Evening star., 1943-06-20
Subsidy Fight Sequel
To Farm Price Curb
And Wage Controls
Legislators Objection to
Idea and Opposition to
Big Debt Also Factors
BY the associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
Background for the congressional
controversy over food subsidies is the
administration success in beating
down, first, the farm bloc's successive
bids for higher agricultural prices,
and, second, organized labor's efforts
to relax wage controls.
To be sure, other matters enter
into the picture including the ex-
pressed conviction of some legisla-
tors that subsidizing living costs is
simply wrong in principle; that it
means piling huge governmental
debt for future generations to pay.
There are those, too, who oppose
subsidies on the grounds they vastly
extend bureaucratic controls over
American economic life.
But prominent in the foreground
are the shadows of the battles over
farm prices and wages.
Take the case of labor first. When
President Roosevelt frightened wage
controls drastical1y last April there
was an outcry from union leaders
who contended that living costs ac-
tually had not been stabilized.
Complaints Taken to President.
Subsequently, the AFL members
of the War Labor Board petitioned
for the discard of the boards Little
Steel" formula on the grounds it
was "unrealistic." This formula
allows wage increase of no more
than Is per cent above the January
!, l941, level.
Delegations carried their COM
plants to the White House, but
failed to bulge Mr.. Roosevelt and
James F. Byrnes, his economic
stabilization director, now the direc-
tor of war mobilization. Wage con-
trolls were later tightened still more,
though Mr.. Byrnes eventually re-
stored some discretionary authority
to the WLB.
From the wage earners stand
point, the next best thing to higher
pay is lower costs for what he buys.
Soon the AFL and CIO were beat
ing the drums for lowered prices
with subsidies, if necessary, with
some leaders proposing $4,000, 900, 900
a year for that purpose. (The
Office of Price Administration al
ready has effected meat and butter
subsidies and projected a coffee
price rollback; total cost of these is
estimated at $40O, 100000 a year,
And, so the labor argument runs.
rolback of prices is part of the
bargain entering into wage controls.
The price control legislation pro-
posed stabilization of both wages
and prices at the September Is, 1912,
level. And labor says wages are be-
ing held, but prices are not.
Arguments of Farm Side.
On the farm side, one of the argu-
ments goes this way. Labor got big
wage increases in the period imme-
diately after the Nation began
spending billions on armaments,
whereas farm prices remained fairly
stable with the result that imposi-
ton of controls meant freezing" of
farm prices at low levels and wages
at high levels.
Repeatedly, farm-minded legisla-
tors in Congress pressed legislation
intended to ease price controls on
agricultural products. The climax
to this administration Congress bat
tie came when Mr. Roosevelt vetoed
the Bankhead bill in April, and the
Senate tucked it away in commit
tee without voting whether to over
ride the veto.
That measure by Senator Bank
head, Democrat, of Alabama was
concerned with the method of figur-
ing price ceilings on farm products.
Exactly what its effect would be was
disputed, but all agreed it would per-
nit higher ceiling on some farm
products.
Subsidies, some legislators con-
tend, will not be of help to farmers
who, they say, are entitled to and
should have higher prices for their
produce.
Chairman Fumer of the House
Agricultural Committee once said,
THE professors and not the pro-
ducers are to get this money. In
asmuch as they are unwilling to
give the farmer anything I'm against
the other fellow getting it,"
Livestock Prices Actually Cut.
P. O. Wilson, secretary of the
National Livestock Producers Asso-
citation, says that in actual practice
the subsidy program has reduced
the prices of cattle, hogs and sheep
on leading markets.
Mr.. Roosevelt, in press confer
ence discussion, spoke of subsidies
as being aimed at meeting a situa-
ton where farmers have had to in
cur higher costs from expanding
output by using less fertile land or
for other reasons
Higher costs had to be absorbed
some way, he said. and there was
an ever-present danger that alb
sorbing it by higher prices would
touch off an inf1ationary spiral dis
aStrouS to all.
He was not keen for subsidies, he
made clear, but asked: Did anybody
know better way to meet this in
f1ationary problem?
If so, he added, he wished they
would come out with it.
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