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Mansfield, Chief, Policy Analysis Branch Office of Temporary Controls Office of Price Administration \W # HISTORICAL REPORTS ON WAR ADMINISTRATION: OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION OFFICE OF TEMPORARY CONTROLS OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION General Publication No. 14 Volumes in this series for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C. Miscellaneous Publication No. Title Price 1. OPA Chronology_$1. 00 2. Minutes of the Price Administration Committee_ . 30 3. OPA Bibliography, 1940-47_ General Publication No. 1. The Beginnings of OPA_ . 50 2. A History of Ration Banking_ . 35 3. Wartime Apparel Price Control_ . 40 4. Field Administration of Wartime Rationing_ . 40 5. OPA and the Public Utility Commissions_ . 25 6. Studies in Industrial Price Control_ . 35 7. Problems in Price Control: Pricing Standards_ 8. Problems in Price Control: Pricing Techniques_ 9. Problems in Price Control: Changing Production Patterns_ . 75 10. Problems in Price Control: Stabilization Subsidies_ 11. Problems in Price Control: Legal Phases.''_ . 25 12. Problems in Price Control: National Office Organization and Manage¬ ment_ 13. Studies in Food Rationing_*_ 14. Volunteers in OPA_ . 35 15. A Short History of OPA__ • • ll » LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL May 25, 1947 My dear Mr. Clark: I transmit herewith a volume entitled Volunteers in OP A, by Imo- gene H. Putnam. It is General Publication No. 14 in the OP A series of Historical Reports on War Administration, and has been approved for publication. Respectfully submitted. Harvey C. Mansfield, Chief , Policy Analysis Branch Earl W. Clark , Director , Division of Liquidation , Office of Temporary Controls ’ ')) ! ' • FOREWORD This is one of the narrative and analytical volumes in the OPA series of Historical Reports on War Administration. As such, it is a part of the agency’s share in the comprehensive program of studies of the experience of the civilian administrative agencies brought into being by the war, which was initiated by President Franklin D. Roose¬ velt in 1942 and confirmed in July 1945 by President Harry S. Truman. The general scope and purpose of this program is set forth in the preface to The United States at War , recently published by the Bureau of the Budget. The present volume deals with one of the largest and longest sus¬ tained examples in our history of the recruitment and use of volun¬ teers in aid of their Government during an emergency. They were drawn from all walks of life, they performed all manner of tasks. Many came and went; some tens of thousands came and stayed. They brought special problems, but they gave to OPA’s local activities the distinctive strength and tone of civic participation, of amateur non- bureaucratic administration of regulations having the force of law. They were indispensable, in their physical numbers and in the spirit they imparted, for the success and the acceptance of the agency’s programs as they touched consumers. This account not only reviews the extent of volunteer accomplishments but also analyzes the admin¬ istrative problems and points the practical lessons learned in the course of the experience. It should therefore interest both those who had some share in the work and those who are concerned to understand the techniques of harnessing the energies of a free citizenry for the common benefit. This study is chiefly concerned with the volunteer contribution to the conduct of rationing and price control in the local communities. Other OPA volunteers, the advisory groups at the national, regional, and district offices, are mentioned only in their relation to operations at the local boards. Some of them partook otherwise of the nature of organized interest groups, with a different type of motivation and usefulness. The studv is further limited to a discussion of volunteers in the continental United States. The volunteer work done in Region IX, our territories and island possessions, followed a somewhat differ- v VI Foreword ent pattern, which has been described in detail elsewhere. 1 Volunteers played only a minor role in rent control. The plan of procedure in the preparation and publication of this volume follows the same lines approved at the time the first of our substantive publications, The Beginnings of OP A, was undertaken. The author’s name on the title page indicates that she has been given both freedom and responsibility for the development of her material. She writes on a subject she knows authoritatively from several years’ experience in the OPA district office for the District of Columbia, and accordingly brings to her task an intimate operating familiarity with the problems discussed, as well as a broad perspective on their signifi¬ cance. She has had full access to file materials in the agency so far as physical limitations permitted their use, and has had the benefit of consultation and advice from many official and unofficial sources; but the statements of fact and of interpretation are hers. Acknowledgments are due to Mrs. Marion Andrews and Mrs. Doro¬ thea Franck for editorial help; to Miss Molly Flynn, former liaison officer with the Office of Civilian Defense, for