Utah War Industry during World War II: A Human Impact Analysis

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 51, 1983, No. 1

Utah War Industry during World War II: A Human Impact Analysis

BY THOMAS G. ALEXANDER

SCHOLARS HAVE EXAMINED UTAH WAR INDUSTRY in a number of ways. Some have looked at the economic impact of the industry. Others have explored the response of Utahns to the establishment of war industry. Some have detailed the reasons for the location of war industry in Utah, while others have listed the characteristics of that industry.

One of the major problems with the previous studies is that they have either tended to look at a single dimension — most usually economic — or they have been fragmented. Thus, there have been a large number of studies of individual installations, studies of single problems like housing, and economic impact analyses of the entire industry. These studies are valuable, but they do not always view the entire picture with the perspective necessary to understand the total impact of war industry on the people of the state.

The tendency toward fragmentation is reinforced by the way in which statistical data are reported. Whether from convenience, from a system of economic analysis, or from ideology, statisticians generally separate employment data into public and private sectors.

Some of the best analysis has recombined the data, but the method of reporting is unfortunate since it provides a fragmented picture. This is so since the work of manufacturing, storage, shipping, and repair done during World War II at the Clearfield Naval Supply Depot, Tooele Army Depot, and Defense Depot Ogden was much more like operations at the Geneva Steel plant, the Utah Oil Refining Company, and the Kalunite, Inc., plant than the command, training, and garrison functions carried on at Fort Douglas, Kearns Army Air Base, or Wendover Air Force Base. In each of the former cases, the end was the same: the manufacture, supply, and repair of war materiel, generally by civilian employees. In the latter cases, the principal function had to do with the servicing of military personnel. The situation at Ogden Air Logistics command at Hill Air Force Base is not so clearly defined, since both manufacture, maintenance, and supply, and garrison, training, and command functions were performed there. At Hill, however, civilian employment exceeded military employment by a large factor. Even during the peak of World War II it was never less than two and a half to one.

Because of the differences in function noted above, for the purposes of this study a somewhat unconventional nomenclature will be used. War installations will be viewed not as private or public ventures but will be examined by function. Those whose principal functions were command, stationing, and training of military personnel will be called garrisons. Those whose principal functions were manufacture, maintenance, storage, testing, or shipping of war materiel will be considered plants. This categorization will allow a clearer view of the impact of war industry on Utah. The categories will also make it easier to examine questions such as the stability of employment and social patterns and the extended relationship between war industry and the Utah community.

To begin with, the enormous economic impact of war industry in Utah has been understood for a long time. The work of Leonard Arrington, James Clayton, and others has demonstrated quite beyond question that employment in war industry in Utah is now and has been since World War II sufficiently higher than the national average to be considered a basic industry. In 1945, at the end of World War II, 27.7 percent of civilian personal income in Utah came from direct governmental employment — most of it from defenserelated operations. By 1978 that figure had declined to 20.3 percent, but even then it constituted a significant proportion, surpassing every other major sector including manufacturing (16.86 percent), services (14.4 percent), construction (8.69 percent), mining (5.12 percent), and agriculture (1.93 percent). In some counties with particularly large defense installations that figure was much higher. In 1978, 57 percent of personal income in Tooele County, where Tooele Army Depot is located, came from federal civilian and military employment. In Davis County with Hill Air Force Base, 47 percent of personal income came from government. In Box Elder County, 44 percent of personal income came from manufacturing, the bulk of which Thiokol's plant generated.

In 1980 the federal government spent $897.2 million on defense in Utah. That year, the nation allocated 24.6 percent of the $528.7 billion national budget to defense. In the United States as a whole, the largest proportion of the budget, 33.2 percent, was spent on income security. In Utah, however, 29 percent of federal expenditures went for defense and 27.4 percent for income security — a reversal of the national pattern. Beyond this, if one disregards the distinction between governmental and private employment, while the percentage of Utah's personal income attributable to federal expenditures has declined in the past ten years, the national government still contributed 28.4 percent in 1980.

All of this continues a trend that had its beginning in World War II. The reasons for the establishment of plants and garrisons during the war have been documented elsewhere and are well known. The need for installations at what was then a secure distance from the West Coast and the nation's northern and southern borders but nevertheless convenient to rail and auto transportation and population centers was the main reason for the development of the military complex on the Wasatch and Oquirrh fronts. The availability of large areas of uninhabited land for gunnery and bombing practice and for testing helped dictate the location of Wendover Air Force Base and Dugway Proving Grounds. The availability of raw materials and transportation facilities was decisive in the location of other plants in Utah.

