LITTLE BUSINESS: Shot in the Arm

Since World War II began, professional mourners have repeatedly hung crepe on the door of small business. But small business bullheadedly refused to die. Last week this stubborn survivor got a shot in the arm. Needle wielder was droopy-lidded, deadpan Robert Wood Johnson, boss of the Smaller War Plants Corp. The shot: a new plan for civilian production in small plants.

Fortnight ago, Johnson, who came to SWPC last January from Army Ordnance (which had drawn him from the presidency of Johnson & Johnson), turned in his commission as brigadier general, in order to devote his time to civilian business...