a critical reading; to Mrs. Elizabeth Rohr, of the Staff of the Consumer Advisory Commit¬ tee in the national office, Mrs. Marion Weir of St. Louis, a member of that committee, Miss Constance Roach, of the Training Branch, and to James E. Mendenhall and Ruth Evarts O’Brien of the Information Department, for source material. Mrs. Anne Flory, formerly on the staff of the New 1l ork Regional Office, and later in charge of price panel coordination in the national office, was continuously helpful in furnishing pertinent material and in making constructive suggestions. Frank Bane, of the Council of State Governments has read the manu¬ script and encouraged its publication. The original draft was sub¬ mitted to a number of other former officials familiar with the subject matter and their comments have been taken into account in the revision. The public interest precludes any attempt on the part of the agency to impose here an official view in the evaluation of its many past activities. The manuscript has therefore been reviewed by the Policy Analysis Committee only to make sure that statutory requirements relating to the disclosure of confidential information have been ob- served, and to safeguard appropriate standards of scholarships and objectivity. Harvey C. Mansfield, Chief , Policy Analysis Branch , Office of Place Administration , Office of Temyoraiaj Controls. May 25,1947. 1 Mary Gresham, History of Region IX, OPA Bibliography, 19J f 0-J,7; item No. 10K.91. CONTENTS Page Foreword_ v Introduction_ 1 Chapter 1.—The Groundwork_ 9 “To Allay the Restlessness”_ 9 Consumer Education Under OPACS_ 10 A Question of Tactics_ 12 Chapter 2.—The Rationing Boards_ 15 Citizens Serving Without Pay_ 16 Rationing Board Members_ 17 Peak Load Volunteers_ 18 Regular Volunteers_ 18 A Change of Name_ 19 Auxiliary Volunteers_ 20 The Pattern is Set_ 21 Volunteer Administration_,_ 23 0 Chapter 3.—Price Impasse_ 27 Participation at the National Level_ 27 General Max and the Housewife_ 28 General Max and the Local Boards_ 30 Name Calling_ 31 The Consumer Division Demonstrates_ 33 Richmond Fights Inflation_ 33 Whose Volunteer Plan?_ 34 The Legal Proposal_ 35 Protests_ 35 The Volunteer Viewpoint_ 36 Information’s Channel to the Grass Roots_ 37 Stalemate_ 38 Chapter 4.—Field Experiments, 1942- 39 New York, First_ 40 The New England States_ 42 Little OPA’s_ 42 Maine_ 43 Massachusetts_ 44 New Hampshire’s Exception- 45 Vermont Works Out a Compliance Survey- 46 A Board Chairman in Connecticut- 46 • • Yll viii Contents Page Across the Country_ • 47 The Virginia Plan_ 47 Spartanburg—Point Rationing and Price- 47 The Price Panel in Laurel, Mississippi_ 48 No Experiments_ 48 The Kenosha Plan_ 49 No Clerk Available_ 50 California Organizes_ 50 Price Panels_ 50 The Volunteer Supervisor_ 51 Need for National Leadership_ 52 Chapter 5.—Volunteers for Price Control_ 55 Compliance Before Enforcement_ 55 A Belated Invitation_ 56 Whose Responsibility?_ 57 Hurdles_ 59 The Price Division Recruits_ 60 The June Survey, 1943_ 62 Chapter 6 .—Neighborly Persuasion_ 67 Price Panel Development_ 67 Appointment__* 68 Procedure_ 69 Panel Authority_ 70 Early Persuasion_ 72 The Promise to Comply_ 73 Consumer Complaints_ 76 A Failure of Neighborly Persuasion_ 78 Accomplishments_ 80 Chapter 7.—Chester Bowles Gives a Lift_ 83 Introduction by Radio_ 83 Advisory Committees_ 84 Consultation with Industry_ 85 Labor Cooperation_ 85 Consumer Advisory Committee_ 86 The Home Front Pledge_ 88 Second Anniversary_ 89 Chapter 8 .—Price Panel Assistants_ 93 Technical Supervision_ 95 The Emergency Price Check_ 97 The Emergency Price Check in Region III_ 97 “Don’t Buy Another Depression”_ 98 The Compliance Goal_ 100 The OWI Survey_ 101 The Volunteer Specialist_ 102 - The One-for-One Campaign_ 102 Improved Methods_ 104 Contents ix Page Chapter 9.—Shifts in Emphasis_ 107 The St. Louis Plan_ 107 The Grocer-Consumer Anti-inflation Campaign_ 110 The Administrator’s Claim_ 115 Price Panel Reactions_ 117 The Hearing Panel, Washington, D. Rationing and price control were such programs. They touched the lives of 130,000,000 Americans closely and personally. They were new, they were restrictive, and they were distasteful to the independence of the American spirit. They could scarcely have been administered in a democratic country without acceptance by tlie majority of the people. They were urgent wartime measures; it was imperative that they be accepted and that their administration reach into every corner of the country. OPA turned to the psychology of the town meeting to gain local acceptance and to the American habit of community participation to solve the problems of local administration. In an action unparal¬ leled even in other democratic countries, OPA called upon citizens in the local communities to administer the rationing and price-control laws and these volunteers constituted over 75 percent of OPA’s staff. There were approximately 5.500 price and rationing boards through¬ out the country. Each was presided over by a volunteer board chair¬ man, nominated from the community and appointed by the OPA Dis¬ trict Director. Each chairman was assisted in his work by similarly appointed board members, “fairminded citizens of known integrity,” who specialized in one or other of the regulations to be administered. In large boards the members were formed into panels, such as the gas¬ oline rationing panel, and the grocery price panel. These board mem¬ bers were sworn employees of the Federal Government serving without pay. They were given adjudicative and enforcement powers. They issued the rations of gasoline and they mediated the settlement of overcharges. At the height of the program more than 100,000 board members, most of them busy people with other jobs as well, met night after night to administer these wartime measures for the benefit of their neighbors. 