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World War II and the “Crisis” of Small Business: The Smaller War Plants Corporation, 1942–1946

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Jonathan J. Bean
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Extract

On the eve of America's entry into World War II, Senator Joseph O'Mahoney (D-Wyo.) warned that “if we let little business go down in a total effort to defend democracy we shall let the very foundation of democracy perish. The total effort will result in total government.” O'Mahoney was concerned that the growing concentration of defense contracts with large corporations would tie big business to big government and thereby leave small business out of the military buildup. This fear that big business might squeeze small manufacturers out of the war effort fueled demands for government assistance. With the antitrust laws suspended for the duration of the war, congressional small-business advocates took positive action, using crisis rhetoric and the ideological appeal of small business to secure the creation of the Smaller War Plants Corporation (SWPC), the first federal agency to represent small manufacturers.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 215 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1994

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References

Notes

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9. In 1935 Wright Patman urged the President to call a conference of small business associations in Washington, but the President's secretary, Marvin McIntyre, did not “think the movement sponsored by Patman would work very well,” and the administration did not act on the suggestion. Wright Patman to Marvin H. McIntyre [Assistant Secretary to the President], 30 November 1935, FDRPL OF 288, box 1, folder “Chain Stores, 1935–1936;” Marvin H. McIntyre to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 13 December 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (Hyde Park, N.Y.) [hereafter FDRPL], OF 288, box 1, folder “Chain Stores, 1935–1936.” For a colorful account of the boisterous proceedings of the 1938 conference, see Bunzel, John H., The American Small Businessman (New York, 1962), 3–9Google Scholar.

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12. Daughters, Relationship, section 4, “The Small Business Movement” (quote).

13. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, message to Congress, 29 April 1938, in U.S. Senate, Temporary National Economic Committee, Investigation of Economic Power, Final Report and Recommendations of the Temporary National Economic Committee, 76th Cong., 3d sess., transmitted to the Congress pursuant to Public Resolution No. 113 (Washington, D.C., 1941), 11–20; Hawley, New Deal, 488.

14. Overall, however, the TNEC offered a mixed bag to small business advocates. In its final 1941 report, the committee expressed opposition to anti-chain-store legislation. On the other hand, the committee recommended stricter enforcement of the antitrust laws and positive aid for “the Lilliputian members of the economic household.” See TNEC, Problems of Small Business, Monograph No. 17, by John R. Cover et al. (Washington, D.C, 1941); TNEC, Final Report and Recommendations of the Temporary National Economic Committee (Washington, D.C. 1941); TNEC, Final Report of the Executive Secretary (Washington, D.C, 1941), 310 (quote).

15. For more on the creation of these committees, see Spritzer, Donald E., Senator, James E. Murray and the Limits of Post-War Liberalism (New York, 1985), 69–70Google Scholar; Vinyard, C. Dale, “Congressional Committees on Small Business” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1964), 83–85, 90Google Scholar.

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17. Vatter, U.S. Economy, 57–59; Blum, John Morton, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II (New York, 1976), 134–35Google Scholar.

18. Nelson, Donald, Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production (New York, 1946), 178Google Scholar; “Small Businessmen Are Confused Says Davis,” Commercial and Financial Chronicle, 8 October 1942, 1268; Bruchey, Stuart, Enterprise: The Dynamic Economy of a Free People (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), 476Google Scholar (Somervell quote); Smith, R. Elberton, “The Army and Small Business,” chap. 18, United States Army in World War II: The War Department: The Army and Economic Mobilization (Washington, D.C., 1959), 414Google Scholar.

19. “Concerning Priorities and the Utilization of Existing Manufacturing Facilities,” 17 November 1941 report, Congressional Digest (February 1942): 43–47.

20. C. C. Fichtner, testimony, Senate Small Business Committee, 18 December 1941, in “The Department of Commerce Reports on Small Business,” Congressional Digest (February 1942): 41–42; “New Unit to Aid Small Business,” Domestic Commerce (8 January 1942): 6; Ziegler, Politics, 91–92.

21. “Pending Measures for Relief of Small Business,” Congressional Digest (February 1942): 39–40 (quote); Senate Small Business Committee, Small Business and Defense, 77th Cong., 1st sess., 20 September 1941, Committee Print No. 6.

