Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-08-04

GAYS the Standard Dictionary:
~ "Fantasmagoria, a changing,
incoherent series of apparitions
or fantasms."
That describes this admins
tratlon's approach TO price con-
troll 10 prevent the threatening
national disaster of initiation
which the President so well de-
scribed in his message asking
for authority 10 control prices.
All the arguments made for
IL in that Presidential message
certainly appeared adequate to
this column.
That should be the case be-
cause they were accurate and
complete paraphrases of what
has been repeatedly said here
for weeks.
But here, similarity ceases.
There are 10 he Baruchian cell
ings over some prices but not
over others.
None whatever is suggested
for wages. although labor is
warned there also in paragraphs
closely following this column
that IL has a more vital inter-
est in preventing initiation than
any other group.
TliE utter absurdity OF this
Il omission is clear when YOU
consider that the principal ele-
ment IN the cost of every COM
moAity in commerce is wages
and salaries Of one kind or an
other.
Take the typewriter on which
this copy is written.
II is made almost entirely of
steel.
The cost Of mining OF the iron
ore, limestone and coking- coal
is almost all labor.
So is much of the cost of
transportation to blast furnaces
and steel mills. SO is nearly all
processing into steel not merely
IN handling the metal but in
building the gigantic plants and
machinery that finally forge and
shape il.
So surely is il true OF the in
trlcate machining and assem-
bling processes that finally pro-
duced this job and OF the effort
and organization that sold. dis
tributed and served IL.
All things considered. about
% per cent Of this cost and price
are wages Of one kind or an
other.
So il is OF everything we have
and use.
VET we are to put a ceiling
over this price. but none
over tho component parts Of that
price II IS exactly like a mill
tary command company, Halt,
But All the soldiers keep on
marching Plain nonsense.
The recent etfatfens IN the
price Of cotton are an example.
There is no more excuse for
l6-Cent cotton than for Two tails
10 a cat. We have a vast over
production and an oyerwhelm-
Ing surplus.
Good money can be made on
cotton at 10 cents.
BY our recent action toward
Japan we have completed. at
one stroke. a process in which
We haXe slowly engaged for say
eral years destroying n prin-
cipal export market for n crop
that depends 80 per cent on ex-
ports.
We had been destroying il be-
fore by attempting 10 peg a
world price so high that all we
really did was 10 finance foreign
competition by such countries as
India. Brazil and even Peru 10
an extent and with a result that
Japan bought less and less from
us and more and moro from
them as We were ariificially pric-
ing ourselves clear out of the
world market.
Incidentally, what will those
anii-AxiS good neighbors' do 10
support our action
Or is good-ncighborhood only
a one-way street?
IN THE meantime. what was
Il our all-Seeing department Of
agriculture doing 10 replace this
principal reliance Of the South?
Much could have been done
by pushing the almost perfected
mechanical deCortication Of such
base fiberS rs flax. iute. hemp
and ramie grass. creating an
American production Of raw silk
and guayule and thus freeing MS
from our dependence on imports
of linen, burlap. cordaGe, silk
and rubber. Nothing was done
except 10 destroy our export
farm markets.
Our past administration OF the
price structure has been about
as short-sighted and doddering
as il could he.
If we attempt now 10 hold
down price without holding down
the elements of price the slightly
debatable question Of our past
errors will become an indispu-
table conviction Of our complete
inconvenience.
Distributed nv King Features Synd In
Reproduction In whole or In part
strictly prohibited
q. ar Ans krn TnnAX