1 Democracy in America , Alexis de Tocqueville. 1 2 Volunteers in OP A Another group of board members, known as the community service members undertook the task of informing and educating theii com¬ munities on OPA problems. These public relations or information volunteers worked through local organizations, the press and the radio, and their members were usually drawn from those sources. The record-keeping functions of the local boards were carried on by paid clerks, but because OPA’s budget was slim for its needs and because citizens were willing to help in these humdrum tasks, thousands of clerical or “regular” volunteers helped the paid clerks. Acting on the principle that probably 95 percent of all price viola¬ tions were caused by ignorance or indifference, OPA drew another group of volunteers, the price panel assistants, generally from the women’s organizations, to make educational and compliance surveys of the retailers in their communities. When the War Ration Books were issued (one for each man, woman, and child in the country), or the big registrations were held, additional volunteers were enlisted for that service only. The school teachers and members of the parent-teachers associations formed the backbone of this group and came to be known as the “peak load” volunteers. By OPA directive each local board was a cross section of the com¬ munity representing all groups, without regard to color, race, religion, or political party. Business and labor, professional men, housewives, and farmers were all included in the local volunteer government of rationing and price control. Not only did OPA give unprecedented control to the people in ad¬ ministering its laws, it invited representatives of the people to advise it on the policy and content of the regulations. From the day of the early price schedules under OPACS, representative members of the trade concerned were consulted when regulations or major amend¬ ments were to be issued. In 1945 there were 625 such volunteer In¬ dustry Advisory Committees, with a total of 7,500 members. The national OPA also had a Labor Policy Committee to advise on regu¬ lations as they affected wages and the cost of living. The Labor Policy Committee was composed of 6 volunteers from each of the 3 major labor organizations, the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the Railway Brotherhoods. Be¬ tween them they represented and expressed the support of ten to fifteen million union members. OPA’s third type of national ad¬ visory committee represented consumers through 30 volunteer mem¬ bers, leaders in the field of consumer economics. Twenty of these members were also housewives who coped with the day-by-day prob¬ lems of wartime shopping. This committee met 5 times a year in Washington and attempted to present to the operating divisions of OPA the point of view of the unorganized consumers of the country. Introduction 3 Each of these advisory committees had its counterpart in OPA’s regional and district offices. Administrators at these levels consulted with the advisory committees on the operating problems of the pro¬ gram. The thousands of volunteers participating in this way ex¬ pressed the viewpoint of the hundreds of thousands whom they repre¬ sented, and carried back to those hundreds of thousands an explanation of the problems of price control. The fundamental achievement of the volunteer program was to pro¬ vide, at the grassroots, nonbureaucratic administration of bureaucratic controls. However, this achievement was not consciously planned in the beginning. It was rather a development born of necessity, intro¬ duced and fostered by believers in local participation as a democratic principle. In 1942 rationing volunteers filled an urgent need follow¬ ing Pearl Harbor. The sponsors of their use emphasized that this would also be an advantage in diffusing credit and blame for success and failures, instead of concentrating all political dissatisfactions on the national office in Washington. Volunteer local administration was eventually accepted by the agency as the surest means of gaining com¬ munity acceptance for rationing and price-control restrictions, and because it helped to spread OPA’s funds. But in the minds of some, though not all, in the agency, there was a justification for it beyond necessity or economy or the desire to please: this was the belief that it was better administration, more democratcially handled, and conducted with a broader view of the national interest, than any wholly paid staff could have provided. The local boards were going concerns for over a year, before the need for price volunteers was officially recognized in 1943. The na¬ tional