The response of the people to the establishment of the various garrisons and plants depended in large part on the interests of those involved. For instance, considerable opposition developed to the attempt to locate the Naval Supply Depot at Clearfield and the Defense Depot near Odgen. In both cases the plants took exceptionally valuable farm land from production. Opposition centered in the farm community and its allies in the packing industry. At first, political leaders tried to get the Navy and War departments to establish the plants elsewhere, but when that proved impossible and, in the case of Clearfield at least, when the Navy decided not to establish the plant in Utah at all, political, civic, and religious leaders changed their positions, backed the plant, and lobbied heavily with the federal government for its establishment. Among those active in support of the plant were Sens. Elbert D. Thomas and Abe Murdock, Gov. Herbert B. Maw, and David O. McKay of the LDS church's First Presidency.

Even though there was some opposition to the location of the two plants, the only major opposition that seems to have developed against a garrison arose in the case of Wendover Air Force Base. This dissent centered largely in the livestock industry where a hundred outfits with an annual income of about $1.5 million were excluded from the 1.56 million acre military reservation.

In contrast to the opposition at Wendover, Ogden, and Clearfield, Utahns actively courted several of the plants and garrisons. The papers of Sen. Abe Murdock, for instance, are crammed with telegrams, letters, exhibits, and other data designed to attract the 1,500-bed Bushnell General Hospital to cities located anywhere from Washington to Cache counties. The requirements of the surgeon general's office, however, limited the selection. The government needed a place for the hospital convenient to rail transportation but away from mining, heavy manufacturing, smelters, and concentrations of war materiel. In addition, the grade of half of the site could not exceed a 3 percent slope, water and other utilities had to be available, and the government expected the city to donate the land for the facility. Sen. Elbert D. Thomas coordinated efforts to secure the location, and the surgeon general's office finally selected Brigham City.

Local groups lobbied for other installations as well. For instance, the Odgen Chamber of Commerce and Senator Thomas lobbied rather vigorously for Hill Air Force Base. There was little opposition to its location because in pre-Weber Basin Reclamation Project days, the bench on which it was constructed was not valuable farm land.

Some of the lobbying had little effect on the development of particular plants. Senator Murdock, for instance, had a longstanding interest in the development of the mineral industries of Utah. He was personally close to the officers of Aluminum, Inc., of Cleveland, Ohio, which proposed to produce aluminum from the alunite deposits near Marysvale, Utah. In correspondence with various officials in the executive department, Murdock lobbied for federal support for the company and for Ralph W. Moffat who had developed a process for producing alumina (A1 2 0 3 ) from alunite, a substance less pure than the bauxite from which alumina was ordinarily separated. Eventually, the company did receive a commitment of $775,000 from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but shortly thereafter the government downgraded aluminum from its critical status and in January 1944 the RFC cancelled its loan commitment.

On the other hand, a company competing with Aluminum, Inc., did receive a federal contract to operate an alumina plant in Salt Lake City. Kalunite, Inc., a company largely financed by the Olin interests of East Alton, Illinois, secured a contract to operate a $5.4 million Defense Plant Corporation plant in Salt Lake City using a process similar to Moffat's in the reduction of alunite from Marysvale. The Kalunite plant was largely unsuccessful in producing alumina of the same quality as that which other companies recovered from bauxite.

In some instances competitors already established in Utah saw the federally constructed plants as interlopers competing with private enterprise already capable of serving the market. The Defense Plant Corporation's Lehi refractories plant is a case in point. After the federal government announced that the plant would be constructed, J. S. Stephenson, executive secretary of the Utah Manufacturers Association, wrote to Senator Murdock complaining that two brick companies already existed in Utah and arguing that they could easily supply the refractories needed by the Geneva Steel Company. One of the companies, Interstate Brick Company, produced mostly building brick rather than refractories, but the management of Utah Fire Clay Company of Salt Lake had the capacity to manufacture the needed brick and was upset with the Defense Plant Corporation's decision. Murdock tried to get the DPC officials to change their minds but could not, and the government constructed a plant which Gladden, McBean and Company operated during the war.

