Silk Curtain

In its boldest move to date, OPM last week marched into the U.S. silk industry, became sole holder, buyer and seller of raw silk. Then it stopped all processing of raw silk (except on Army & Navy orders), put an end to all silk transfers from warehouse to mill.

Reason for this extreme action was to hoard all U.S. silk supplies for military use (chiefly powder bags and parachutes). At month’s end visible supplies were 47,000 bales. Last week the crack Japanese liner Tatuta Maru, after much legal backing & filling, unloaded its 5.568 bales on San Francisco docks (see cut). Five other ships added another 11,000 bales, bringing U.S. supplies to 63,000 bales. This was about three months’ civilian supply. It would fill all defense needs, said the Army, for two years.

Aside from the drastic effect of this action on U.S. consumers (see p. 13), the commandeering meant curtains for most of the 500 U.S. silk-hosiery manufacturers, their 97,000 employes. Another 78,000 workers in silk textile lines faced work curtailment. To mitigate the shock, OPM last week ordered rayon producers to allocate 10% of their output to silk mills. Only the finest rayon will do for hosiery, and it is hard to get.

First hosiery mill to close last week was Gotham Silk Hosiery Co.’s Courtland mill in Philadelphia. Its 600 employes would soon be lost in Philadelphia’s defense boom. Quite different was the outlook in North Carolina, where 22,000 hosiery workers face unemployment within two weeks. In Burlington, N.C., for example, a shutdown would affect 6,000 workers, ultimately cut off almost all the town’s income. Mill managers planned 1) to stretch silk operations with substitutes in welt and feet, and with a three-day week, 2) to pray for early arrival of fine rayon, and that women will buy rayon hose, 3) to urge Du Pont to relax its rule that nylon hose can contain no rayon or cotton. Half North Carolina’s mills can knit nylon, but as yet only 20% can get it.