office then urged their appointment and for the next year and a half developed the price panel system as a method of “neighborly per¬ suasion.” In late 1944, the price panels were delegated power to negotiate settlements of the Administrator’s Claims for over-ceiling charges by retailers, and from then on moved closer to the enforcement work of OPA. After the end of the war in August 1945, when ration¬ ing was abolished, the imperative need for reaching into each neighbor¬ hood was reduced to the need for reaching each retail trade center. By this time the volunteer boards had long since proved their public relations value, and had shown that under proper conditions they were also effective instruments of price control. Keorganized and reduced in number, they were maintained until the end of the program in November 1946, as the operating units and points of public contact for retail price control. In all of these ways, through local volunteer administration, and through specific-interest advisory committees, OPA met the chal¬ lenge of administering a restrictive law in a democratic country. 4 V olunteers in OP A Community participation was an integral part of the various defense programs from the days of the National Defense Advisory Commis¬ sion. Both Selective Service and the Office of Civilian Defense, as well as OP A, provided examples of this general acceptance of local participation, but the forms which it took within OPA evolved from the special needs of the agency and were unique in this or any other country. It is difficult to gauge the amount of agency support that was given to this departure from the accepted paths of Federal bureauracy. The Congress of the United States had provided for the use of volun¬ teers within the OPA structure. Section 201 (a) of the Emergency Price Control Act reads: The Administrator may utilize the services of Federal, State, and local agencies and may utilize and establish such regional, local, and other agencies, and utilize and establish such voluntary and uncompensated services as may from time to time be needed. The volunteers were thus duly authorized. Moreover, community participation became the expressed policy of each OPA Administrator in turn. But the development of community participation as a local instrument for the administration of Federal law was the responsi¬ bility of specific policy makers within the agency. Its contribution to price control would have been even greater had all the officials within OPA been agreed upon its desirability. This was never the case. The rationing volunteers were installed almost before OPA was aware of the fact and were accepted as a matter of necessity, but the use of price volunteers was a bone of contention during the first year of the pro¬ gram and was never fully espoused in some quarters of the agency. At no time were all the divisions of all the regional and district offices giving support to volunteer participation as outlined in the official directives. The decentralization of OPA which permitted this varia¬ tion in operation also allowed individual staff members with initiative to develop volunteer programs beyond the scope of the national plan. Volunteer achievement was both limited and enriched by these circumstances. The President of the United States, each of the four Administrators of OPA, and many individual executives at all levels gave their full support to this development in local self-government. The problems inherent in this experiment such as recruiting, training, and retention of personnel; the problems of securing impartial administration by the agency, and of gaining uniform adherence to the regulations and community acceptance of the decisions of volunteer lay adjudicators; these problems, all closely allied, were met by OPA with varying de¬ grees of success at various times and places. They give point to this account of volunteer local administration of a Federal law. introduction 5 OPA PYRAMID / WASHINGTON OFFICE 6 Departments / WAR PRICE AND RATIONING BOARDS 5,525 boards THE FOUNDATION of American price control. They bring OPA to every American community, They exemplify the American ideal of “local self-administration”—a striking contrast to the rule imposed on Axis territories, where citizens have no voice or rights in government. SOURCE: Atlanta Regional Office NO. 5510 CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE LOCAL BOARD AND THE DISTRICT OFFICE 6 V olunteers in OP A Introduction 7 SUGGESTED ORGANIZATION OF A MEDIUM-SIZED F’RICE AND RATIONING BOARD ♦Recruits, Trains, Assigns, and Supervises Volunteers. OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION PERSONNEL DIVISION NO. 6315-S O 749937—47 CHAPTER 1 The Groundwork "To Allay the Restlessness” The groundwork for volunteer participation in OP A was laid long before the office itself was created. In May 1940, on the eve of Dun¬ kirk, President Roosevelt appointed a National Defense Advisory Commission of seven commissioners to mobilize the resources of this country for defense. We are primarily concerned here with two mem¬ bers, the Commissioner for Price Stabilization, Leon Henderson, and the Commissioner for Consumer Protection, Harriet Elliott, and with the Commission’s presently established Division