....
JK
421
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no. 8
B 1,674,148
The Inter-University Case Program
Cases in Public Administration and Policy Formation
ICP CASE SERIES: NUMBER 8
The Veterans Gas Ration
William H. Riker
UNIVERSIT.
OF MICHIGAN
MAY 17 1957
Distributed for the ICP by
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS
Drawer 2877, University, Alabama
LIBRARY
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The Veterans Gas Ration
Copyright, 1952, by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., New York
All rights reserved
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no.8
THE VETERANS' GAS RATION
CONTENTS
OPA AND THE GASOLINE RATIONING PROGRAM
EMERGENCE OF THE VETERANS' GASOLINE RATION
ISSUE
CRYSTALLIZATION OF ATTITUDES
CRYSTALLIZATION OF POLICY
SOME QUESTIONS
Bibliographical Note
749
751
752
755
758
759
OPA and the Gasoline
Rationing Program
The general purpose of the rationing pro-
grams operated by the Office of Price Adminis-
tration during World War II was to ensure
that the limited supplies of commodities made
scarce for civilian use by the needs of war were
distributed in accordance with principles con-
sistent with the public good and the effective
prosecution of the war. Various principles were
involved and invoked, but the two of most
general applicability were equity and essen-
tiality. Under the first of these two principles,
for example, every resident of the United
States was entitled to receive a ration coupon
permitting the purchase (at one period) of five
pounds of sugar. Under the second principle,
for example, ration tickets permitting the pur-
chase of rubber boots were issued only as
needed and only to workers in essential indus-
tries like mining and chemicals.
All OPA rationing programs had a rationale
or set of rationales that included a blend of
these two principles. The gasoline program was
no exception. Group eligibility for special gaso-
line rations was determined by a Gasoline Eligi-
bility Committee (described below); the actual
program was administered by the Gasoline
Branch of the Automotive Division of the
Rationing Department of OPA. The branch
was responsible for equating the limited sup-
ply of gasoline with demand by adjusting the
value and distribution of ration coupons to the
changes of gasoline supply allotted to civilian
use by the Petroleum Administration for War.
It maintained current statistical information
on civilian use of gasoline; under the guidance
of the Eligibility Committee, it determined
the eligibility of various classes of civilian users
for gasoline rations and the amounts to be
allotted to eligible users; and it endeavored to
maintain adherence to the eligibility rules by
instruction and supervision of the local boards
responsible for the actual issuance of rations.
The relations between PAW and OPA, it
should be noted, were in theory simple, in fact
both complex and usually strained. In theory
PAW, which controlled the production of
gasoline, fixed the amount for civilian use and
certified that amount to OPA each quarter;
OPA had complete charge of the distribution
of gasoline to civilian consumers. In fact, OPA
was frequently involved in the supply problem,
PAW in distribution. Mutual recriminations.
and vexations were common. These frictions
increased the burdens that the Gasoline
Branch of OPA had to bear in any event.
One of the major functions of the Eligibility
Committee was the determination of what
categories of car-owners were to be eligible for
gasoline so that uses vital to the war and essen-
tial civilian functions would not be excessively
curtailed. The broad system of eligibility
worked out to express this purpose consisted
chiefly of three general types of priorities by
which the local boards were to be guided in
gasoline distribution: "C" rations for those
car-owners whose driving was essential to the
war or to public health and safety, "B" rations
for those whose driving was essential as a
means of getting to work or important in cer-
tain other ways, and "A" rations for all car-
owners regardless of need. "C" rations were,
of course, the largest and "A" rations the
smallest; both "B" and "C" were individually
adjusted in accordance with need (though
there was a top limit on "B" rations but not
on “C”), while the “A” ration was the same
for all. The assigned value of the coupons was
changed with variations in allotments of sup-
ply by PAW.
Inasmuch as the two major types of priorities
for extra gasoline (“B" and "C" rations) were,
while broad in coverage, still rigid in definition,
a number of other special categories were estab-
lished to cover cases of special need. They
took the form of amendments to the general
eligibility rules and were regarded as specific
and limited directions for extensions of an
RELATIONSHIPS: RELATIONS WITH THE PUBLIC
750
“A” ration to be used by the local rationing
boards as a guide to and in lieu of personal
judgment; they covered such contingencies as
travel for medical care, transport of automo-
biles upon change of residence, demonstration
of cars by dealers, and so on through about
twenty-five special cases. Over and above these
special amendments, the local boards were
granted fixed quotas of "hardship" rations
which they could use in individual cases not
covered by the rules so that uncommon cases
of need for gasoline could be taken care of.
Among the people on the Gasoline Eligi-
bility Committee responsible for making these
rules, a number of professional attitudes or
habitual ways of thinking were developed
which aided in the translation of the general
purpose of gasoline conservation and the dis-
tribution of the limited supply into specific
rules for the local boards. For example, a more
elaborately rationalized explanation of the
three broad categories of priorities was devel-
oped. In this rationalization, the central con-
cept was "essentiality," meaning essentiality
to the war effort or the home front. It was said
that first call on and the largest amounts of
gasoline were given to the most essential users
and that all exceptions which were granted
over and above the "A" ration should be
explainable in terms of relative essentiality.