The initial impact of these plants and garrisons on the people of Utah was salutary. The addition of a bomb loading plant constructed between 1935 and 1938 at the existing Ogden Arsenal helped provide employment in depression-ridden Weber and Davis counties. Construction on the earliest of the World War II plants, Hill Air Force Base, began in 1938, and this, too, provided a shot in the arm for Weber and Davis counties.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 employment and the availability of materials changed drastically; the new plants and garrisons became a burden on an already overtaxed economy. The situation at the Geneva Steel plant near Orem was typical. Actual construction of the $200 million plant took place between November 1941 and December 1944. After the war began, the scarcity of labor and materials adversely affected the costs of construction. Since the demand for workers and servicemen escalated, wage rates rose and worker productivity declined as marginal workers entered the labor force. U.S. Steel's subcontractors paid high premiums for overtime work, they had to import workers from long distances, and they were forced to construct barracks and commissaries for the employees. At its peak, 7,000 employees worked on constructing the plant, and this number compounded the shortage of engineers, construction supervisors, and skilled workmen. The contractors had to procure most of the machinery and equipment used in construction at premium rates east of the Mississippi since they were unavailable in the Mountain West. The great demand pushed the cost of structural steel to abnormally high levels; a federally dictated freeze on the purchase of steel, which lasted for several months, increased expenses. After the war an engineering firm hired to appraise the value of the plant at Geneva, the limestone quarries at Payson, and the coal mines in Carbon County estimated that the facilities, which had cost $203.6 million to construct, could have been built for $144.4 million, a theoretical savings of 29 percent.

The social impact of the introduction of these new plants and garrisons into Utah was enormous. The war industries employed nearly 52,000 in Utah by 1942, and Wasatch and Oquirrh front cities like Provo, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Tooele grew rapidly. The consumer price index (1947-49 = 100) increased from 62.9 in 1941 to 83.4 in 1946. Skyrocketing housing costs reflected this trend as owners commanded a premium for the small number of units available. The federal government constructed housing projects in three locations in Odgen, three in northern Davis County, and one in Tooele County. In addition, federal officials opened trailer parks in Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, and Tooele counties. In all, the federal government provided some 6,000 new housing units, and private investors constructed an additional 8,000 in Utah. Many of the privately constructed units were financed through Federal Housing Administration loans. In sum, it is estimated that the federal government spent between $18 and $20 million on housing in Utah during World War II.

The pressure for housing and inflating costs for food, clothing, and other necessities were only a few of the sources of tension created by wartime conditions. Older citizens viewed the inhabitants of new federal housing projects like Bonneville Park and Washington Terrace in Odgen as interlopers, and longtime residents of the community tended to perceive the occupants as obnoxious and the houses as eyesores in an otherwise model city. There was a tendency to attribute higher rates of crime to the newcomers. In Odgen, for instance, numerous stories attached to the so-called Washington Terrace gang. In addition, many families took in employees of the new plants as boarders and family life was often disrupted as a result. Although no stigma was attached to civilian employment at the garrisons or plants, citizens of the towns in which the garrisons were located feared the influx of unmarried and oversexed young servicemen who came into the town on leave. In Odgen, the airmen at Hill Field were often referred to as "flyboys," and parents were often reluctant to allow their daughters to date the young men out of fear of a possible "love-them-and-leave-them" attitude. Parents were also concerned about the different social standards of young men from outside the community, the prospects of marriage outside the predominant LDS religion, and perhaps even the possiblity of miscegenation. In addition, the notorious Twenty-fifth or Two-bit Street flourished with its brothels and bars.

All these impressions are difficult to quantify, but social statistics reveal a great deal more about the impact of war industry on Utah. Particularly significant is that although auto theft and larceny rates tended to rise progressively higher both in Utah and the United States during the war, they were much higher in Utah. Divorce rates also climbed both in the Beehive State and the nation, but they were likewise consistently higher in Utah. Burglary rates tended to be higher in Utah than in the United States as a whole, and they increased somewhat during the war. Rates for murder reveal little except that Utah tended to be either lower or close to the rates for the nation as a whole. Although rates for aggravated assault were lower in Utah than in the nation as a whole, they increased dramatically.

These criminal and social statistics must be seen against the rapid rise in population in those areas directly affected by war industry. Although Salt Lake County added more people (63,272) between 1940 and 1950 than any other county in the state, its rate of growth (29.9 percent) was lower than other Wasatch and Oquirrh front communities in Davis (95.6 percent), Tooele (60.3 percent), Weber (46.9 percent), and Utah (42.7 percent) counties.