of State and Local Cooperation. At this time Mr. Henderson’s task was to control the prices of raw materials at the wholesale-producer-manufacturer level. Miss Elliott was concerned with problems at the retail and ultimate- consumer level. The powers of both were advisory only, but Hender¬ son’s price schedules were backed up by the Government’s wartime right to requisition or allocate private property. Miss Elliott’s ad¬ vice was backed neither by wartime powers nor by specific Presiden¬ tial directive. Her sphere was both vague and controversial; in Gov¬ ernment councils she presented the case for civilian needs when defense measures were being planned, and around the country she attempted to prepare civilians for their part in total defense. It was her concep¬ tion of total defense which laid the psychological groundwork for future consumer participation in rationing and price control/ In her own words: Total defense is democracy’s answer to total war. It protects our democratic way of life . . . Total defense gives every man and woman in the Nation the opportunity to participate in the defense of those tangible and intangible benefits of a democracy which are our heritage . 1 In July 1940, only a few weeks after her appointment, Miss Elliott invited the representatives of 100 civic organizations to Washington 1 Harriet Elliott, speech before Herald-Tribune forum, October 22, 1940. 9 10 Volunteers in OP A to consider methods of consumer participation in the defense prepara¬ tions of the country. In 1940 Americans were not at war and many of them could scarcely believe that the United States would become involved, but the news from Europe grew more disturbing each day, and the Government knew that allocations of material for defense would soon touch the public. As part of her responsibility for con¬ sumer protection Miss Elliott called this conference “to allay the restlessness of a people eager to help in the emergency.” 2 The repre¬ sentatives carried back to their organizations, and through them to thousands of communities over the country, Miss Elliott’s philosophy that total defense meant democratic participation in the defense effort. A month later, in August 1940, the Division of State and Local Co¬ operation was added to the Advisory Commission, with Frank Bane, of the Council of State Governments, at its head. He had had a major share in organizing the field network of the social security system. In England and on the Continent civilians were already taking part in the actual defense of the country as fire fighters, air-raid wardens, first-aid nurses, victory gardeners, and salvage committees. Fore¬ seeing the possibility of such needs here, Bane began the development of State and local defense councils through and under the State Gov¬ ernors. In May 1941 his division was expanded and reconstituted as the Office of Civilian Defense 3 under the leadership of Mayor La- Guardia, who shifted the organization’s emphasis toward direct con¬ tacts with municipal authorities. Bane, retaining his nexus with the State capitals, joined OP A in October 1941 as head of a Division of Field Operations, to build a field organization. Miss Elliott's Consumer Protection Division in 1940 urged the ap¬ pointment of consumer representatives on the defense councils, and the formation of consumer information centers and local price-watch¬ ing committees. The division issued a bulletin which carried consumer suggestions to civic organizations and to colleges. The mushrooming of defense plants created housing shortages, and the bulletin outlined a plan for the “Maintenance of Fair Bents During the Emergency.” A later issue proposed a model rent law which, although it was not enacted in any State, greatly influenced the final national rent legislation. Consumer Education Under OPACS By April 1941, advisory price control was no longer adequate to stem the rising tide of prices. The Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply was established by Executive Order 8734 on April 11. 2 Memorandum, Cunningham to Elliott, July 16, L940, Consumer Division files. 3 Executive Order No. 8757, May 20, 1941. The Groundwork 11 Leon Henderson was appointed Administrator, with Harriet Elliott as associate, at the head of the Consumer Division. Mr. Henderson’s previous advisory functions were now strengthened and more sharply defined. Miss Elliott’s sphere on the other hand seemed to grow more nebulous. Her role as consumer protector at the seat of Government almost disappeared, and her field work narrowed to the education of consumers in wartime living. 4 Building upon the experience of the last war, the Consumer Di¬ vision set up the first local participating committees of World War II, the Fair Rent Committees. These volunteers were appointed by the mayors and ‘‘represented a cross section of the dominant interests of the community, frequently including representatives of real-estate groups, labor organizations, civic organizations, and, where military cantonments were in the vicinity, an army officer.” 5 After the passage of the Emergency Price Control Act these committees were disbanded, but the method by which they decided “fair rents” was accepted: a normal rent date, prior to the impact of defense activities, was there¬ after set for each “defense rental area” as a freeze date for determining rent ceilings. 