The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-02-27

 sell you the clothes you need have a number of conflicting theories about how you behave.
 Investigators for the Bureau of Labor Statistics have gone into hun dreds of stores and found you can't get the inexpensive lines of clothing which you need and which you used to buy.
 Labor union representatives who claim to be looking out for your in- tereSts say that because you can't buy these things you need higher wages.
 On the other hand, representa- tiveS of the textile mills, the cloth ing manufacturers, the wholesalers and retailers are prone to say you now have more money than you ever had in your life, that in your present plush condition you would mt take the old, cheaper lines of merchandise as gift, that what you want now are $1698 dresses instead of $6.98, coats at $35 instead of $l5, mems suits at $50 instead of $22.5O. Therefore, say the industry people, why make the cheap stuff?
 INITIATION WARNING
 But if there aren't any inexpen- sive clothes for you to buy, say the representatives of WIPE, OCR, OPA, VILE, BIS, OES, and assorted gov- ernment alphabetical war agencies, your cost of living will go up. we'll have to authorize wage increases for you, and that will start an inflation- ary spiral which will increase the cost of the war and might even wreck the national economy.
 If you can understand this simple little fairy story you can understand the main points of the big fight now being waged in Washington over the new War Production Board-O Office of Price Administration orders, intend ed to roll back the cost and increase the supply of the lower-priced lines of clothing.
 It may take some weeks or even months before the consumer who goes a-shopping for new clothes will be able to see the effects of these new orders. They are ex- tremely complicated and, the buying habits of the choosey and spoiled American people being what they are, 1t is impossible for anyone to predict how these things will work.
 For instance, supposing the order does succeed in diverting cloth not needed by the armed services from more expensive clothing into the less expensive lines. Suppose the little woman goes into shop with six dollars, intending to buy a house dress at $5.98 and keep the change. But the clerk says, sorry, We don't have any $5.98. All we have are at $1.98. Okay, says the babe, I'll take three and gimme the change to buy pearls and chewing gum with.
 Isn't that disguised imitation. and doesn't 1t defeat the purposes of the orders?
 CHANGES CAN BE MADE
 Realizing that their orders may have bugs of this kind hidden in the yardage, WIPE and OPA have both said that If the orders don't work they will be changed. This is big hearted of them and it makes sense. If the orders are unenforceable and result in clothing black market, they will have to be changed.
 Most of the noise comes from con- fiict within the trade among growers spinners. weavers, converters, manu- facturers, wholesalers, retailers. Price rollback features of the order will unquestionably reduce profits at some levels, though the orders are not primarily intended to des- troy profits as has been frequently misstated. The real purpose is to force production of more low-priced clothes. Makers and sellers of high priced clothing will take terrible licking, will have to go into produc- ton of less expensive garments or go out of business completely for the duration. Who else is going to get hurt and how much is something you'll have to wait and see.