A study of Salt Lake County made after the war revealed some of the local impact of these changes. The Salt Lake County Welfare Department reported an increased number of unmarried girls with babies who applied for assistance. The State Bureau of Services to Children and the Salt Lake City Police Department reported an increase in sex offenses referred to juvenile court, and the State Industrial School at Ogden reported an increase in commitments for sexual delinquency. The consensus of those in the community connected with welfare, law enforcement, and religious, school, and community resource groups was that juvenile delinquency had increased because of inadequate physical and emotional support at home, too much easy money, great emotional stress, responsibilities from suddenly acquired jobs with relatively high wages, and lack of home training and supervision. Even an increase in the number of child care centers in Salt Lake County did not solve the problem.

TABLE 1 DIVORCE RATE FOR UTAH AND UNITED STATES, 1938-49*

The causes of divorce in Salt Lake County changed from the depression before the war to the wartime itself and again to the postwar period. Studies indicated that before the war, economic pressure and lack of preparation for marriage tended to be the most prevalent reasons for divorce. During the war the most important causes reported were hasty marriage, wartime separation, infidelity, increased economic independence of the woman, and emotional immaturity. Following the war the principal causes of divorce were reported as economic stress, postwar adjustment, emotional immaturity, infidelity, and hasty marriages.

All of these statistics and impressions taken together suggest a causal connection that needs further exploration. The rising divorce and sexual offense rates seem to have resulted in large part from stresses caused by rapidly changing living and social conditions and exacerbated by parents being away from each other and from home either in the service or on the job. Auto theft tends to be a crime of juveniles and young adults, and its increase suggests that social stress, rapid population growth, and lack of parental and community supervision provided the opportunity for this type of criminal activity. Since larceny is "taking of property without force or fraud," as in shoplifting, pickpocketing, thefts from autos, and bicycle thefts, the same sort of social dislocation and lack of parental and community supervision probably opened the opportunity for this type of crime as well. The statistics for aggravated assault suggest increasing tensions leading to violence.

TABLE 3ESTIMATED EMPLOYMENT, LABOR FORCE,AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN UTAH, 1930-47*

Presently available evidence indicates that postwar reconversion was not as difficult as the wartime build-up had been. By 1947 the number of employees in defense-related jobs had declined to 13,700 or about 27 percent of the peak wartime employment. The impact of the loss of jobs in the defense industry was cushioned somewhat as a number of businesses transformed themselves successfully from war plants to plants servicing the private economy.

Perhaps the optimum conversion took place at the Geneva Steel plant in Orem. During the war virtually the entire effort of Geneva Steel was devoted to the production of steel and its manufacture into plates and shapes for the Pacific Coast wartime shipbuilding industry. Employment at the plant peaked at approximately 4,200 in January 1945.

After V-J Day in August 1945, however, questions arose about the future of the plant. The contract of United States Steel with the Defense Plant Corporation provided for termination ninety days after the cessation of hostilities. In early 1945, USS expressed some interest in acquiring the plant, but by August it had announced the expansion of its Pittsburg, California, plant and seemed uninterested in the Orem facility. However, Kaiser Steel Company, already supplying its Fontana, California, plant with coal from Carbon County, and Colorado Fuel and Iron of Pueblo both expressed some interest in the plant.

On December 17, 1945, the Surplus Property Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which had control of the plant, issued a request for proposals for acquisition of the plant. In April 1946 Henry J. Kaiser wrote to the president of the War Assets Administration publicly declining to bid, in part because of the rather large RFC loan on the Fontana plant his company was attempting to pay off'. On May 1, 1946, however, Benjamin F. Fairless for USS bid $47.5 million for the plant and its inventories and agreed to spend $18.6 million for the construction of a hot-rolled coils plant at Geneva and $25 million at Pittsburg, California, to make the operations compatible.

The WAA received five additional bids for the plant. Only the Colorado Fuel and Iron bid approached the USS proposal. After the bids were opened, CFI attempted to submit a supplemental proposal of $40 million for the plant exclusive of inventory, $2 million of which was to be paid in cash and $38 million secured by a mortgage to run for thirty years at 3 percent. These terms did not seem as generous as those of USS, and, of course, they were made after bidding had closed.

In 1945 the RFC had asked the Arthur G. McKee Company, an engineering firm of Cleveland, Ohio, to prepare a statement of the value of the Geneva plant. A study of that document sheds considerable light on the value of the asset USS purchased. If McKee's figures are correct, USS secured a plant with a replacement value of approximately $144.4 million for an expenditure of $47.5 million, or about 33 percent of the appraised value.

