No Frills

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The 1944 hotel-goer patiently stands in slow-moving queues at the understaffed registration desk. He rides to the wrong floors in jerky elevators operated by flippant, teen-age boys & girls or by deaf old gaffers. The call "Front" may bring a pint-sized bellhop, but usually the traveler totes his own bags. Frequently he is ushered into a room that seems to have been bombed: the bed unmade, the bureau loaded with dreg-laden tumblers, the ash trays choked with butts. One wet, crumpled towel is left on the washstand, the legacy of yesterday's guest, who seems to have shined his shoes with it.

In the coffee shop he may, if he is lucky, get the 55¢ a la carte breakfast in less than an hour's time. But the eggs are cold and vulcanized, the bacon soggy, the toast black, the coffee thin and acid—and the waitress doesn't care. And at night the intrepid traveler is not surprised to return and find the room still unmade, the bureau still undusted and the damp towel still on the untidied washstand. If the night is chill he may as well go sit in the lobby: no one knows where the blankets are. If he tries to phone for help he will get nothing but a dull, buzzing noise in his ear.

Into this situation last week moved Paul McNutt's dogged War Manpower Commission with an order to all U.S. hotels in labor-shortage areas. The order: cut present service to a minimum.