Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-04-08
Price Ceilinq
Adoption by
OPA Near
But Johnson Believes
Plan Comes Too Late


THE rumor here in Washing
l. ton is that OPA has prac-
tically adopted the Baruch plan
of a price ceiling" over every
thing, and that B. M. Baruch
is said to be very much pleased,
because, at last. the final prin-
cipal step he suggested years
ago for industrial mobilization
of the United States has been
taken.
Among those steps were one
man control of industry, COM
mittees for each industry dove
failing with corresponding COM
mittees Of the government for
that industry, the purchase of
vast reserve stocks of strategic
material" tin manga
nese, etc.. and, above all, cell
ing over the price of every serv-
ice, right or thing" as that price
existed at the beginning of the
war.
Mr.. Baruch began advocating
all this years before we got into
the war, and. while the conduc-
tor of this column worked
closely with him on it and advo-
Gated the same things. we make
bold to doubt that he gets much
satisfaction out of what has been
done and what it is now pro-
posed to do-especially as TO
price ceilings"
Why? Because II Is too little
and too late" All that Mr..
Baruch ever said on the subject
of ceilings warned against that.
The suggestion came from his
experience in the World War.
TWEEN a plan to put an upper
Il limit on prices was at
tempted but, at that time, in
f1ation had already got t e n
under way.
II there was one thing that
experience proved. it was that,
if you wait to apply price con-
troll until the components of
principal prices have gone sky
high, II is too late to relate the
whole price structure back to
the beginning of the war and
get prices restored to the old
level.
All that you can then do is
to squeeze swollen, infiationary
profits out of few prices. This
we actually did do in 1918, but
the public benefit was not hall
what it could have been if we
could only have started in time.
In the case of the principal
war material-steel. for exam
ple-you can't wait until the
price of labor. ore. limestone,
alloys and transportation. which
the SHOEMAKER must buy, have
reached q zenith and then
without something amounting
to confscation) make the steel
man sell to you at a pre-waI
price. Mr.. Baruch warned oil
all this in detail.
Thus while this writer has nc
authority to speak for him, il
is not hard to imagine that he
can't be getting much satisfac.
ton out of this belated adoption
OF his industrial mobilization
plan
Germany adopted il from the
beginning. So did our general
staff.
YOU may recall that, before
Il the Inflated Stettinius board
was quietly dissolved and its
recommendations 81 lenc e. d, il
was rumored that the war col.
lege and the general staff had an
industrial mobilization plan
Those rumors were squeezed ia
death also by the administration
which said they were lust
something being talked about in
the war department.
AS a matter of fact they were
printed In a war department,
pamphlet called I. M. p. or I'm.
dustrial Mobilization Plan" They
contained all that Mr.. Barucr
had been suggesting and had
lectured about for many years
at the general staff. the war col.
1ege and the army industrial
college.
1t was the plan that the Ger
mans adopted and that we now
have adopted piece-meal, too
little and too late"
Perhaps there would be a Ger.
tain Il told you so" satisfaction
in all this to some men, but Mr.
Baruch isn't that sort of man.
He is only concerned with seeing
us win the war. That has been
his only interest in this matter
since the beginning.
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