6 By the summer of 1941 the Consumer Division field staff was organized “to reach the following segments of the population: (1) colleges and secondary schools; (2) women’s civic groups; (3) the labor groups; (4) Negro grotips; and (5) second generation foreign groups.” 7 Through speeches and printed material to these groups the field staff reached into every State and made people aware of the new phraseology: “conservation of scarce materials,” “shortages” and “sub¬ stitutes,” “standards” and “grade labelling.” In some communities the consumer representative on the local defense council had set up consumer interest committees or consumer information centers. The Consumer Division field staff encouraged the forming of more com- 4 For a fuller discussion of these developments see The Beginnings of OPA, OPA Series of Historical Reports on War Administration, pp. 23-29 (Washington, 1947). 5 First Quarterly Report, Consumer Division files. 6 After the passage of the Price Control Act, January 1942, the Fair Rent Committees were dissolved and the volunteer contribution to rent control assumed a minor role. Fre¬ quently, but not universally, vonlunteers were used in registration work where a new area came under rent control. Occasionally clerical volunteers were used for peak-load service. In 1943 and 1944 some few areas also used volunteers to make spot checks of compliance. In Norfolk, Va., the Roy Scouts were used for this purpose ; they went from door to door asking three or four simple questions and recording the answers. This type of compliance check seems to have been dropped not through lack or inadequacy of volunteers but because the rent offices themselves were too short-handed to process the returns. Volunteers were not used extensively in rent control but the field offices were very much indebted to the volunteer Consumer Interest Committees of OCD for their continued educational work on the rent-control law. 1 Memorandum for the Files, Dexter Keezer, Summary of Activities of the Consumer Division, April 1941—March 1942. 12 Volunteers OP A mittees and the expansion of existing ones. They wrote a Handbook for Consumer Committees and sent out fact sheets and outlines for speeches and training programs for consumer centers. In August 1941, the Consumer Division held a conference with 21 representatives of the Pennsylvania State and local defense councils to organize a program for the 450 consumer interest committees already set up in the State. As the far eastern crisis developed during the fall months, the consumer centers found a ready audience even though money was plentiful and acute shortages of consumer goods were still ahead. Prices were rising at an alarming pace. Whether or not the United States was to become involved in the military war, there was real danger of losing the battle against inflation. Housewives saw their household money shrinking in value and they turned eagerly to their organizations or to the consumer centers for information and advice. Methods of reaching the community varied, but all “centers” became focal points for consumers eager to prepare themselves for whatever was to come. In Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit the consumer com¬ mittees set up information centers. In Washington, D. C. the center ottered training classes for leaders in community work, and for house¬ wives on the proper care of home appliances. Some centers set up ex¬ hibits of wartime substitutes and made radio broadcasts on wise buv- ing. They made individual price studies and published the findings of “price-watching” committees. They received and recorded com¬ plaints. By 1942, 76 such consumer centers and hundreds of con¬ sumer committees scattered throughout the country were alerting their communities in the war against inflation. 8 A Question of Tactics On August 28, 1941, by Executive Order No. 8875, OPACS became OPA, with Leon Henderson sole Administrator. Frank Bane, as Director of Field Operations, began to plan for field needs. Civilian supply was transferred to the Office of Production Management, and Miss Elliott was left in OPA, as she said, “with no designated place in which to hang up the consumer hat.” 9 From the first days of the NDAC some members had openly expressed the opinion that consumer interests, with their emphasis on economic and social betterment, had no place in a defense program. Antagonism to the consumer program and its “social worker” sponsor¬ ship grew stronger as the war tensions increased. This was evident 8 Data obtained from the consumer information file of the Consumer Relations Section, and general files. 9 Letter, Harriet Elliott to John S. Kier, Deputy Administrator, OPA, September 22, 1941. The Groundwork 13 during the operation of OPACS, and at the very outset of OPA, Miss* Elliott relates that John E. Hamm, Senior Deputy Administrator, told her he did not want “the consumer name involved with the OPA . . . that businessmen did not want to deal with a price office- which had a consumer division.” 