One should understand, however, that USS purchased assets and liabilities. The major advantage of the plant was that it was the only modern and fully integrated plant for the production of largesized pipe, hot-rolled strip, and tin plate in the entire western area. It had access to cheap raw materials, and its products were "amongst the most profitable ones that are made in the iron and steel industry." McKee estimated that as long as the Geneva plant could operate at 70 percent or more of capacity USS would profit from its operation.

On the other hand, USS faced some severe difficulties. Because of its location in the Wasatch oasis, it did not have a large surrounding market like Kaiser's Fontana plant or USS's Pittsburg, California, facility. Water transportation of steel, coal, and iron ore were impossible from the Geneva site. The plant faced some other problems not generally known to Utahns. Most of the Utah coal was not of metallurgical quality. Coal from Sunnyside and Castle Gate produced coke of good quality but somewhat high in volatile and oxygen content, thus producing less coke per unit of coal than eastern coals. USS had reduced the volatile content by mixing the Utah coal with imported coal, but this made the coke more expensive. Some questions also existed about the quality of the iron ore available for the plant. It was, however, generally known that the limestone and dolomite obtained near Payson was of excellent quality both for the blast furnace producing pig iron and for the open-hearth furnaces used in producing steel. Another potential problem USS would face was the steel industry's basing point system which set the price of steel at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, plus shipping costs. Nevertheless, producers sold steel at a lower price than that quoted and purchasers could expect that, with the development of an integrated steel industry in the West and recent Supreme Court decisions challenging the basing point system, USS might change its pricing structure in the future.

The conversion of the Geneva Steel plant was not unusual. Both the Utah Oil Refining Company plant in north Salt Lake City and the Lehi Refractories plant were sold as surplus property to the private sector for use in the same way companies had used them during the war.

In some cases the WAA sold plants or garrisons for conversion to other purposes. WAA sold the Remington Arms plant (or Utah Ordnance plant), which had served during the war for the production of small arms ammunition, to a group of Salt Lake City businessmen for use as a storage and commercial center. The Eitel- McCullough radio tube plant in Salt Lake City was sold to the state for use by the Utah State Road Commission. In each case the properties were sold at a fraction of their appraised value. Other plants or garrisons that have been sold since World War II include the Kalunite plant, Kearns Army Air Base, and the Clearfield Naval Supply Depot.

In some cases the federal government retained the installations but put them to different uses. The Deseret Chemical Depot in Rush Valley south of Tooele became part of the Tooele Army Depot. Wendover Air Force Base was used for a time by the Utah Air National Guard, for testing by the air force and other Defense Department agencies, and as a site for some private experimentation with electricity. In 1977 the runways and part of the airport facilities were transferred to the city of Wendover. Most of the installation, however, is now under the jurisdiction of Hill Air Force Base. The former bombing ranges and other facilities are used for testing by the air force in the considerably expanded role the air force has given to Hill in recent years. The Ogden Arsenal, like Wendover Air Force Base, became a part of Hill Air Force Base. Bushnell General Hospital was transferred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and became the Intermountain Indian School.

Many of the installations continue to operate and several have received expanded functions since World War II. Perhaps the best example is Hill Air Force Base. Every other installation that performed a garrison function has either been closed (as in the case of Kearns Army Air Base), adapted for different functions (as in the case of Wendover Air Force Base), or considerably scaled down and threatened with closure (as in the case of Fort Douglas). Hill Air Force Base has changed to meet the air force's needs as new weapons systems such as the F-16s and F-4s have come into use. It remains today as the mainstay of the economy of Davis and Weber counties.

Other remaining installations are largely in the category of plants. These include Tooele Army Depot and Defense Depot Ogden which continue the repair, storage, and shipping of war materiel and Dugway Proving Grounds which continues the development, testing, and storage of chemical warfare materiel. Beyond these, a number of plants have been developed in Utah that add to the state's defense industry. Among the most important at present are undoubtedly the Hercules Powder Company in Salt Lake County, the Thiokol Chemical Corporation in Box Elder County, Sperry Utah Company of Salt Lake City, Marquardt Corporation in Ogden, and Litton, Inc., all of which are involved in missile production.

