This inquiry, however, appeared friendly. It wasn’t important enough to warrant klieg lights or a radio hookup, but attracted the usual barrage of flash bulbs touched off at the instant best calculated to catch the witness with his mouth open or his guard down. In my extemporaneous introduction, I pointed out to the Committee that we welcomed this inquiry and especially the Committee’s interest in postwar unemployment. We had taken the position early in the war that the government should permit us to earn enough money on war contracts so that we might discharge our responsibilities to employees terminated by the cessation of hostilities. We had had in mind that, by adjusting each case on its merits, and out of funds set aside from earnings for that purpose, the employer could handle the problem with fairness to the employee as well as to the public which, after all, was the customer in this case. However, Congress had disapproved that procedure and, through the excess profits tax, the Price Adjustment Act, the cost inspection service, and all other controls, had so limited our earnings that we now had no funds available for the purpose. As a matter of fact, our companies had been so blown up by war demands that a sudden cessation of hostilities must inevitably wipe out all our resources before we could reduce our working forces in any orderly manner. In short, our problem was not one of war profits; it was rather a question of how to survive. But while on the subject of profits, it might be noted that only recently the National City Bank of New York had printed in its _Bulletin_ an analysis of profits as a percentage of sales of the several groups of industries doing war work. This report had shown that the aircraft industry ranked lowest of all industries, with a record of approximately 1½ per cent. The same table had revealed that the automotive industry, now busy manufacturing products designed and developed by the aircraft companies, had earned nearly twice as much. This fact had resulted from the automotive industry’s better tax base.