10 A partial explanation of this seeming repudiation of the principle of consumer participation lies in the fact that the newly established OPA was operating under what Henderson called “jawbone” persua¬ sion. The price control act had not yet been passed by Congress and was being hotly debated in the fall of 1941. Business interests, lobby¬ ing against any price control, were quick to see and seize upon the threat of organized consumers. To some within OPA it seemed that the Consumer Division and all its works were a political liability. Eventually the act was passed and happily contained a clause per¬ mitting the Administrator “to utilize and establish such voluntary and uncompensated services . . . as may be needed.” Eventually both businessmen and consumers were included in the OPA volunteer structure but now in the fall of 1941, consumer participation was clearly not a part of the official program. Miss Elliott resigned in November. The Consumer Division was retained for another year but its emphasis was changed and it func¬ tioned under a political cloud. The Consumer Centers continued to operate for a year or more under the aegis of the local defense councils and the OCD. They were seldom brought directly into the OPA structure but they influenced it greatly. With their emphasis on prices, grades, and substitutes, they were, for the next year at least, the chief source of local information on price control. Later their members formed the backbone of two important groups of OPA vol¬ unteers, the community service members and the price panel assistants. Miss Elliott’s belief in local participation radiated out through the Consumer Division, the Consumer Centers, and the consumer interest committees to the educational centers, the women’s organizations, the minority groups, and to the small communities. It was not lost. It was a philosophy native to the American climate and when the need for volunteers arose, people everywhere i emembered that total defense meant participation. ) 10 Ibid. ■f > ; j '. * CHAPTER 2 The Rationing Boards Only a few weeks after Miss Elliott's resignation a national emer¬ gency forced an alteration in the agency attitude and brought volun¬ teers into OPA in a big way, and in operating capacities. On December 7 the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor shut off our main source of rubber. To provide for war needs and at the same time prevent the complete breakdown of civilian transportation, ra¬ tioning of automobile tires was necessary. Tire rationing meant re¬ strictions on every community in the country; to be successful the need for it had to be understood and its administration supported by the local communities. The Office of Production Management halted the sale of tires and on December 11 authorized OPA to undertake the inevitable ration¬ ing; by then only two regional offices had actually been opened. But Frank Bane, director of OPA’s field operations, knew his way to the grass-roots, and won out in a bitter internal contest over plans for a rationing field organization. The defense councils which he had established as Director of State and Local Cooperation for NDAC and which had continued under the aegis of OCD, now covered every town and county in the United States. Tire rationing needed to be set up speedily and administered locally, at the least possible expense. With a genius compounded of the immediacy of the situation, an instinctive faith in the people, and a reflex grasp toward familiar instruments, Bane gave the job to the local defense councils through¬ out the country. On December 14, without consulting OCD, he tele¬ phoned the Governor's office in each state saying that tire rationing would be necessary and asking the State government’s cooperation in setting up a State administrator and local boards to start the task in three weeks’ time. Each call was followed by a letter outlining a plan to organize tire rationing boards in “each political subdivision and county,” to man these boards with volunteers “selected among citizens highly qualified 15 16 V olunteers in OP A to meet the emergency,” and to utilize the local councils of defense ^because they already have established offices and qualified personnel.” He was explicit as to the line of authority and the duties: Such is the organization: the Federal department developing policies . .. and placing this material in the hands of the State defense council; the State defense council taking the responsibility for seeing its State is . . . organ¬ ized through the local councils of defense; and the various local councils of de¬ fense assuming the responsibility for seeing that there are sufficient boards located In a sufficient number of places and adequately staffed to serve their communities. And so we should have a local organization operating under instructions and regulations furnished by Washington . . . clothed with necessary authority to: 1. Determine who shall receive a tire in accordance with instructions, regula¬ tions, and standards furnished from Washington. 2. Issue a certificate upon form to be furnished to each applicant that the local board thinks is eligible for a tire. 3. Keep records of all applicants, all rejections, and all certificates issued. 4. Make periodic reports to the State defense councils on forms or schedules to be furnished. 