22. James E. Murray, 15 December 1941, Senate Small Business Committee, Small Business and the War Program, Hearings, part 1, 77th Cong., 1st sess., 2–3; Murray, radio address, “The Murray Committee's Approach to the Small Business Problem,” Congressional Digest (February 1942): 47–49; Vatter, U.S. Economy, 59. Murray's committee commissioned a study of the decline of small business in Germany; see Senate Small Business Committee, The Fate of Small Business in Nazi Germany, by A. R. L. Gurlan, Otto Kirchheimer, and Franz Neumann (Washington, D.C., 1943)Google Scholar. Ironically, German small-business advocates also sought special privileges; see Grunberg, Emile, “The Mobilization of Capacity and Resources of Small-Scale Enterprises in Germany,” Journal of Business 14:4 (October 1941): 319–44Google Scholar; 15 (1942): 56–89.

23. TNEC, Final Report, 3; James Murray, “Conversion of Small Business Enterprises to War Production,” Congressional Record (24 February 1942), vol. 88, pt. 8: A703–705; Mrozek, Donald J., “Organizing Small Business During World War II: The Experience of the Kansas City Region,” Missouri Historical Review 71 (1977): 174–92Google Scholar.

24. The Small Business Act (P.L. 603; S. 2250): An Act to mobilize the productive facilities of small business …, ” in Johnson, Robert Wood, “But, General Johnson”: Episodes in a War Effort (Princeton, 1944), 153–58Google Scholar; James E. Murray, House Committee on Banking and Currency, Conversion of Small Business Enterprises to War Production, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d sess., 27 April 1942: 1–8; Murray, “Mobilization of Small Business for War Production,” Congressional Record (31 March 1942), vol. 88, pt. 3, 3223; James E. Murray to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 23 March 1942, FDRPL, OF 4735f, box 4, folder “War Production Board, SWPC, 1942.”

25. Robert A. Taft, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, Conversion of Small Business Enterprises, Hearings, 77th Cong., 2d sess., 11 March 1942, 268.

26. Jesse Jones, in ibid., 272–73; Senate Small Business Committee, press release, 20 March 1942, War Production Board Records, National Archives, Record Group 179, WPB 38.14; “Senate Approves Aid for Small Mfg. Plants,” Commercial and Financial Chronicle (9 April 1942): 1448; C. W. Fowler, “The Legislative Origins of the Smaller War Plants Corporation,” in Histories of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, National Archives, Smaller War Plants Corporation, Record Group 240 [hereafter RG 240], SWPC 71, box 1: 97–100.

27. “Promotion of Small Business,” Congressional Record (25 May 1942), vol. 88, pt. 4, 4506–26; James E. Murray, testimony, House Banking and Currency Committee, Conversion of Small Business, Hearings, 28 April 1942, 21; Hughes, ibid., 11 March 1942, 273.

28. Fowler, “Legislative Origins,” 102–6.

29. Murray, House Banking and Currency Committee, Conversion of Small Business, 28 April 1942, 17; James M. Mead, ibid., 28 April 1942, 48; James E. Murray to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 2 July 1942, FDRPL, OF 4735f, box 4, folder “WPB, SWPC, 1942” (quote).

30. War Production Board, Ist Bimonthly Report, 11 August 1942, 77th Cong., 2dsess., S.Doc. 244, 2–3; Nelson, Arsenal, 279 [quote].

31. WPB, 2d Bimonthly Report, 11 October 1942, 77th Cong., 2d sess., Sen. Doc. 274, 1, 3–4; C. W. Fowler to Charles A. Murray, 22 October 1942, RG 240, SWPC 34, box 1; Fowler, “Legislative Origins,” 129–39.

32. Leyerzapf, James W., “The Public Life of Lou E. Holland” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1972), 111–13Google Scholar, 127–28; “Little Man's Pal,” Business Week, 10 October 1942, 20.

33. “Little Man's Pal,” Business Week, 10 October 1942, 20–22.

34. Patman, “Progress Report on Helping Small Manufacturers and Producers Under Murray-Patman Act,” Congressional Record (24 November 1942), vol. 88, pt. 10, A4074. See also Reid F. Murray (R-Wis.), “Small Plants Getting Jobs Daily,” Congressional Record (23 November 1942), vol. 88, pt. 10, A4053.

35. Murray, Senate Small Business Committee, Problems of American Small Business, Hearings, 13 October 1942, 1047; Emanuel Celler, ibid., 14 October 1942: 1128; Murray, radio address, 29 September 1942, “The Preservation of Small Business in the War Emergency,” Congressional Record (1 October 1942), vol. 88, pt. 10, A3487; Leyerzapf, “The Public Life of Lou E. Holland,” 123–24.

