The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1943-07-09

IA VICTORY
FOR The
CONSUMER
The battle against initiation on tn
cost-of-living front is a two-sided bat
tie. On one side, the fight is to holt
prices down to established maximum
or ceilings set by the OPA. On thu
other side, it is to keep quantity ant
quality up to preceding levels.
quantity and quality are not main
tanned, retention of price maximum!
loses meaning.
To say this is to say the obvious
as everyone who buys items of food
articles of apparel or anything else
in consumers goods knows full well
But here, as in many other cases, the
obvious is basically important, ant
that is why Presiding Judge Kim
brough Stones opinion in the case Of
Prentiss M Brown, price administra
tor, VS.. Mars Inc, is a nationally sig
nificant victory for the rank and file
of people.
Mars, Inc of Chicago, manufactures
of Milky Way, Smokers, Three Mus
keteers, DR.. |. O., Forever Yours and
Mars candy bars, was charged by the
OPA with reducing the weight of its
products II per cent below the levels
in force under the 1912 Emergency
Price Control Act. The case came
before Judge Merrill E. Otis of Kan
sas City, who dismissed OPA's
charges.
The candy company's defense,
which Judge Otis accepted, was that
it did not sell its bars by weight, even
though required by the Federal Food,
Drug and Cosmetic Act to print the
weight of each bar on the paper
wrapper. 1t sold, so Mars, Inc, said,
"a bars to the box, IL boxes to the
carton. So long as it continued to
deliver the same number of units, it
was keeping faith with its customers.
The company's contention is so
transparent, so destructive of the en-
tire principle of price regulation and
Initiation control that we do not see
how Judge Otis could have fallen for
1t. The OPA had no trouble in dem
onstrating the justice and the fair
ness of its complaint to Judge Stone
and Judges John w. Woodrough and
Harvey M. Johnson, who concurred
with him in the circuit court of ap-
peals reversal of Judge Otis.
Tests showed, for example, that
while the weight of the Milky Way
bar on March 81, 1912, was 2.679
ounces, it was only 2613 ounces, a de-
crease of .066 ounces, on the follow
ing May II. The Smoker bars de-
crease was from 2.S64 ounces to 2.6S2
ounces, a reduction of 1872 ounces.
And so on. But the way to measure
the decrease is not by the Individual
bar. The record showed that the
Mars company manufactured daily be-
tween 10000 and 1000 cartons, or
from 2,SS0,000 to 3,16S,OOO bars. On
a monthly basis, this output ran up to
81, 26S,O bars.
That is the production side. When
we look at the ingredients in a Milky
Way master batch-155.69 pounds of
sugar, 114.67 pounds of corn syrup
2.Sl pounds of salt, IS pounds of
cocoa, 81 pounds of matted milk. 1881
pounds of eggs and 16 pounds of hard
butter-we begin to see what even a
slight decrease per bar would mean to
The manufacturer. 1t would mean
greatly reduced outlay in obtaining
Inc same revenue from the business.
AS Presiding Judge Stone said:
Candy is a food Weight is one
measure of the amount of food. Many
Kinds of food are sold by piece or
by package. Any decrease in weight
ii such without corresponding de-
crease in price has clearly the same
effect on the purchaser and the seller
rs an increase in priceless is sold
vi Ine same money"
This victory in the circuit court of
appeals should be a warning to all
manufacturers and dealers that the
)PA is awake to reduction in |
amounts and quality as a dodge |
lround price regulations, that the
)PA will prosecute and is prosecuting
'iolators and that the courts will I'M. |
lold fairly established legal ceilings.
rms holds for food as well as for
andy. 1t holds for quality in cloth
ng as well as quantity in things to
'e eaten. 1t holds all along the line.
The manufacturer who puts cheap-
II goods into a suit of clothes or a
'air of shoes and charges the same
'rice is gouging the consumer and
long his part to produce initiation.
The food professor who holds a little
weight out of each package, or the
orner merchant who gives less for
he same money is likewise breaking
own initiation controls.
Judge Stone and his colleagues on