In retrospect, it is possible to analyze the impact of war industry on Utah citizens during World War II and to draw some conclusions that might help in understanding the current situation. The infusion of capital and contracts lifted Utah's economy from the depths of the depression, reversed the outmigration that had characterized the state's population since 1910, provided a manufacturing, construction, and service industry for the economy, supplied a stable market for Utah's coal industry, and led to full employment. Most important, unlike the situation after World War I, most of the enterprises established in Utah were not dismantled and did not become obsolete. They remained as mainstays of the economy, were converted to other uses that allowed their continued productivity, or were expanded during the Korean War. After 1945, contrary to the situation after 1918, Utah was not burdened with an unsustainable expansion and excessive industrial capacity that could not pay interest and dividends and provide employment in peacetime.

It is important to note also that the most stable and long-lasting results of the World War II expansion were the plants rather than the garrisons. While the Defense Department has liquidated or turned to other uses the principal garrisons, Kearns Army Air Base, Wendover Air Force Base, and Fort Douglas, the most important plants like Utah Oil Refining Company, Geneva Steel, Defense Depot Ogden, Tooele Army Depot, and Dugway Proving Grounds have remained or expanded, especially since the Korean War. Others like the Remington Arms plant, the Clearfield Naval Supply Depot, and the Eitel-McCullough radio tube plant were turned to other uses. The mainstay of Utah's war industry, Hill Air Force Base, a combination plant and garrison, has provided more employment in its plant function. Furthermore, the war plants have provided a base for the more recent expansion of companies like Thiokol and Hercules.

The other side of the coin, however, was the disastrous social impact of the rapid growth associated with the war. The immediate results noted above, particularly the higher rates for divorce, auto theft, larceny, and aggravated assault declined somewhat in the postwar period but remained at levels higher than before the war. These social statistics suggest that rapid economic expansion and accelerated population growth can result in a high degree of instability and unsettling social change, disrupting family life, and unleashing antisocial and criminal tendencies.

The experience of World War II ought to provide some instruction for the present time. In the first place, if new industries are introduced into the state and those businesses remain relatively stable, one can expect continued economic prosperity. At the same time, if the economy expands at an inordinately rapid pace as it did during World War II, one can expect higher divorce rates, family instability, and accelerated antisocial and criminal behavior.

Recent sociological research supports the contention of this study that inordinately rapid growth creates conditions conducive to the development of antisocial behavior. A study completed in England, for instance, demonstrated that length of residence in the community explains better than any other variable the existence of social and kinship bonds and sentiment supportive of the community. The study concluded that neither population size, density, social class, nor age structure explained attachment of interest in the community as well as length of residence. Similar studies completed on recent boom towns of the American West seem to confirm this finding.

In other words, rapidity of growth rather than the absolute size of the community is more important in determining the development of institutions to control antisocial behavior. Time, above all, is necessary for the development of subcultural patterns within the city to support institutions like churches, clubs, and personal and kinship connections, all of which can militate against family instability, criminal behavior, and unsettling social change. This does not mean that criminal and other disruptive activity will not increase as a city grows. Subcultures supporting such alternative life-styles will undoubtedly grow just as other subcultures do. What it does mean, however, is that the formal and informal institutions that manage and minimize such activity will be more apt to develop under conditions of relatively slow growth than under conditions of inordinately rapid growth.

In recent years, at least two groups of people have taken differing positions on the question of economic growth. A group who style themselves "conservatives" tend to favor rapid and largely unregulated economic growth but also say they are profamily. A second group of people who call themselves "conservationists" oppose economic growth and in family matters often call themselves prochoice. They seem convinced that their policy would produce a more satisfying life-style.

The study of World War II in Utah suggests that neither group is promoting a program consistent with the achievement of its objectives. The type of unrestrained economic growth the conservatives tend to support runs the risk of family instability, rising divorce rates, and increased crime, all of which they profess to deplore. With no growth of the sort the conservationists tend to favor, some degree of social stability might be achieved, but unemployment and declining living standards would also undoubtedly result as they did during the economic stagnation preceding World War II. The most reasonable solution seems to be a controlled rate of economic growth, rapid enough to provide the jobs necessary for those seeking employment but slow enough to avoid excessive social dislocation. Whether this is possible in Utah today given the pressures for energy development, additional recreational facilities, and other potentially disruptive forces, is unclear. If the experience of World War II provides any guidelines, however, Utah must try to avoid the extremes of stagnation or inordinately rapid expansion for the good of the family, the economy, and society.

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