The "C" ration was directly essential for the
prosecution of the war and preservation of the
economy; the "B" ration was indirectly essen-
tial for these ends, although to the general
public and even to many local ration boards
the only distinction was one of quantity of
gasoline permitted. Even the "A" ration itself,
which could perhaps have been most easily
rationalized as equitable distribution to all
car operators after the essential uses were taken
care of, was also poured into the essentiality
mold. It was not generally regarded as a politi-
cal necessity arising because car-owners without
special claim could not, need not, or should
not be altogether deprived of gasoline, while
there was gasoline to be had; nor was it usually
viewed as an administrative necessity obviating
the need for issuance of millions of individual
specialized rations for persons whose needs.
were "essential" but no larger than the amount
provided by the "A" ration: rather the "A"
ration tended to be rationalized by the officials
concerned as a method of administering the
distribution of gasoline for essential personal
uses or, alternatively, to relieve the strain on
essential public transportation facilities by use
of private cars and for the essential conserva-
tion of 23 million autos for the indefinite dura-
tion of the war.
Special ration amendments were also ration-
alized with the idea of essentiality. Each special
extension included in the eligibility rules was
described as essential to some war-related activ-
ity or essential civilian need. The officials main-
tained this tight logic in spite of the fact that
one or two of the special amendments, insti-
tuted over the opposition of the Eligibility
Committee, seemed to be the result of politi-
cal pressures. Such, for example, was the grant
of gasoline for representatives of the Farmers
Union or the amendment issued to cover
the case of one man whose usage of gaso-
line was by no means essential as the OPA
understood the word but who was a friend
of one of OPA's essential supporters in the
Congress. The latter case was unique; the
former was opposed by the Eligibility Com-
mittee, but debatable; in any event, there were
at most no more than four or five special
amendments which were in any sense forced
on the Committee and the Branch by the
OPA hierarchy or other agencies, so that in
general the special amendments, like the basic
regulations, were reasonably explicable in terms
of the essentiality rationale.
Another habit of thinking which developed
from the consciousness of the gasoline short-
age and the transportation bottleneck (on
which subjects OPA personnel received fre-
quent lectures by representatives of the PAW
and the Office of Defense Transportation) was
a kind of economy-mindedness. In some de-
gree the goal of saving gasoline for its own
sake became intermingled with the more pub-
licized principles of equity and essentiality.
The spirit of economy was emphasized also by
a belief that special amendments were likely
to destroy the equity of the system of priorities
already established. Gradually, the people in
the branch came to look upon themselves as
partners with the Petroleum Administration
for War in the conservation of an increasingly
scarce war material. The attitude had a sound
legal base, for the rationing power was de-
rived from the allocation power, granted by
Congress with the conservation of scarce ma-
terials in mind. In any event, the branch con-
tinually had to struggle with the difficulties of
making supply and demand come out even: if
special amendments were granted too freely,
ration coupons would come to have no value
and the system would break down.
Thus the idea of essentiality and the con-
sciousness of a need for conserving gasoline
joined together to encourage a preservation of
the existing relationships in the priority sys-
tem and to discourage the establishment of
new priority categories.
For a variety of reasons, the rationale formu-
lated by the Gasoline Eligibility Committee
and used by the staff of the Gasoline Branch
developed into a kind of religion. The Com-
mittee operated with a good deal of freedom,
and regarded the OPA hierarchy to which it
was subordinate with constant suspicion. The
protection of the rationale was thus protection
of the Committee. Furthermore, to a consider-
able extent, the leading people in the gasoline
rationing program were imbued with a sense
of dedication: inconsistencies in the logical
structure were felt as moral flaws. And this atti-
tude was reinforced by a sense of the desir-
ability, in the face of possible litigation, of
consistency that would stand up in the court-
room. The Branch and its guiding Committee
thus had a sense of mission and a coherence
that acted as a counterpoise to any impulsive-
ness or over-sensitivity to public or partisan
political pressures on the part of the hierarchy.
The members of the hierarchy respected the
Branch and the Committee, though at times
their patience was tried by the rigidity they
encountered.
Emergence of the Veterans'
Gasoline Ration Issue
The veterans' gasoline ration problem arose
first as part of a general consideration of vet-
erans' problem: by the top OPA management
THE VETERANS' GAS RATION
751
in the summer of 1944, long before the vet-
erans' gasoline ration question became a hot
issue. A special committee was established by
the Rationing Department to consider three
different rationing problems in which special
provision for veterans had been suggested; the
committee formulated a policy statement
(modified in practice in two respects later)
which rejected preferential treatment for vet-
erans as such. Presently, the Administrator
referred to the Gasoline Eligibility Commit-
tee the specific question of whether veterans
should receive a special gasoline ration at the
time of discharge from military service. On
August 26 this Committee decided that vet-
erans as such should not receive preferred treat-
ment, but that the problem of veterans seek-
ing employment deserved consideration. Sub-
sequently, veterans and also discharged war
workers referred to specific jobs by the United
States Employment Service were made eligible
for special rations. During the months that
followed, the Eligibility Committee first de-
nied and then granted special rations for
entertainers visiting veterans' hospitals. A year
or two earlier, it may be noted, the Committee
had first denied and then granted a special
ration for members of the Armed Services on
furlough: this request had been made by the
Army and Navy as a morale measure; the grant
was rationalized on the grounds of essential
business and social needs.
But with the approach of victory in Europe,
in the spring of 1945, agitation for a veterans'
ration arose quite suddenly. After V-E Day,
the discharge rate increased, and so did the
agitation for the ration. It continued at a high
rate for several months until it became for a
time the most important issue in the Gasoline
Branch and Eligibility Committee.
