and Beyond, Third Report to the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives by the Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion",
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            "day": 1,
            "logicalDate": "1945-07-01",
            "month": 7,
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    "seq": 21,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "ai\nMAIN REASON FOR TEXTILE SHORTAGES\nEmployment is down 250,000 from peak in August, 1941.\n1500\n1500\nVI\nECONOMIC STABILIZATION\n1000\n1000\n\"Price, wage, and rationing controls must be continued\nof\nafter VE-day\nInflation, despite the reduction of\nmunitions output, will be a continuing threat.\"\n500\n500\nThat statement is even more applicable today than when Justice\nByrnes made it in his April 1 report. For in the last 3 months, in-\nventories of civilian goods in the hands of manufacturers, wholesalers,\nretailers, and consumers, themselves, have generally declined, and the\no\no\n1939\n1940\n1941\n1942\n1943\n1944\n1945\nhousewife has been having an increasingly difficult time finding what\nshe wants in the stores.\nThe Office of Economic Stabilization emphasizes that the best anti-\nMeanwhile, the military services are making a constant effort\nto\ndote for inflation is increased civilian supplies. We are pushing pro-\nreduce their needs wherever possible; additional supplies are being\nduction of scarce items for civilians as hard as is consistent with the\nsought from foreign production, either in liberated areas or in Ger-\nmaintenance of war production. However, no near-term shift in the\nmany. (The United States has ample supplies of raw cotton.) And\nsupply-demand position is to be looked for; the facts are these\ntextile manufacture is being directed by WPB and OPA into the\nproducts in which deficits are most acute, such as work clothes and\nTextiles\nchildren's garments. However, these actions won't be reflected over\nthe retail counter for several months.\nMilitary requirements for textiles in the months immediately ahead\nare greater than for a two-front war, partly because tropical environ-\nShoes\nments are hard on clothing, partly because of the need for multiple\nThe problem in footwear is similar to that of textiles. Longer pipe-\nsupplies for men who move back and forth between the tropics and\nlines and new climatic conditions have boosted military consumption,\ncolder climates, partly because of the long pipe lines across the\nthough again the services have cooperated in slimming down their\nre-\nPacific. At the same time, production of textiles has gone down. One\nquirements. But declining hide supplies, primarily the result of a\nreason has been the shift from civilian-type to the slower-woven, more\ndrop in imports, have limited shoe output.\ndurable, military-type fabrics. The principal reason, however, has\nThe shortage is most acute in work and children's shoes, and steps\nbeen the inability of textile plants to obtain manpower. (See chart\nhave been taken to increase production of these lines. Extraordinary\nMain Reason for Textile Shortages.)\nprogress has been made during the past year in manufacturing shoes\nRecently the War Labor Board ordered an increase in the rate of\nfrom nonleather materials, and the textiles needed for this purpose\npay in some textile plants and the new scale has been spreading\nhave been specifically earmarked. (See chart : Shoes : A Case of War-\nthroughout the industry as manufacturers seek to attract workers.\ntime Ingenuity.)\nBut some manufacturers at this point are unwilling to boost wages\nHousing\nwithout a compensating rise in price ceilings. The price-wage prob-\nHousing construction is going forward in the tightest areas and\nlem is being threshed out by an interagency committee which includes\nthe War Production Board has recently relaxed its controls mod-\nrepresentatives of the Office of Economic Stabilization, War Labor\nerately. Nevertheless, as previously noted, materials are not in suf-\nBoard, War Manpower Commission, War Production Board, Office of\nficient supply to permit widespread building, and therefore shortages\nPrice Administration, and other agencies.\nwill continue for some time.\n34\n35"
}