Want to Run a Filling Station?

To G.I.s who plan to open a nice, greasy little filling station and live happily ever after, the Department of Commerce last week held up a fatherly finger of caution. The Department warned that almost two-thirds of the 242,000 stations n the U.S. before the war grossed less than $10,000 a year, made an average profit of only 6% on gross, including the owner's salary.

For those who insist on going into the business anyway, prime requisites are i) experience "in someone else's successful service station," 2) capital roughly equal to 10% of the hoped-for gross .(for example, $2,670 to...