Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-10-01
Capital Still
Spurns World
War Lesson
Moves TO Aid Defense
Admittedly Too Late
BY HUGH 5. JOHNSON

IN
A priorities pooh-bah. says il
is too late to put ceiling over
all prices TO stop initiation and
so we must attack only a few
not including wages.
MIR Floyd Odlum, who is
charged with getting the little
fellow a break in farming out
defense contracts, says that
started six months too late.
After jimmying around for
two years with inadequate tax
bills. Mr. Morgenthau in an Off
hand moment suddenly proposes
a 6 per cent profits limitation
tax on industry which would
ruin most OF small EMPLOYERS
not already ruined by the UNI
planned and headlong priorities
excess.
The supposed gasoline shortage
was sprung on us out of a clear
her ll9sltiiiiitdI a4f4td f4f.-
parently futile restrictions APP
piled without warning.
If ALL these moves were so
late. what explains the delay?
The increasing difficulty of the
situation has been apparent for
S over n year The means to at
tack it had been suggested over
and over again by veterans OF
our first World War effort.
That precedent stood on the
record so plainly that il had
been adopted by every other
country IN the war, including
Germany.
But for some reason our gov
eminent would have none OF il.
Various reasons were advanced.
One was that this was a 1871
war and didn't need any 1913
;ttittee- Another and TINS rms
been persistent and Tmkedded in
all the reasoning was that this
New Deal government was fully
provided with talent and didn't
need nor want any non-New
Deal assistance or advice.
II may be so. but it is a sig
niiicant thing that all that old
and rejected advice IS gradually
being reluctantly accepted under
the IRON clutch and compulSiOn
of circumstances and as usual
loo little and tee tate r.
Since this column has been
conducting a modest crusade FOR
the bearing Of these errors on
the little fellow and the con-
sumner. It's mail has never been
50 copiouS. The instances ate
enough 10 bring tears 10 the
eyes of a granite gargoyle.
DON'T make any mistake
~ about IT, The elimination
of small business through inabil-
lily 10 get reasonable supplies is
not something in The distant fu-
ture. II IS now going on
The pinch on housewives
through rising prices is nothing
that they do not feel. Mr.. Leon
Henderson testified that the cost
Of feeding families has gone up
5 per cent in the past few weeks
and Is going farther unless II Is
stopped For the average family
that hasn't enough income TO
save much that IS just S per
cent taken out OF papa S pdy-En-
Velope
1t is only a beginning. II it
isn't stopped IL is going 10 rise
to 20 per cent or 30 per cent and
nobody knows how much higher.
TlIIS is great hidden tax. II
IS a tax on those least able
10 bear it, Go on a little far
Their with this trend. Whom do
YOU hit? The rich? They can
stand il. You hit the poor.
You hit them in the bread
basket painfully. You hit the
very classes upon which this adj
miniSTTation has relied for votes.
Furthermore you do good 10 no
BODY.
There is scarcely a military
commentator from julius Caesar
through Napoleon, IiindenbuTg,
Won Ludendorff on, who doesn't
say that the moral of the civilian
population IN war is as impor-
tant as the morale OF the armies.
The growing tide of resent
mcnt among masses Of our pco-
pie against the wFetc hed
mismanagemcnt and lack of
planning may be in its first
stages, but the evidences Of II
are unmistakable. The high
observation-disclosures boys i'm the
seats OF the mighty would do
well 10 heed.
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