During this same period other veterans'
problems and promises began to be a major
concern of the bureaucracy and the Congress.
The Veterans' Administration was being re-
organized; the Civil Service Commission was
publicizing its program for veterans' employ-
ment; criticism in the press and in the Con-
gress of laws relating to veterans had risen to
a new high; and agencies such as the Farm
Security Administration, the United States
Employment Service, even the Selective Serv-
752
ice were advertising what they could do for
veterans. Elsewhere in the OPA new food busi-
nesses, largely run by veterans, were being
allowed extra sugar rations. Within this con-
text it is understandable that a campaign for
a special veterans' gas ration developed in a
very short time.
RELATIONSHIPS: RELATIONS WITH THE PUBLIC
The most important pressure on the Wash-
ington office came from the local ration boards.
They were the ones who frequently wanted to
be able to do something to help their neighbor-
veterans, who wanted to be able to show at
once their sympathy and their gratitude, and
who found themselves stymied by the lack of
proper authorization. When they, contrary to
their own emotions, had to turn down veterans' Crystallization of Attitudes
requests, they complained of their unpleasant
position to district and regional gasoline repre-
sentatives, and in many cases wrote letters
directly to Washington to avoid the field hier-
archy. The reports of the regional offices to
Washington began to devote more space to
this particular problem than to any other. The
reports described the personal distress which
the local board members felt when they had
to turn down veterans to whom they had pre-
viously given furlough rations; they pointed out
that many boards were using the "hardship"
ration to give what was in effect a discharge
ration and that this caused considerable antago-
nistic publicity for neighboring boards which
were unable to make similar grants from their
"hardship" quotas.
Supplementing these written reports, field
men visiting the Washington office often urged
with considerable energy that something be
done about this particular matter. They argued
that the Branch had better issue an amend-
ment to legalize rations that were being given
anyway and that otherwise the Branch would
lose the respect and obedience of the local
boards.
of the OPA operation. But at least a dozen
Congressmen felt impelled to write to Ad-
ministrator Bowles and a number of others
made telephone calls on the subject; naturally,
Congressional complaints were treated by OPA
with respect. There was also some comment in
the press on the fact that veterans received no
special ration. Newspapers in many cities car-
ried what the OPA people were accustomed
to call "horror stories" on this particular
lacuna. Very little of the pressure from the
local boards or from the Congress seemed to
be veteran-inspired.
While the pressure from the field was great
-greater perhaps than it had ever before been
on any single issue connected with gasoline-
and while the most important of the pressures
on this issue were from the field men, still
there were a number of other significant sources
of agitation. There was considerable Congres-
sional interest in the matter, although, of
course, not as much as on many other phases
Within the Washington office, the outside
agitation and comment created several points
of view: the legalistic, the fatalistic, and the
benevolent.
Much has been said and written about the
OPA lawyers, about how they supposedly sabo-
taged programs with an unduly legalistic ap-
proach to administration, and about how they
seemed unaware of administrative considera-
tions. Various explanations have been given
of this point of view. Some merely say in effect
that lawyers have a different way of thinking
from other folk; others point out that lawyers
very understandably fought for the mainte-
nance of an internally consistent system be-
cause such a system would be easier to defend
in court; while still others claim that lawyers
as a class in OPA spent most of their time
throughout its history fighting to retain and
trying to regain the position of abnormal power
which they had held in the beginning because
of the intimate relationship of the first chief
counsel with Leon Henderson, a position
which they lost in part with the resignation
of both men. Whatever may be the explana-
tion of the phenomenon, and while its extent
has been exaggerated, it is undoubtedly true
that as a group, the OPA lawyers were strict
constructionists, and a priori opposed to ex-
ceptions and deviations. On the veterans'
ration issue, it was the lawyers who were most
inclined to hold the line regardless of outside
pressures, and least willing to see any sub-
stantive merit in the proposal.
The lawyer assigned to the Gasoline Branch.
and hence the lawyer most immediately con-
cerned with the separation ration, James C.
Hyne, was regarded as particularly critical-
even for an OPA lawyer-over the gasoline
"leakages" sanctioned, for the various reasons
which have been described, by OPA adminis-
trators. Hyne had come from private practice
to OPA at its inception and had been for some
months previous to the spring of 1945 pub-
licly contemplating resignation. The reasons
he gave for this proposed action (and these
were accepted at their face value by the rest
of the office) were that he could not properly
perform his own function of aiding in conser-
vation because OPA administrators from the
top down were too political. He felt that an
administrator should make a rational program
(as he thought the Gasoline Branch had done
in the beginning) and then should stick to it
regardless of the pressures from Congress or
the public-he spoke of them as "pressure
groups." He complained that in a number of
recent instances in which he had advised that
the OPA stick to the "rational, logical pro-
gram," his opinions had been summarily dis-
missed by administrators at various levels in
the hierarchy. What had seemed to him the
final straw was a meeting of all higher profes-
sional and administrative personnel of the
OPA at which Administrator Bowles had
spoken; it was Hyne's understanding that
Bowles had urged the staff to go out of their
way to listen to the advice of Congress and
the public, to give in on the minor parts of
the OPA program, so that the major parts
of the program could be saved: but this inter-
pretation of Bowles's speech should be con-
strued in the light of its source.
When the issue of the veterans' ration came
up soon thereafter, Hyne was violently opposed
to it. To him it seemed another prospective
break in the concept of essentiality, another
"loss of intellectual integrity." He argued that
if rewards were to be given to veterans they
should be financial and not involve the dissi-
pation of a precious war material; and he com-
pared the gasoline situation to food rationing.
Why not give veterans an extra ration of meat
points, he asked.
In this he was strongly supported by his
THE VETERANS' GAS RATION
753
superior, Aaron Lewittes, chief counsel for the
Automotive Rationing Division and recently
appointed advisor on veterans' affairs to the
Deputy Administrator for Rationing. Lewittes,
like Hyne, had been with OPA from the begin-
ning; he too was a purist, and disgusted with
the "politicking" by administrators, and he
complained about the disregard of legal advice
on substantive issues of policy. He did not talk
publicly of quitting, and indeed the general
policy of the Gasoline Eligibility Committee
was largely of his making. As advisor on vet-
erans' affairs to the Deputy Administrator he
was, of course, strategically placed for opposi-
tion to the veterans' ration.
The party which might be called the “fatal-
ists" included most of the administrators re-
sponsible at some point in the hierarchy for
gasoline rationing. Because of the gasoline situ-
ation (or rather because of their estimates of
actual and prospective gasoline supply and
demand), they were reluctant to use any gaso-
line for what they thought was a non-essential
purpose; but, at the same time, they had
respect for the pressures which were now being
applied to them, and they were inclined to
believe that OPA must make some concessions
on minor matters; so they expected that they
would give in somewhat to the pressure for
veterans' gasoline before very long.
The gasoline situation as they saw it was
this: They believed that the gasoline shortage
in the spring of 1945 was quite critical. It was
admittedly not as serious as in the previous fall
(which had been the worst period during the
war) when usage was far in excess of quota
every day. By hammering at the local boards
and by fighting any efforts to broaden the
eligibility for extra gas, the daily excess had
been cut to half of what it had been at the
worst point in the fall of 1944. Shortly before
V-E Day (which was May 8, 1945), the Petro-
leum Administrator announced that the "A"
ration could be increased 50 per cent after
V-E Day; this was not within his jurisdiction,
but it had the psychological effect of a govern-
ment promise that OPA was quite unable
to over-ride. Later the Petroleum Administra-
tor insisted, over the objections of OPA, that
some 80,000 barrels per day out of some 130,-
ooo extra being allocated to OPA after V-E
RELATIONSHIPS: RELATIONS WITH THE PUBLIC
754
Day go to the "A" rations. This upset the
logical balance of the gasoline ration structure
and precluded any major improvement in the
over-quota situation.
The OPA, particularly the immediately re-
sponsible planners in the Gasoline Branch,
continued to regard the gasoline excess usage
as so serious that, even after the reluctant
increase in the value of the "A" coupons after
V-E Day, they directed a campaign at the
local boards to review "B" and "C" coupons
to cut out all not really essential uses. The
Gasoline Branch was in the ambiguous posi-
tion of simultaneously acceding to an increase
in what it termed non-essential use and at-
tempting to curtail essential use on the ground
that supply was short. This apparent incon-
sistency in the rationing program worried
them. They believed that any further "waste"
of gasoline at a time when they were trying to
make the local boards tighten up on issuance
would seem so inconsistent to the local boards
that the latter would come to disregard the
instructions of the Washington office com-
pletely.
At the same time they were in the difficult
position of having no idea of how much gaso-
line would be involved in a veterans' ration.
Arguably (though probably no one believed
this), no extra gasoline would be used. Many
local boards were giving separation rations
under the guise of hardship rations, and many
of them were giving in excess of thirty gallons
for each veteran. It was possible that a vet-
erans' ration would merely legalize usage of
gasoline which was already a fact; but this was
an extreme view. The best estimates of the
probable cost of a separation ration varied (ac-
cording to whether the estimator was in favor
of the veterans' ration or not) from 2000 bar-
rels a day to 6000 barrels (OPA was running
over quota about 40,000 barrels a day). Thus,
the separation ration probably was in itself of
minor significance. Although any extra use
seemed undesirable, what mostly worried the
Gasoline Branch was the effect that an extra
ration would have on their program of cut-
backs on other types of coupons. They felt that
the public misunderstood the state of gasoline
rationing after the rise in the value of the "A"
coupons and that the whole rationing program
would be endangered by any further significant
or publicized relaxation of eligibility regula-
tions; the public might, they feared, become
convinced that rationing was really unneces-
sary.
The two men most concerned at higher
levels with policy-making for gasoline ration-
ing, Max McCullough, the deputy administra-
tor in charge of the Rationing Department,
and Richard E. Youngblood, the chief of the
Gasoline Branch, were impressed with the
consideration of short supply and public re-
action. But as the men who had to bear most
of the public and internal OPA pressure, they
were even more impressed with the way that
the veterans' ration had become a popular and
significant issue in a very few weeks. Both of
them had been in responsible positions in the
OPA long enough to be highly sensitive to
public reaction about all phases of the pro-
gram. They both thought that a major part
of their job was the responsibility to make
an unpleasant and unpopular program as pal-
atable as possible without weakening its gen-
eral effectiveness. Hence, they expected that
they would have to give in on the veterans'
ration and in effect they resigned themselves
to a reluctant acceptance of what they felt
was inevitable. They certainly did not think
the veterans' ration was important enough to
justify a public fight, even though they felt
that it probably violated the concept of
essentiality.
