The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1945-08-31
Price Controls

fought a. victorious war could call off all wartime rules,
regulations, price and wage controls, and on the day OF the
enemys surrender proceed, overnight, to a stable peacetime
civilian economy, in which only the laws of supply and
demand and free competition would control prices and the
sale of products.
But we know it is impossible, both from the logic of our
present situation, and from our experiences after the last
war. A nation as big and as complex as our own can neither
Jump overnight into maximum war production, nor can it
shut up the arms factories overnight and drop every market
control that made the tremendous production victory pos
sible and proceed on 24-hour notice to the full-scale manu-
lecture and distribution of washing machines, alarm clocks,
beginning of the wal, to inventory our supplies and produc-
tive capacity of raw materials like steel, aluminium, copper,
ard a thousand other things. and to draw up our arms and
commoditie schedules on the basis of what was possible We
had to give the most essential weapons the highest priorities,
so our steel and aircraft factories and shipyards could get
into maximum production just as fast as the ways and wet
docks and the factories could be constructed. When the
dangerous race between commodity prices and wages began.
it was necessary to place reasonable ceilings on both, and
hold the line" despite terrific pressure from every individ-
gored. None of these programs worked with 100 percent
efficiency, of course, or even close to it.
All sorts of private Hobbies. including powerful union
and business groups. bucked that line hard and heavy.
But. by and large. Washington did a fairly good Job of
holding the line" and when the political passions of our
day clear away and history looks back upon these war
years. they will very likely find this one of the greatest
accomplishments of the late President Roosevetis war
time administration.
Now President Truman has laid down a firm policy of
holding -the-line in these turbulent postwar months, when
the threat of an inflationary spiral and reckless bidding for
materials is even greater than during the war. The OPA,
with the PRESIDENTS strong backing mas AID down ne peace
time formula that, during the reconversion period, the re-
tail prices of consumer goods must be held to levels approx
imately equal to those of 1912. The OPA has conceded that
manufacturing costs have risen since that date and has al
lowed manufacturers an increase of 81 percent over their
1912 prices for such products as automobiles, washing ma
chimes, and the like. But the OPA will not permit this cost
increase to be relayed from the wholesale dealer, the retailer,
to the public. 1t argues that the costs of selling the public
will be greatly reduced during the next year or two, and
this reduction will make up for the slightly increased costs
which the retailer and wholesaler must pay the manufacturer.
Chester Bowles, head of the OPA, argues that consumers
will seek out the dealers for months to come, and therefore
various selling" techniques like displays, canvassing, ex-
cessive trade-in values on old machinery, and advertising will
not be as necessary as they were IN the normal market before
the war.
The first reaction of Is folks in the retail. display.
canvassing and advertising business-which includes just
about all of us who are not manufacturers-is to howl
because our ox is sored. But on deeper reflection and
on considering that the alternative means costs passed
on to the consumer and the beginning of a destructive
race between prices and wages ending no one knows
where. it seems to us that the hold the-line policy laid
down by Mr. Truman and the oPA for these uncertain
postwar months. is the right policy. Under ideal cir
cumstances we would want 2 better break" and a bigger
slice of postwar business profits for the wholesale and
retail field. But we remember Aesops fable about the
dog with the juicy bone who barked at his reflection in
the water because he wanted two bones. and therefore
lost his own. And that story seems to us to illustrate the
workings of initiation. 1t is twice as good to make $500
than it is to make sl00-but only If the dollar remains a
dollar. When a stampede for higher prices and hisher
wages begins and all controls are blown skY-high. as well
they might be in the uncertain years ahead. profits and
wages are destroyed by an inflationary market headed
for a blow-up as surely as a martin heads for a gourd.
The heaviest sufferers in an inflationarY scramble
teachers. postal clerks. retired pensioners. officials and
others with fixed positions whose salaries continue UNI
changed while costs goes mounting.
We also agree with Senator Murray, who as chairman
of the small business committee has fought an intelligent and
effective fight to protect the small and independent manu-
facturer from being smothered by the industrial ttans.
During the war he has prevented the war department from
throwing all of its contracts to a few of the biggest firms, and
won a bigger part in the war program for smaller manufac-
turers all over the country. This week he protested the War
Production Boards decision to wipe out special priority help
for small business on September 30. He said the small man.
ufacturers should not be compelled ito scramble for the ma
terials and parts which they need against their bigger COM
petitors. Supplers will tend to favor their biggest pre-war
customers as long as materials are scarce, he said, and if
cnntrais are lifted a great number of smaller businesses will