36. Patman, “A Preliminary Report on the Committee on Small Business of the House to the Speaker,” Congressional Record (16 December 1942), vol. 88, pt. 10, A4438; Murray, Senate Small Business Committee, Problems of American Small Business, Hearings, pt. 12, 15 December 1942, 1642; Patman, ibid., 1610, 1684; Wright Patman to Lou Holland, transcript of telephone conversation, 26 December 1942, RG 240, SWPC 63, box 140.

37. Holland, testimony, Senate Small Business Committee, Problems of American Small Business, 15 December 1942, 1641–51; Corrie Cloyes, “Small Business Specialists Give Senate Committee Manufacturers' Side of Wartime Picture,” Domestic Commerce, 29 October 1942, 3–6.

38. Wright Patman to Senator Alben W. Barkley, 18 February 1943, RG 240, SWPC 26, box 12.

39. Wright Patman to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 16 December 1942, in FDRPL, OF 4735f, box 4, folder “WPB, SWPC, 1942.”

40. Franklin D. Roosevelt to James F. Byrnes, 18 December 1942, in FDRPL, OF 4735f, box 4, folder “WPB, SWPC, 1942”; James F. Byrnes to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 14 January 1943, in FDRPL, OF 4735f, box 4, folder “WPB, SWPC, January-June 1943.”

41. Wright Patman to Donald Nelson, 12 January 1943, RG 179, WPB 38.17C; Johnson, “But, General, “28; James E. Murray to Franklin D. Roosevelt, FDRPL, OF 4735f, box 4, folder “War Production Board, SWPC, 1942”; Johnson, “But, General,” 26 (quote).

42. Patman, “Small Business Continues to Get Run-around and Brush-off by Smaller War Plants Corporation,” Congressional Record (25 January 1943), vol. 89, pt. 9, A3O5; James E. Murray, “Has Small Business a Future?: What Do We Mean by Preserving Small Business?,” address before Smaller Business Council of America, Cleveland, 26 March 1943, Vital Speeches (15 May 1943): 475; Harry S Truman, “Monopolistic Tendencies of the War Production Board—Aid for Small Business,” Congressional Record (11 February 1943), vol. 89, pt. 1, 843, 851; Leyerzapf, “The Public Life of Lou E. Holland,” 130 (quote).

43. SWPC, 7th Bimonthly Report, 78 Cong., 1st sess., S.Doc. 98, 2. Johnson, “But, General,” 32–33; SWPC, 8th Bimonthly Report, 78th Cong., 1st sess., S.Doc. 134, 2–3.

44. Donald M. Nelson to Johnson, 12 March 1943, RG 179, WPB 38.14C.

45. Donald D. Davis to Colonel Robert Johnson, 8 April 1943, RG 240, SWPC 71, box 9; Johnson, “But, General,” 46, 51–52.

46. Robert Wood Johnson, address before the Economic Club of Detroit, 19 April 1943, “The Role of Big Business in Saving Small Business,” Congressional Record (5 May 1943), vol. 89, pt. 10, A2190; Robert Wood Johnson, interview with A. N. Weckster, “Small Business Must Survive!” Purchasing (March 1943): 8; Johnson, “But, General,” 34–35; SWPC, 8th Bimonthly Report, 2; Robert Wood Johnson, RG 179, WPB Minutes, 27 April 1943 (Historical Reports on War Administration, Doc. Publ. 4), 218–19; SWPC, Press Release, 21 June 1943, RG 240, SWPC 32, box 2; Walter Chamblin Jr. to Colonel Robert Johnson, 13 April 1943, RG 240, SWPC 26, box 11; Colonel R. W. Johnson to Board of Directors, 14 April 1943, RG 240, SWPC 71, box 9; Johnson, Robert Wood, Spreading the Work: The Salvation of American Industry (Washington, D.C., 1943), 3Google Scholar.

47. James E. Murray to General Robert W. Johnson, 19 July 1943, RG 240, SWPC 26, box 11.

48. Senate Small Business Committee, Small Business in War and Essential Civilian Production, 78th Cong., 1st sess., 11 March 1943, S.Rpt. 12, pt. 2.