1 "Citizens Serving Without Pay" In the next few weeks several thousand people received urgent telephone calls from their governors and mayors; in the towns and -counties people signed up for the emergency, little guessing what lay ahead. On December 27 OPA sent printed application forms and detailed instructions by air mail to local communities. “In effect these instruc¬ tions charted the course of the whole program. In clear and simple language they stated the nature of the rubber emergency, proposed a rationing system to care for the most essential needs of each com¬ munity and showed the yoefle how by their own efforts they could set up . . . tire rationing boards to do the job.” 2 Nine days later, on January 5, 1942, tire rationing went into effect. The volunteers were ready. In January some 7,000 tire-rationing boards, covering every locality, opened their doors to serve the public. They were manned entirely by “local citizens serving without pay.” 3 This organizational feat was accomplished by a democratic government, using democratic methods, at a speed which even a totalitarian government might have envied. 1 Letter of Frank Bane to the several State Governors December 19, 1941 ; copy attached to Tire Rationing Instruction Letter No. 2, January 6, 1942. 2 Quarterly Report, Division of Field Operations, OPA, April 1942. 3 Tire Rationing: How , What and, Why, Consumer Division, January 5, 1942. 17 The Rationing Boards Rationing Board Members The first tires were scarcely allocated before it became obvious that other scarcities were developing, and that if each consumer was to be assured his claim to a fair share, other rationing must follow. On January 27 OPA was designated the rationing agency for all goods and commodities that might be placed on the list for controlled dis¬ tribution at the retail level. Rationing of typewriters, automobiles, and sugar followed in the next few months. "I he rationing boards were at work. Members were nominated by the local councils of defense and appointed by the State governors. They varied from three to seven board members in a community, “citi¬ zens highly qualified to meet the emergency,” plus whatever clerical help they could borrow from the county, town, or State, or could dig down into their own pockets to hire, or could commandeer, without compensation, from friends. One member was designated by the State Governor as “Board Chairman,“ and upon him rested the responsibil¬ ity for leadership in the undertaking. Few people at the beginning realized the extent of the problems before them, the number of personnel, or amount of equipment or space that would be needed. So the boards were set up in any free space that was offered: in empty school rooms, post-office lobbies, at courthouse centers, in country grocery stores, and in the homes of board members. There was no money for equipment; sometimes the State or county provided cast-off furniture; more often the board members supplied what they could themselves. Lacking filing cases, they used orange crates;.lacking drawer space, they used shoe boxes; lacking desks, they used boards across trestles. The board members were sworn representatives of the Government and as such they had to explain the regulations to tradesmen and con¬ sumers. They had to pass on all the applications. Each new rationing program added to their already heavy load. They had signed up for tire rationing but they struggled through regulations on recapping and retreading, then on automobiles and typewriters and sugar. Many board chairmen gave full time and more to the job. All board mem¬ bers put in long hard hours night after night; a few gave up in despair. When one board member who was also a newspaper editor announced his resignation with the statement that he had received 17 pounds of printed material from OPA, another board member retorted that a soldier’s pack weighed more than 17 pounds, and that he and the rest of the board intended to carry on. 4 * “Board Management in Region VII,’’ James J. Delaney, Regional Board Executive, OPA Bibliography, 191/0-47, item No. 10K.61. 18 Volunteers in OP A Peak-Load Volunteers The second major rationing job was the sugar program, scheduled for February, then April, and finally put into effect in May. Each new item to be rationed cast its shadow before it in a stream of inquiries to the rationing boards. Sugar rationing nearly swamped the boards before it went into effect. Sugar reached even further into the com¬ munities than had tire rationing. It entailed the registration of every member of every family in the country, as well as every food store and institutional user. In terms of space alone this was beyond the capacity of the early one-room or one-counter rationing offices. In Washington, Bane again went straight to the communities for help; by arrangement with the Office of Education and the school authorities in each State he borrowed the public school system of America. The second large group of volunteers for OP A consisted of the teachers and mothers who handled this registration at the local schools. It has been estimated that over 100,000 persons volunteered their services for War Ration Book I. For each succeeding peak-load job during the next 4 years the school teachers worked overtime to contribute to OP A as “peak-load” volunteers. 