Going down to Washington, in civilian garb, to find a wartime job or how I became chairman of the Economics Department "In 1941 came also a somewhat more important event, America's entry into war. I knew that the armed forces would not want me; I had a thyroid deficiency, and the device used a number of times later of applying for a commission and assignment to Washington or other post at which medications were dependably available did not occur to me. In any event I think that I would have seen no superior virtue in performing service in a military rather than civilian uniform. I went down to Washington, in civilian garb, to find a wartime job. "My first wartime employer was the National Resources Planning Board, where I was interviewed and my employment recommended by Paul Samuelson, who was a consultant to NRPB. "GNI and GNP data had come into full use in government by the end of the 1930s, but they had not come fully into the mental awareness of all economists. A small and unofficial part of my work in Washington in 1941 and 1942 consisted of explaining GNP concepts and analysis to some older economists who found some of the concepts baffling. "I aided Paul in the writing of a pamphlet that analyzed the effect of military and economic demobilization after World War I (during 1918-1920) on employment and income, and drew deductions concerning difficulties that might arise during demobilization after World War II. The pamphlet, After the War: 1918-1920, was published in 1943. Also, with Nora Kirkpatrick I wrote an article, published in the American Economic Review in the same year, on "The National Output at Full Employment in 1950." The forecast proved remarkably accurate, but for a reason that few economists would wish to duplicate. We appreciably underestimated the size of the labor force in 1950 and equally overestimated what the level of productivity would be in that year. "The long range work of NRPB, dear to the heart of Franklin Roosevelt, was not closely related to the war effort. NRPB was soon to be terminated, and I moved to one and then another agency that were doing work that in principle was important. In practice, however, both were marginal to the prosecution of the war, and I was delighted to be drafted (figuratively) to the small staff of Jimmy Byrnes at the Office of War Mobilization, the "domestic presidency." Byrnes had been asked by President Roosevelt to resign his seat on the Supreme Court to head the agency. "My functions were varied, some important, some unimportant. The Office of War Mobilization presently became the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Among various pieces of work concerning reconversion to peace let me mention one general one. I asked economists of five other agencies to estimate the likely level and duration of unemployment as the war ended, Though my own unemployment estimate, for OWMR, was the lowest of the six, it too was considerably too high; OWMR found it possible to abandon programs tentatively considered. We had greatly underestimated the speed with which the country's industrial corporations would be able to turn from war production to production for the peacetime market. In a few cases, it seemed certain, the conversion was so speedy because the companies involved had violated the governmental injunction to devote no resources to preparation for peacetime production while their production was still wanted for war, but in the main we had simply underestimated the agility of the American industrial system. "During the war, state governments, to curb consumer expenditures somewhat, had maintained their tax rates at prewar levels even though expenditures required for social welfare and a number of other state functions had greatly shrunk. By the end of the war almost every state government had accumulated a large treasury balance. Many a state had plans to use the balance to place various state programs and agencies at the nation's forefront. To make the state university one of the nation's greatest was a frequent aim. Illinois had such an aim, and had asked Howard R. Bowen, an economist of some note in wartime Washington, to become dean of the School of Business and Economics to accomplish the purpose. Bowen offered me a professorship, and I moved to Urbana in 1948. In the 1949-50 school year he asked me to become chairman of the Economics Department." regards, Tom Walker http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm
