Luxury or Liberty?

During the first year of the defense program it has been widely assumed that the U.S., unlike Germany, could have both guns and butter, that no essential sacrifice would be required. All one had to do some argued, was to put our nine or ten million unemployed to work in the armament industries. One would then have the greatest armament industry in the world without any interference with the production of goods for everyday living. They completely disregarded the fact' that the unemployed were mostly unskilled, and that one lacked tools and equipment for the defense industries. As a matter of fact, one did expand one's production of consumers' goods during the period in which our armament program was in low gear.