Lower in the OPA hierarchy, there was not
nearly the concern with pressures which
Youngblood and McCullough felt. This was
particularly true in the Gasoline Eligibility
Committee. The Committee was composed of
a representative of each branch in the Auto-
motive Rationing Division, several lawyers at-
tached to the Division, and the chief of the
Eligibility Section (which was one of Young-
blood's sections), Thomas P. Shelburne, who
served as secretary. With the exception of
Youngblood and Shelburne, the Committee
members were more impressed with the gaso-
line shortage and the probable effects on the
public of what they regarded as “obvious
waste" than with the recommendations com-
ing in. For most of them there was a mental
conflict between the philosophy which had
been built up in the gasoline rationing pro-
gram and the proposal for a veterans' dis-
charge ration. They adhered to the concept
of essentiality as the basis for gasoline allot-
ments and looked upon this use as non-essen-
tial. While they were thus predisposed to hold
out longer than Youngblood and McCullough,
they too became fatalists as the pressure in-
creased. However, Lewittes, a key member of
the Committee, never wavered in his opposi-
tion.
THE VETERANS' GAS RATION
755
of OPA officials were rather different from the
attitudes of the general public, and of the
local boards. The Gasoline Branch and Eligi-
bility Committee included no veterans; but
it is doubtful that the presence of veterans
would have changed matters. As rationers of
a scarce commodity, the staff looked on all
new demands for gasoline as automatically
suspect; after all, petitions for many exceptions
were granted even though none of the officials
was a representative of the petitioning group
while the much larger volume of denials in-
cluded some requests from occupational groups
that were represented.
One member of the Committee came to
adopt a point of view different from that of
the legalistic and fatalistic parties. This was
Shelburne, the chief of the Eligibility Section
of the Gasoline Branch, who, like everyone
else, regarded the ration as non-essential and Crystallization of Policy
had originally opposed it; but he came to be-
lieve that the amendment should be made as
a benevolent gesture. Shelburne was a man of
forty or so, a former high school teacher and
principal. He had embraced the philosophy of
conservation and essentiality in the highest de-
gree; once he had even threatened to resign
over what seemed to him a wholly political
eligibility rule which was ordered from the top
of the agency. Consequently, he was at first
opposed to the veterans' ration because he
considered it wasteful. But he, like no one else
concerned with policy-making on the subject,
referred to veterans as "the boys." He wanted
to do something for them. Once he was able
to overcome his scruples about the waste of
gasoline, he became the only enthusiastic sup-
porter which the proposal for a discharge ra-
tion had. Some members of McCullough's
staff became tolerant or sympathetic toward
the proposal, but only Shelburne was enthusi-
astic.
In closing this schematic account of the at-
titudes toward the veterans' ration proposal,
note should be taken of an omitted alternative.
Some people felt that a fight on this issue
would be bad for the general gasoline ration-
ing program; Shelburne thought the proposal
desirable as a benevolent exception to the
rules. Apparently no one felt that the veterans
should somehow qualify under the general ra-
tionale, or that the rationale should be broad
enough as a matter of principle to cover the
veterans. Obviously, the attitudes of this group
During April and May, 1945, letters from
local boards and reports and letters from re-
gional and district offices brought the issue of
the veterans' ration to a point where some sort
of action seemed to be required. Toward the
end of May, McCullough polled his imme-
diate staff on the subject in a meeting largely
devoted to other matters. They all saw the
problem in terms of the local board and Con-
gressional suggestions and demands and it was
finally agreed at that meeting that eventually
some sort of token ration of, say, ten gallons be
provided when the pressure became too strong
to withstand. McCullough then talked this
over with Youngblood, the chief of the Gaso-
line Branch, and they then decided that an
amendment must presently be issued to pro-
vide for a veterans' ration. Youngblood felt
that a ten-gallon ration would be worse than
none at all and that the ration would need to
be as large as the one customarily given on the
largest furlough rations, that is, thirty gallons.
McCullough definitely preferred the smaller
amount, but he left the matter up to Young-
blood to decide.
The matter thus seemed to be settled by the
responsible officials-the Deputy Administra-
tor and the Branch Chief; but at this point
an anomaly in the structure caused a delay of
two months.
A long time before, a procedure had been
established under which all proposals for
amendments changing eligibility for gasoline
RELATIONSHIPS: RELATIONS WITH THE PUBLIC
756
rations were referred to the Gasoline Eligibil-
ity Committee whose membership has been
described above. In effect, the responsibility
for such decision by the top officials of OPA,
the Branch Chief or by the Chief of the Eligi-
bility Section was delegated to this Commit-
tee. In practice the primary function of the
Committee was, of course, to guard against
hasty pressures from above or from the out-
side world.
Youngblood, after reaching the decision
with McCullough, proceeded to handle the
matter through the established routines. Sev-
eral days after his conversation with McCul-
lough, he received a letter from a representa-
tive of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in which
it was proposed that veterans in rural areas be
granted a sixty-gallon ration and veterans in
urban areas be granted a thirty-gallon ration.
This was the first and only suggestion made by
a veterans' organization that came to him, and
in fact about the only suggestion received in
the Washington office during this period from
either a veteran or a veterans' representative
which touched on the issue at all. The letter
was moderate in its tone and surprisingly
enough it was never followed up, even though
it indicated that further calls would be made
on the matter. But Youngblood did not know
this at the time. All he knew was that vet-
erans' organizations had the reputation of be-
ing most persistent and effective pressure
groups. The letter worried him because he did
not at all want to get entangled in a fight with
them.
