Cutting the Cost

Strolling through the White House grounds one day last week, Harry Truman spied workmen digging out the stump of an old, diseased poplar tree. He stopped to watch. Result: the President of the United States was photographed in the friendly, homely pose of a typical sidewalk superintendent.

Informality was still the keynote of the new man in the White House—informality and briskness. He had another busy week (69 appointments), but he left the White House each afternoon at 5:30 for his walk across the street to his temporary home in Blair House. (Newsmen stayed late at the White House every night but one, bedding down on the couches and chairs, waiting for a V-E day flash.)

Two of Harry Truman's appointments were with ailing Harry Hopkins, who gave him a long fill-in on Yalta and on foreign policy in general. The President also made another swift visit to Congress, where he had lunch with Speaker Sam Rayburn, and shook the hands of 350 Congressmen and a handful of page boys.

Top news from the White House was the President's pronouncement on the partial reconversion which will follow V-E day. Without waiting for V-E day, Harry Truman:

¶ Slashed the Merchant Marine program by $4,265,000,000.

¶ Cut $80,000,000 off the budgets of eight war agencies (OWI, WPB, Censorship, ODT, PAW, FSA, WMC and the Office of Scientific Research and Development).

¶ Abolished the Office of Civilian Defense, by eliminating its $369,000 budget. About $34,000,000 worth of OCD equipment (gas masks, stirrup pumps, etc.) in 2,900 cities will be given to the Army or sold for surplus property.

On the other hand, the President:

¶ Urged the extension of OPA for another year, calling its control of prices "one of the most remarkable achievements of the war."

¶ Reiterated that he would do nothing to break the Little Steel formula.

¶ Asked key men in Government agencies to stay in their jobs through V-J day.

Thus Government action between now and V-J day became clear: 1) begin cutting expenditures (there was no news yet on tax reductions); 2) keep most wartime controls. The break in the country's wartime economy was not yet as wide as a church door nor as deep as a well. But with Japan still to beat, it would have to be enough.