49. Johnson to James E. Murray, 30 August 1943, RG 240, SWPC 26, box 11; Johnson to Murray, 26 August 1943, ibid.; Robert Wood Johnson to Murray, 25 September 1943, ibid, (quote); Johnson, “But, General,” 71.

50. “True Facts About Business Failures—Effect of War on Small Business,” Congressional Record (18 October 1943), vol. 89, pt. 12, A4346; Clay J. Anderson, “War Casualties in Manufacturing,” [from Domestic Commerce, 25 March 1943], in Commerce Department, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Small Business Unit, Small Business—A Notional Asset, Economic Series no. 24 (July 1943): 12, 11 (quote). See also, “How Small Business Is Faring in 1943,” Domestic Commerce, November 1943, 12–20.

51. The smallest companies (0–7 employees) experienced a slight decline in sales; yet 59 percent of these firms described their business as “more favorable” than it had been before the war. The drop in sales for the smallest firms may have resulted from the conscription of small business owners or the lure of better opportunities in wage work. Thus, although the average sales figure declined, perhaps the surviving firms fared better. More research needs to be done on the question of social mobility among small business owners during the war. Office of War Information, Bureau of Special Services, Surveys Division, Memorandum No. 52, 17 May 1943, Smaller Manufacturing Plants and Wartime Production, Part I: A Digest of the Findings, RG 240, SWPC 71, box 2, 12, 22, 25; Howard R. Bowen, “Impact of the War upon Smaller Manufacturing Plants,” Survey of Current Business (July 1943): 20–21; Executives' Defense Digest, 1 August 1943, excerpt, RG 240, SWPC 32, box 12. An Army survey of small plants in New York City found that only 2.5 percent were “distressed.” Smith, “The Army and Small Business,” 423.

52. “Johnson Resigns as Small Plants Head,” Commercial and Financial Chronicle, 28 October 1943, 1714; Johnson, “But, General,” 76. Murray urged Johnson to adopt “a very liberal attitude toward financing of mining ventures,” and by the end of the war Murray's Committee had interceded hundreds of times on behalf of various mining operations. Robert Wood Johnson to James E. Murray, 26 January 1943, RG 240, SWPC 63, box 125; Senate Small Business Committee, Senate Small Business Committee—Its Record and Outlook, 79th Cong., 1st sess., 12 February 1945, S.Rpt 47: 21.

53. Johnson, “But, General,” 74–76, 58, 55 (quote); Johnson, “What Business Needs,” Saturday Evening Post, 15 July 1944, 20 (quote).

54. “Maury Maverick,” Current Biography (1944).

55. “New WPB Position Given to Maverick: Ex-Congressmen Slated to Head Smaller War Plants Corporation,” New York Times, 9 January 1944, 3; SWPC, 10th Bimonthly Report, v, 1; SWPC, 15th Bimonthly Report, 3–4; “Maverick, Maury,” DAB (quotes).

56. SWPC, 10th Bimonthly Report, v–vi; Maverick, “How Shall We Convert: Small Business Must Get the Breaks,” Saturday Evening Post, 16 September 1944, 14, 44; Vatter, U.S. Economy, 60, 64; Blum, V Was for Victory, 129; “War Leaders Testify at Length: Fight to Aid Small Business Faces Test,” Iron Age, 4 May 1944, 106–8. For a discussion of the reconversion debate, see Peltason, Jack W., “The Reconversion Controversy,” Public Administration and Policy Development: A Case Book, ed. Stein, Harold (New York, 1952), 215–83Google Scholar.

57. U.S. Commerce Department, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 187 Bills: A Digest of Proposals Considered in Congress on Behalf of Small Business, 1943–1944, by Burt W. Roper (Washington, D.C., 1946), 96–100, 106–13.

58. Hawley, New Deal, 320. See also Cho, Hyo Won, “The Evolution of the Functions of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation: A Study of the Growth and Death of a Federal Lending Agency” (Ph.D. diss., The Ohio State University, 1953), 41–45Google Scholar; TNEC, Problems of Small Business, monograph No. 17, by John R. Cover et al. (Washington, D.C., 1941), 236–43; U.S. Commerce Department, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Government Financial Aids to Small Business, by Burt W. Roper (Washington, D.C., 1945), vii, 10–12.

59. SWPC, 13th Bimonthly Report, 234, 3; SWPC, 17th Bimonthly Report, 10; Maverick to James E. Murray, 15 November 1944, RG 240, SWPC 63, box 125; Kaplan, A. D. H., Small Business: Its Place and Problems (New York, 1948), 149Google Scholar.

