On Dec. 11, a day now etched in the minds of Mr. Froehlich's staff, he issued another news release. It began:

“The United States may face a serious shortage of toilet paper within a few months.... I hope we don't have to ration toilet tissue.... A toilet paper shortage is no laughing matter. It is a problem that will touch every American.”

“It got more attention than we ever dreamed of,” one aide said of the release. The wire services picked it up. So did the television networks. Radio stations called to talk. German and Japanese correspondents lined up for interviews. In some reports, however, qualifying words like “potential” shortage somehow disappeared.

In Philadelphia, reporters called the headquarters of the Scott Paper Company, one of the nation's 10 largest paper manufacturers. Television crews then filmed supermarkets and toilet paper streaming from the machines in Scott's suburban plant here.

Company officers went on television to urge calm, saying there was no shortage if people bought normally.

Some consumers may have believed those remarks—until they saw other shoppers wheeling cases of toilet tissue from some stores or signs rationing each buyer to two rolls each. “There are so many credibility gaps today,” said one paper executive, “and, we fell into one.”

Wire service reporters and broadcast newsmen passed the self‐fulfilling shortage reports on to their readers and audiences, one of whom included Johnny Carson, a television talk show host whose nightly program is often geared to current events.

On Dec. 20, the day after hisi comments, the toilet‐paper‐buying binge began nationally.

In the Bronx, Jimmy Detrain, (manager of the Food Cart Store on Lydig Avenue, watched customers check out with $20 in toilet paper purchases.