Therefore, at the next weekly meeting of
the Eligibility Committee (in the second week
of June), he proposed a discharge ration
amendment for consideration. It was discussed
at some length. But the Committee finally
voted it down with Youngblood's vote as the
only "yea." The next week Youngblood
brought the subject up again and this time
also it was turned down by the same majority.
Shortly after the second failure of the
amendment, a letter from a Congressman
strongly advocating a discharge ration was
passed on to Youngblood and Shelburne from
Administrator Bowles's office. In reply to it,
Shelburne (still unconverted to the idea) at-
tempted to draft a letter which would explain
the opposition of the office to the idea in
sufficiently persuasive arguments to satisfy the
Congressman. This letter which summarizes
the Branch's rationale reads in part as follows:
As you know, the Office of Price Administra-
tion is given each quarter a specific quota of gaso-
line which is available for civilian rationing. We
may not disregard this allocation without endan-
gering the war effort and essential civilian ac-
tivities. At the present time we are completely
consuming the allocation granted to us and all
indications point to the fact that our present con-
sumption is running over our allocation. We un-
derstand that between a million and a half and
two million persons are to be discharged from the
armed forces in the coming months. Obviously,
an automatic discharge or bonus ration would
cause a very substantial amount of gasoline to be
consumed over and above our present consump-
tion.
We have made every effort under limited allo-
cations to make gasoline available for necessary
travel. A number of provisions which are already
in effect are designed to meet the particular needs
of members of the armed forces and veterans.
Included among these are special rations for trans-
porting members of the armed forces or veterans
from Army or Navy hospitals, recuperation cen-
ters or Veterans' facilities to places of recreation
as a means of assisting in their recovery; special
rations for transportation to interview a prospec-
tive employer when referred by a recognized re-
ferral agency; special rations for disabled veterans
with additional rations for occupational travel.
The "A" ration has been increased to provide as
far as possible for personal necessity driving.
We are daily receiving numerous complaints
that the limitation on amounts made available
for distribution seriously interferes with the ac-
tivities of persons who need cars in order to carry
on their occupations and make a livelihood. In
many instances these occupations make substan-
tial contributions to the war effort. I believe that
it would be extremely hard to justify using a
large amount of gasoline as a bonus or discharge
ration where the necessity for such a ration is
highly conjectural and, at the same time, to deny
gasoline which is very badly needed for necessary
occupational travel. This, of course, would apply
likewise to veterans themselves who will need
transportation for business purposes in automo-
biles when they re-enter civilian occupations.
This letter was never sent. Shelburne talked
it over with Youngblood and Youngblood per-
suaded him that it was not a very good case
or at least not good enough to persuade the
Congressman.
But the chief effect of the Congressman's
letter was to make Youngblood bring the pro-
posal up before the Eligibility Committee.
again for a third week. By now the fact of in-
creasing Congressional interest and the fact
of an increasing volume of complaints from
local boards were sufficient to swing several of
the members of the Committee over to
Youngblood's side. Nevertheless, Shelburne,
two lawyers, and two administrators from
other branches of the Automotive Division
still opposed the idea so that the proposal
again failed.
After this meeting, the Branch received a
letter from a discharged officer complaining
about OPA discrimination against officers.
Since officers, unlike enlisted men, were dis-
charged while finishing out their accumulated
leave, they were technically eligible for a fur-
lough ration at the time of discharge. Enlisted
men, who remained on active duty until dis-
charge, were not. Ration boards had been ac-
customed to give one gallon of gasoline per
day of leave or of furlough and, since this ex-
officer had ten days of leave to finish, he had
received ten gallons of gasoline. He then wrote
an irate letter to the Branch in Washington
complaining about the discrimination against
officers because he had received only ten gal-
lons of gasoline while many enlisted men he
knew had received thirty gallons of “discharge
ration." Shelburne, as chief of the Eligibility
Section, wrote back to explain that the writer
had confused the ration given to many enlisted
men who had received a month furlough after
overseas duty with a discharge ration, and that,
in fact, such discrimination as existed was ac-
cidentally in favor of officers rather than en-
listed men. This correspondence brought to
the attention of the Gasoline Branch a sore
spot which it had not known about. The pos-
sibility of what was in effect discrimination
against enlisted men was not only repugnant
in itself, but was also potentially the basis for
a lot of condemnation such as the United
States Employment Service was then receiving
for a similar type of accidental discrimination.
Within a few days of the receipt of this let-
THE VETERANS' GAS RATION
757
ter, the Branch also received a request for legal
interpretation of the furlough ration to deter-
mine if terminal leave was properly a furlough
and if it made an officer eligible for a furlough
ration at the time of discharge. The legal staff,
specifically Hyne, considered the problem and
concluded that terminal leave was a furlough
within the meaning of the regulation.
This interpretation and the letter errone-
ously charging discrimination, coming as they
did at the same time and at the time the dis-
charge ration was under consideration, im-
pressed Shelburne tremendously. He was al-
ready torn between his loyalty to the idea of
essentiality and his benevolent impulses. Since
officers were already entitled to what was in
effect a discharge ration and since the Branch
followed a general rule that it was impossible
to repeal a specific type of eligibility already
existing, he decided that the best thing to do
would be to provide for a discharge ration
which would equalize the status of discharged
officers and enlisted men. Thereafter he be-
came the most ardent supporter of the dis-
charge ration. In spite of Shelburne's shift, the
Committee, meeting on June 28, while agree-
ing that the accidental discrimination was im-
proper, still felt that, in the light of the supply
situation, no discharge ration should be given
to either group; the matter was left pending.