60. Wright Patman, “Accomplishments of Committee on Small Business of the House,” Congressional Record (9 January 1945), vol. 91, pt. 10, A74. In 1945 the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted that employment would increase in sectors of the economy dominated by small business (e.g., construction, trade, services). SWPC 18th Bimonthly Report, April–May, 1945, 2–4. Economists were divided in their forecasts of postwar conditions, with some expecting a return to prewar conditions and others predicting full employment and a sharp increase in exports; see Julius Hirsch, “Facts and Fantasies Concerning Full Employment,” American Economic Review 34:1, supplement, pt. 2 (March 1944): 118–27; “Discussion,” in ibid., 128–33; and Theodore N. Beckman, “Large Versus Small Business After the War,” in ibid., 94–106; Sapir, Michael, “Review of Economic Forecasts for the Transition Period,” Studies in Income and Wealth 11 (1949): 275–351Google Scholar.

61. Senate Small Business Committee, Senate Small Business Committee, 6, 18; Maverick, Report on France: A Descriptive and Factual Statement, 2 April 1945, RG 240, SWPC 71, box 11; Maverick, Report on Trip to England, RG 240, SWPC 71, box 11; Maury Maverick, speech before Subcommittee on Foreign Trade of the Senate Small Business Committee, 21 May 1945, in John M. Blair, “Small Business After the War,” Histories of the Smaller War Plant Corporation, Exhibit 1, 4–5; “American Technological Assistance Will be Offered Friendly Nations,” Steel, 26 March 1945, 68.

62. SWPC, 13th Bimonthly Report, 4 (quote).

63. In July 1943 Johnson asked C. W. Fowler to “develop a flow of commendatory comment” from small firms. These letters were sent to the Small Business Committees in a bound volume entitled 500 Letters Illustrating the Nature of the Services Performed by the Smaller War Plants Corporation, Robert Wood Johnson to James E. Murray, 25 September 1943, RG 240, SWPC 26, box 12. Fowler also provided the committees with a list of eight thousand beneficiaries of SWPC aid. Committee members wrote to these firms and received “negative and critical” comments on the performance of the SWPC. C. W. Fowler to Maury Maverick, 24 February 1944, RG 240, SWPC 33, box 1.

64. Eininger [vice-president, Powhatan Brass and Iron] to C. W. Fowler, 15 January 1944; G. H. Garrett [general manager, Thompson Pipe and Steel] to C. W. Fowler, 30 November 1943; N. C. English [Carolina Underwear] to C. W. Fowler, 29 November 1943, RG 240, SWPC 33, box 1.

65. SWPC, 14th Bimonthly Report, 24; E. H. Little to Alfred C. Fuller, 15 June 1944, RG 240, SWPC 77, box 1; SWPC, Industry Opinion on Proposed Science Legislation (Washington, D.C., 1945). An earlier study of small manufacturing firms in New Jersey found them more optimistic about their postwar prospects than big business. Johnson, “But, General,” 133.

66. Jesse Robison to Maury Maverick, 1 March 1944, RG 240, SWPC 12, box 2; H. P. Warhurst to J. Russell Boner, Preliminary Report, 27 January 1944; Carl E. Bolte, report on Conference of American Small Business Organizations, 11 February 1944; Shelby C. Davis to Ray H. Haun [American Business Congress], 6 March 1944; H. Paulman to Victor Fabian [report on Little Businessman's League of America], 28 February 1944; Lloyd K. Moody to Granville B. Fuller [report on Smaller Businessmen's Association, 11 February 1944, RG 240, SWPC 77, box 1. A National Federation of Small Manufacturers was formed in 1940, but it was apparently defunct by 1944. “Small Manufacturers Federation Formed,” Oil, Paint, and Drug Reporter, 8 January 1940.

67. “Bids Women Turn to Small Business,” New York Times, 12 August 1944, 8; “First Woman on Board of Governors of SWPC,” New York Times, 28 February 1945, 17.

68. SWPC, 16th Bimonthly Report, 6–9; C. W. Fowler, “The Mature Program of the Smaller War Plants Corporation as Developed by Chairman Maury Maverick,” Histories of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, 260; SWPC, 18th Bimonthly Report (4/45–5/45), 25–27; SWPC, Smaller War Plants Corporation Will Help Veterans, 1; SWPC, 19th Bimonthly Report (6/45–7/45), 22.

