The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-07-03

zen Price Administrator Leon ation on one side and congress on the other.
 But that is not a fair represen- tation. Instead, 1t is battle royal no holds barred-in which the special and superficially conflicting interests of politicians, farmers, wage earners, employers, housewives. manufacturers, motorists, oil leaders and bond holders meet.
 Henderson returns today to Capi- tol Hill. He will continue his effort to convince senate appropriations subcommittee that his office should have in this fiscal year $161, 900, GOO instead of SIS, 900, 900 with all the additional employees and scope the greater sum would provide. He also believes the government must adopt a subsidy program to enable some manufacturers and growers tc maintain their operations under the price ceilings imposed in May.
 Yesterdays subcommittee meet ing was a noisy engagement in which the voices of Henderson and committee members boomed through closed doors to reveal the viz rous and fundamental character of the differences under discussion.
 Price Ceiling Dented
 The price ceiling was dented We'd nesday when Henderson was con- pe1led to authorize an increase of E per cent--perhaps nore--in the price of the 1942 crop of canned and driec fruits. Henderson's announcement and supplementary radio address by budget director Harold D. Smitf were interpreted by some persons as having charged Congress with the blame for. the threatened begging o1 anti-inflation policies.
 Congress still was in uproariouS dissent to that suggestion at the close of legislative business yesterday and among tte last and, perhaps most revealing statements was ont from Rep. Thomas H. Eliot, D. Mass, an administration supporter who introduced a bill to authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to sci the price of agricultural products al parity instead of no per cent of par ity.
 "The break in the price ceiling has started" Eliot said, With ar increase of Is per cent in all canned and dried fruit. This is just the be- ginning, unless action is taken by the Congress. The price rise in can ned fruit was caused by the provi- sion in the law saying that the fruit growers can charge a price of at least no per cent of parity. The farm bloc just looks ridiculous when it says that every price ceiling on farm products must be at least 10 per cent higher than a fair price Yet, that is what they wrote into the law"
 Bitter Comments
 There were bitter comments on both senate and house floors as congress maneuvered for contest which, on the economic front, might be measured for importance with the United Nations battle in the middle east. Who Is right and who is wrong in the anti-inflation dis pute probably will not be decided until the story is old and has been written by an objective historian.
 Some congressman are angry be- cause Henderson'S vast proposed of flee of price administration bureau cracy might encroach on their own political preserves back home, eS- pecially in the selection of state and regional directors. Henderson wants 88, 600 employees and congress Is dis posed to give him only 5o,o00. There is bitter congressional protest against the l-2 cents increase il, gasoline prices in the eastern ra- tioned area, the contention beine that all parts of the country should help pay the freight for bringing ex- pe1lsive tank car gasoline into thi; area.
 Advantages Held
 Farmers and wage earlners have their usual large and active blocs of congressional supporters, too. Ont of the immediate problems seems tt be that neither farmers nor wage earners are willing to surrender cer. tain advantages they have under tht existing anti-inflation program Those advantages are:
 l. Agrculture's 10 per cent bulge above parity price levels.
 2. Labor's confidence that wage! can continue to increase even i'll period of price freezing.
 Some are convinced that SO lonl as the administration proposes merely to stabilize" wages ane farm prices there will be no definite understanding whether wages ane farm prices are frozen and, if not by what percentage they might bt raised without exceeding "stabiliza. tion limits" Henderson has beer something short of definite on tha point, +0o. explaining that he is flo; wage stabilization and against gen. eral increases but not against rais' ing "Substandard" wages, the defini. ton of which, of course, is open tt debate.
 Fears for the ti-inflation pro- gram are based on results since MT Roosevelt proposed 1t almost Il weeks ago. He sent to Congress { seven-point program and after tha' elapse of time Henderson and Smitf are warning the country that thu danger of imitation is not beint adequately met.
 NITAnT EC TXYHETTN