A little later, in Washington, the Times
Herald (which was the Patterson newspaper)
described on the front page the difficulties of
a veteran who was job-hunting. This man, so
the story ran, was unable to use public trans-
portation because of combat-incurred disabili-
ties. Since he had had some trouble finding a
job for which he was suited or which suited
him and since the job-hunting ration was
given by OPA regulation only for a specific
referral from the War Manpower Commission,
this veteran had to go back to the ration board
several times to get gasoline. To the Times.
Herald this was just another example of OPA
red-tape and inefficiency. In spite of (or per-
haps because of) a long history of antagonistic
comment in the press, the OPA generally and
the Gasoline Branch in particular were sensi-
tive to newspaper publicity. Consequently,
these stories carried more than a little weight
with the people responsible for eligibility rules.
RELATIONSHIPS: RELATIONS WITH THE PUBLIC
758
The story was passed about the Rationing De-
partment and impressed the administrators
from other branches on the Eligibility Com-
mittee so that they became favorably disposed
to the idea of a veterans' ration.
At the next meeting of the Eligibility Com-
mittee on July 5, Shelburne brought up the
proposal for a discharge ration. Youngblood,
who had become disgusted by his three fail-
ures in sponsoring the proposal, had declared
that he would not bring the matter up again
and that he would wait until the pressure be-
came so heavy that other people on the Com-
mittee were enough interested to raise the
question. He had expected that it would be
several weeks or months before the matter
arose. But now that Shelburne had changed
his mind, Youngblood was glad to support the
proposal once more. This time, the Committee
voted unanimously to approve a discharge ra-
tion; Lewittes, the chief legal representative
on the Committee, was notably absent.
Even the action of the Committee was not
enough to settle the matter, however, for it
was customary to submit important changes
in the eligibility rules to the regional repre-
sentatives of the Gasoline Branch for consider-
ation and advice before final promulgation.
Sometimes they were polled by mail; but since
a meeting of regional men was scheduled for
the week after the Committee approved the
proposal, they were consulted on it at that
time.
At the meeting of regional representatives,
there was heated discussion of the subject.
Most of the twelve men were strongly in favor
of the proposal because they believed that the
misuse of the "hardship" ration should be
legalized so that the gasoline allotted for hard-
ship cases could be again used for its intended.
purpose rather than for a quasi-discharge ra-
tion and so that the local boards would not
lose respect for Washington rules. But at least
one of them, who was imbued with the phi-
losophy of essentiality, protested long and
stoutly. He lashed out against the action which
he interpreted as a spineless submission to pres-
sure. Some of the rest of the group resented
this description and in consequence a very
violent discussion developed around the issue.
But the regional men finally voted for approval
of a discharge-ration amendment.
This vote was the culmination of the morn-
ing session of their meeting. In the afternoon
session, they were addressed by a representative
of the Petroleum Administration for War, who
emphasized the rather grave gasoline shortage
and urged that every possible saving of gasoline
be made. After this speech, one of the regional
men proposed a reconsideration of the veter-
ans' ration proposal. A second vote resulted in
unanimous disapproval of the proposal. Shel-
burne, who was both surprised and baffled by
the turn which events had taken, told them
that he would do what he could to consider
their recommendation but that, since the
Eligibility Committee and the Deputy Ad-
ministrator had already approved the ration,
it was highly likely that it would not be pos-
sible to abide by the vote of the regional
officials.
No real effort was made to follow the final
recommendation of the regional men. Two
weeks were consumed in preparing a procedure
for the local boards to follow, in ironing out
procedural problems and in getting clearance
of responsible officials and staff officers in
OPA. The only hitch in the process of getting
clearance of the amendment was a long dis-
cussion between McCullough and Lewittes,
when Lewittes refused to sign. Because of this
incident, Lewittes resigned as McCullough's
advisor on veterans' affairs.
Complete clearance was obtained, the
amendment was printed, and finally issued on
August 3, 1945. Two weeks later the war with
Japan came to an end and gasoline rationing
was abandoned.
Some Questions
The rationing of scarce supplies is a type
of regulatory activity in which the penalty for
weakness is likely to be death. If rations are
issued substantially in excess of supply, or even
moderately in excess for any long continuing
period, the system will break down completely.
In view of this perpetual danger, enlargement
of the eligibility classifications on the basis of
sympathy for individual problems is a treach-
erous path to follow. The rationer's best pro-
tection against his own generosity is adherence
to a rationale, to a set of criteria that will serve
to reject most applications.
But regulation, perhaps especially in a dem-
ocracy, can come to a disastrous end if it be-
comes too logic-bound. The OPA recognized
this truth by its allowance of quotas for hard-
ship rations to be issued by the local boards.
The question raised by the veterans' ration
problem was whether this general release
mechanism was adequate. In more general
terms, the question is whether and how to
accommodate exceptions that receive a high
degree of public support to a tight rationale.
Specifically, for example-had the Gasoline
Branch permitted its rationale to harden into
dogma? had the OPA hierarchy permitted its
integrity to be infringed? Conversely, was the
Gasoline Branch properly adhering to prin-
ciple? was the hierarchy being properly and
democratically responsive to the public will?