69. Ralph Coburn [SWPC District Manager], House Small Business Committee, Financial Problems of Small Business, Hearings, 19 April 1945, 79th Cong., 1st sess., pt. 1, 242–43; SWPC, 19th Bimonthly Report, 10; Frank Gervasi, “Cradle of Free Enterprise,” Collier's, 16 March 1946, 27; Lebergott, Stanley, The Americans: An Economic Record (New York, 1984), 472Google Scholar.

70. House Committee on Banking and Currency, To Increase the Capitalization of the Smaller War Plants Corporation by $200,000,000,” Hearings, 78th Cong., 2d sess., 22 November 1944, 21–50; “Increase in Capital Stock of Smaller War Plants Corporation,” Congressional Record (1 December 1944), vol. 90, pt. 7, 8689–8707; “Practices and Objectives of SWPC Sharply Questioned by Committee,” Steel, 11 December 1944, 92–94; Roper, 187 Bills, 100.

71. “Amendment of Smaller War Plants Act—Report of the Special Committee to Study Problems of American Small Business,” Congressional Record (12 May 1944), vol. 90, pt. 4, 4370–75; House Committee on Banking and Currency, Extending the Life of Smaller War Plants Corporation, 79th Cong., 1st sess., 12 February 1945, S. Rpt. 45; House Committee on Banking and Currency, 1945 Continuance of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, Hearings, 79th Cong., 1st sess., 27 March 1945, 5; Roper, 187 Bills, 15, 20; House Small Business Committee, Financial Problems of Small Business, Hearings, pt. 2, 79th Cong., 1st sess., 23 April 1945, 1005, 1017 (Hall, Ploeser quotes); “War Plants Corporation to Go On,” New York Times, 28 April 1945.

72. During the war the Commerce Department created a “Big Brother” program whereby corporate executives offered advice to small business owners. See “Department Promotes ‘Big Brother’ Movement,” Domestic Commerce (3 September 1942), Small Business: A National Asset, 29; “Help for Small Manufacturers,” Domestic Commerce (February 1945): 12, 21.

73. Maury Maverick to James E. Murray, 2 July 1945, RG 240, SWPC 63, box 125 (quote); Maverick to Wright Patman, 9 October 1945, in ibid.

74. Maverick to Harry S Truman, 11 June 1945, RG 240, SWPC 63, box 140; Maverick to Wright Patman, 9 October 1945, Ibid; SWPC, Small Plants Speak for Themselves: A Special Report to the Small Business Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives (4 October 1945), RG 240, SWPC 71, box 11 75.

75. Henderson, Richard B., Maury Maverick: A Political Biography (Austin, Tex. 1970), 249–50Google Scholar.

76. Executive Order 9665 (27 December 1945), Federal Register, vol. 10, no. 252, 15365–77. Maverick considered the order unconstitutional and “political dynamite” but relented in the interest of party unity. Maverick to Charles B. Henderson [RFC Chairman], 9 January 1945; Maverick to Harry S Truman, memorandum, 8 January 1946, RG 240, SWPC 63, box 64 (quote).

77. For a brief discussion of the events leading from the demise of the SWPC to the creation of the Small Business Administration, see Chase, Anthony G., “Federal Support of the Vital Majority: The Development of the U.S. Small Business Administration,” chap. 1 in The Vital Majority: Small Business in the American Economy: Essays Marking the Twentieth Anniversary of the U.S. Small Business Administration, ed. Carson, Deane (Washington, D.C. 1973), 8–14Google Scholar.

78. SWPC, 22d Bimonthly Report, 39, 37, 41, 9. The SWPC also left a literary legacy: Maury Maverick coined the term “gobbledygook” to describe the impenetrable jargon of agency officials. “Maury Maverick,” Current Biography (1945).

79. SWPC, Economic Concentration and World War II, by John M. Blair et al. (Washington, D.C., 1945), 29–33, 46–49, 54, 64, 314, 318Google Scholar; SWPC, 22d Bimonthly Report, 19. David Mowery challenges the SWPC's assertion that small firms did not benefit from R&D spending; see Mowery, , “Industrial Research and Firm Size, Survival, and Growth in American Manufacturing, 1921–1946: An Assessment,” Journal of Economic History 43:4 (December 1983): 977–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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82. See, e.g., Birch, David L., Job Creation in America: How Our Smallest Companies Put the Most People to Work (New York, 1987), 6Google Scholar; Solomon, Steven, Small Business USA: The Role of Companies in Sparking America's Economic Transformation (New York, 1986)Google Scholar.

