The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-08-19
Today and TomOrrow
The Control Of Prices
By WALTER LIPPMANN
Copyright, 1883, New York Tribune Inc.

copyright, l953, Ne1
 In it's present phase, in the move ment to have the blanket code adopted, the N. R. A. is primar- fly campaign to reverse that de- flation of industrial pay rolls, which, under the competitive pres sure of excess labor and excess plant, had become uncomfortable by the individual action of em- ployers and employers. The meth cd of the blanket code is, by the pressure of public opinion, to fix minimum wages and maximum hours under a general rule and then, as quickly as possible, to take one industry after another out from under the general rule and to put it under a special code of it's own.
 A campaign carried on by arous- ing mass opinion is inevitably cen tered in simple and crude ideas. That is how such campaigns enlist emotion and generate power, and that is why such campaigns so easily get out of hand and be- come fanatical, as MT. Santayana once said, by redoubling their effort when they have forgotten their aim. In the case of the N. R. A. the aim proposed to the peo- pie is the simple one of reducing hours, employing more men, and of raising the lower wages. It is a desirable and understandable ob- ject. But the object will not be attained if the movement to in- crease pay rolls is accompanied by an immediate and equivalent rise in prices. The President and Gen. eral Johnson have recognized this fact. The blanket code in some what vague and academic fashion recognizes it. But in the actual administration of the N. R. A. and above all in the propaganda now being set going, the vitally neces- sary idea of controlling prices re- ceives little emphasis and is ra- ther lost to sight.
 Yet to make any kind of reason able success of the movement the public must keep it's attention fix ed simultaneously and with equal interest on the quotations of pric- es and on payrolls.
 To fix public opinion upon the control of prices it is necessary that there should be some fairly trustworthy measure of how prices ought to behave. The blanket code provides a measure for wages and hours. It declares in some de- tail what the minimum should be for wages and the maximum for hours. But in respect to prices it has not yet declared any stand ard by which the public can judge their movement.
 1S IL DOoolJ4C bo oCO AP paNAA = standard? In any exact and de- tailed and absolute sense, the an swer is that we know too little to fix prices by public opinion. But in general sense, accepting the fact that we are dealing broad ly and crudely with things at large, a rough standard of public judg- ment can be set up. We can say, I think, that in movement to "reflate' prices should rise in the proportion they have fallen, that those which have fallen most should rise the most, and those which have fallen least should rise the least.
 If we take this principle as our guide, our task is to measure the fall in prices of different kinds of goods. We can then see almost at glance what kinds of goods are entitled to rise in rough pro- portion to other goods. A com pilation of this sort covering the wholesale prices of 784 commodi- ties up to June has just been made by the Bureau of Labor Sta tistics under the direction of Com missioner Lubin. It provides a suitable, though rough map by which to determine where we were, where we are, and where we ought to aim to go in the movement of prices.
 This report shows, for example, that between June, 1929, and Feb ruary, 1932-that is to say, from the peak of prosperity to the pit