The same generic problem has an organiza-
tional facet as well. The device used in the
gasoline rationing program is a standard one
-the delegation to a committee of responsi-
bility for decisions on applications for excep-
tions. Such committees prevent impulsive ac-
tion and guard consistency. Normally, as a re-
sult, they serve as protective devices-they pre-
vent undue embarrassment to the administra-
tor in denying requests; but to serve this pur- Bibliographical Note
pose, the committees must have a fairly free
hand. Obviously, if an administrator over-rules
his committee frequently (or even on just one
or two very crucial matters), he can no longer
hide behind it. By the same token, if the com-
mittee does operate freely, and with consider-
able finality, it is apt to achieve an independ-
ent life of its own; it becomes an enclave in
the hierarchy, and its responsiveness to general
policy is diminished.
This was the situation in this case, and the
reader may well ask himself whether he is
satisfied with the way the Gasoline Eligibility
Committee operated, if Youngblood was right
THE VETERANS' GAS RATION
in accepting its decision, or if McCullough
should have been bound by it. In considering
this problem, it is well to remember that it is
part of a larger problem. One of the things
we presumably mean by phrases like "a govern-
ment of laws, not men" is that the members
of the bureaucracy respect their own proce-
dures. Certainly, quite aside from the specific
hazards to the gasoline rationing program in-
volved in by-passing the Eligibility Committee,
a willingness on the part of officials to disre-
gard the established rules of OPA could even-
tually lead to generally unfortunate results.
Whether this consideration in itself justified
McCullough in waiting patiently for so long
while the Committee struggled with the Vet-
erans' Gasoline issue is another matter, and
one on which opinions will differ. The answers
to all such questions, as to the questions sug-
gested above on the use of logical doctrine, are
not easy. Different readers will vary greatly in
their evaluations and their conclusions. There
is no absolute right answer; various sensible
and defensible answers are possible. The only
general guide that can be suggested is the
desirability of weighing the manifold consider-
ations rather than coming to a conclusion
on the basis of one or two isolated factors or
principles.
759
The story of the veterans' gasoline ration is
told in somewhat abbreviated form in Vic-
tor A. Thompson, The Regulatory Process in
OPA Rationing, New York, King's Crown
Press, 1950, pp. 242-250; elsewhere in the
same volume, Professor Thompson analyzes
the functioning of the Gasoline Eligibility
Committee and other matters germane to this
particular problem. The basic draft of this
present study was prepared in 1945 or 1946
but some use has been made of Professor
Thompson's work during the course of final
revision in 1951.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 06792 8690
The ICP publishes in individual pamphlet form the public administration case studies listed
below. Included are those previously published by the ICP's predecessor, the Committee on
Public Administration Cases. Twenty-six of the case studies (those asterisked) have been
collected, with other materials in a Case Book
PUBLISHED BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC., NEW YORK:
Cases in Public Administration and Policy Development. 1952.
PAMPHLETS DISTRIBUTED BY THE POLYGRAPHIC COMPANY OF AMERICA, INC., NEW YORK:
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tion Cases)
PUBLICATIONS OF THE INTER-UNIVERSITY CASE PROGRAM
*The Air Search and Rescue Program. 1950
*The Attack on the Cost of Living Index. 1951
*The Battle of Blue Earth County. 1950, revised 1950
*The Cambridge City Manager. 1951
The Consumers' Counsel. 1949, revised 1950
*The Defense Plant Corporation. 1950
*The Disposal of the Aluminum Plants. 1948, revised 1952
*The FBI Retirement Bill. 1949
The Feasibility Dispute. 1950
*The Foreign Service Act of 1946. 1949, revised 1952
*Gotham in the Air Age. 1950, revised 1952
*Indonesian Assignment. 1950
*The Kings River Project. 1949, revised 1950
The Latin American Proceeding. 1949
*The Natural Cement Issue. 1950
*The National Labor Relations Board Field Examiner. 1951
*The Office of Education Library. 1950
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*The Sale of the Tankers. 1950, revised 1952
*Self-Insurance in the Treasury. 1949, revised 1952
Smith and the OPA. 1950
1.
*2.
#3.
*The Transfer of the Children's Bureau. 1949, revised 1952
*The TVA Ammonia Plant. 1950
*4.
#5.
*6.
$7.
*8.
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ICP Case Series, in progress, 1951-
•
The Firing of Pat Jackson. 1951
Cancellation of the Ration Stamps. 1952
The Emergency Rubber Project. 1952
The Glavis-Ballinger Dispute. 1952
The Regional Director and the Press. 1952
Production Planning in the Patent Office. 1952
Edited by Harold Stein
The Rural Electrification Administration Personnel Report. 1952
The Veterans' Gas Ration. 1952
The New York City Health Centers. 1952
W. Scott Payne
Kathryn Smul Arnow
Paul N. Ylvisaker
Frank C. Abbott
Kathryn Smul Arnow
Clifford J. Durr
Harold Stein
Joseph F. Marsh, Jr.
John Brigante
Harold Stein
Herbert Kaufman
Charles Wolf, Jr.
Arthur A. Maass
W. Scott Payne
Paul N. Ylvisaker
William H. Riker
Corinne Silverman
Jack W. Peltason
Louis W. Koenig
Kathryn Smul Arnow
Robert L. Gold
E. Drexel Godfrey, Jr.
Ellen St. Sure
William H. Riker
Martin Kriesberg
Martin Kriesberg
Winifred McCulloch
Arch Dots on
Winifred McCulloch
William H. Riker
Herbert Kaufman