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84. Between 1942 and 1945, personal consumption expenditures increased from $161 billion to $183 billion in constant (1958) dollars. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, pt. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1976)Google Scholar, Series F47–70. Robert Higgs questions this data and argues that real personal consumption did not increase during the war. If accurate, his findings only underscore the need to research further the reasons for small manufacturers' satisfaction with the state of the wartime economy. See Higgs, Robert, “Wartime Prosperity?: A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s,” Journal of Economic History 52 (March 1992): 50–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

85. See Markusen, Ann and Yudken, Joel, Dismantling the Cold War Economy (New York, 1992)Google Scholar, for a discussion of the difficulties faced by firms attempting to convert to civilian production.

86. Stigler, George J., “Competition in the United States,” Five Lectures on Economic Problems (1949; rpt. Freeport, N.Y., 1969), 53–54Google Scholar; Nutter, G. Warren, The Extent of Enterprise Monopoly in the United States, 1899–1939: A Quantitative Study of Some Aspects of Monopoly (Chicago, 1951), 44–48Google Scholar; M. A. Adelman, “The Measurement of Industrial Concentration,” Review of Economics and Statistics (November 1951): 275–77; Jones, , “Relative Position,” 34–35; Soloman Fabricant, “Is Monopoly Increasing?,” Journal of Economic History 13 (1953): 93Google Scholar; Kaplan, A. D. H., Big Enterprise in a Competitive System (Washington, D.C., 1954), 126–27Google Scholar; Mason, Edward S., “A Review of Recent Literature,” in Economic Concentration and the Monopoly Problem (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), 28–31Google Scholar. The Commerce Department reported a decline in the market share of the largest two hundred manufacturers (as measured by sales, 1939–46), Hunter, “The Truth,” 22. In 1964 Morris Adelman reported that corporations with assets greater than $100 million experienced a decline in their share of manufacturing assets from 41.5 percent to 38.7 percent (1942–46). In 1969 a study by the Federal Trade Commission revealed that the two hundred largest corporations' share of manufacturing assets declined from 45.1 percent to 45.0 percent (1941–47). See Cain and Neumann, “Planning for Peace,” 132–33. Recent studies confirm a decline in aggregate concentration since the 1930s; see Brozen, Yale, Concentration, Mergers, and Public Policy (New York, 1982), 26–27Google Scholar, 312; Gwartney, James D. and Stroup, Richard L., Economics: Private and Public Choice, 5th ed. (New York, 1990), 546Google Scholar. Economist Arthur B. Laffer also found no change in the level of vertical integration in American industry. Laffer, , “Vertical Integration by Corporations, 1929–1965,” Review of Economics and Statistics 51 (1969): 91–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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88. Ibid., 15 (quote).

89. Theodore J. Lowi examines the dynamics of interest-group liberalism in The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States, 2d ed. (New York, 1979)Google Scholar.

90. Hawley, New Deal, 189.

91. Wilson, James Q., Bureaucarcy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York, 1989), 26Google Scholar.

92. Heath, “American War Mobilization,” 295; Blum, V Was for Victory, 128.

93. A. B. ZuTavern, “Red Tape Strangles Small Business,” American Business, September 1944, 38–39; “NACM Locals Respond to Appeal for Assistance by SWPC,” Credit and Financial Management, October 1943, 24; “What's Ahead for Small Business: How Government Can Help,” Modern Industry, 15 April 1944, 145–48; National Conference of State University Schools of Business (comp.), Report on Problems and Attitudes of Small Business Executives: Result of a National Survey in Feb. 1945 (n.p.).

94. Sklar, Corporate Reconstruction; Kolko, , Triumph of Conservatism; The Roots of American Foreign Policy: An Analysis of Power and Purpose (Boston, 1969)Google Scholar; and The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943–1945 (New York, 1968)Google Scholar.

95. Berlie Loren Lunde, “The Role of Small Business in Defense Production with Special Reference to Air Force Contracts” (M.B. A. thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1956), 12; “How Tough Is It for Small Business?,” Business Week, 29 December 1951, 80–81; “Small Firms Aren't Losing Out,” Business Week, 8 March 1952, 64–66; “Little Business Holds Its Own,” Business Week, 16 June 1951, 144.