Evening star., 1947-11-18

WV ~k - - ~
FOLLOWING Is the tert of SEND
tor Tdfts radio address last night
IN reply to President Trunaan's
special message to Congress on
imitation control and foreign aid:
Today the President of the United
States demanded that Congress, and
the people, turn the clock back
wards. He advocates return to the
days of war, of the OPA. the War
Labor Board and the War Produc-
ton Board. He demands power in
his individual discretion to fix prices
or not Ak prices, to fix wages or not
. fix wages, to prevent purchases by
the housewife unless she gets ration
stamps from some new Federal
board, to dictate to every farmer
where he shall sell the products OF
his farm and at what prices and to
regulate the details of every bust
ness, control its inventories, regulate
It's acquisition of raw materials and
, direct the disposition of its finished
products.
. He wants price control against the
producer, wage control against the
! working man, rationing against the
housewife and the restaurant, every
kind of control over the businessman
It means the setting up OF Fed
eral bureau with literally hundreds
of thousands of employees and agents
prying into the daily lives OF mil
lions of people. We know this Is
what 1t would mean because we saw
It happen here. Such a proposal Is
not progress, nor is it liberalism. II
Is reaction and step to completely
totalitarian nation.
Evidently under this adminlstra-
ton we can never return to state
of peace. We still have war taxes
We have a war budget. Now we
are to have war controls. Most OF
our Presidents have regarded wal
and it's incidents as the worst
calamity a people could suffer, ex-
cept loss of it's liberty, but the
present administration, for domestic
policy reasons, is so eager to retain
the incidents of war that one can
only doubt whether there Is real
will to peace.
Can't Control Prices Partially.
The President represents that
these powers will be sparingly useo
only with relation to vital commooi'
ties In short supply which basicaliy
affect the cost of living, or baslcally
affect industrial production. Every
thing, he says, is to be done on q
highly selected basis. II there is
one thing which the OPA certainly
learned, it is that you can't do price
control partially. Why, the Presl-
dent ended controls himself on the
ground that you could not controI
some prices unless you controled all
All the important commodities are
inter-related. If you ration and fix
the price of meat. everybody rushef
out to buy chickens and eggs.
Controls Immediately must De
established over them. Who Is to
determine what are vital commodl-
ties and whether they affect the cost
of living? That definition alone
includes 80 per cent of all COM
nodities. No-the President is only
irving to sugarcoat the pill. This is
the OPA. This is the police state
condemned by the President hlm-
self onlv a month ago. This is the
end of economic freedom.
Certainly prices are too high
Unreasonable increases in wages
nav be requested. Certainly more
food is being consumed in this
country than necessary. But II we
can't meet problems Of this klno
within our system of free compe'
tition and incentive, then we mus
regiment prices, wages and ration
ing forever.
Three Practical Objections.
Apart from theory, there are three
practical objections to adopting
nolice state. First, 1t chokes pro
duction instead of increasing 1t, ant
what we want is more productlor
to give people what they need a
reasonable prices. We saw undel
the OPA controls how many import
ant products disappeared from thu
market. The housewife couldn
buy any butter, any meat, any soar
or canned goods. No man could hne
q white shirt or a new suit. Inert
was no leather because OF the oiacN
market slaughtering of beef, and M
shoes. There wasn't any lumpel
or building materials. And none O
them came back until we got rie
of OPA.
The English have complete pric
control and rationing and the.
have no incentive to get production
Men don't work longer hours, be
cause there isn't anything to bu
with the money they could carr
Surely with that example before US
we don't want to socialize ana regl
ment America.
In the second place nobody know
enough to do the job OF control a
II is done by natural economic Law
There are probably a billion trans
actions a day in this country ant
no one knows how to fix the prlce
and conditions to govern those safes
saw'the little man who struggled
with the problem in the OPP
bureaus. They created books ant
books or regulations, and they na'
tn amend them daily. If their rule
fitted the East, they didn't fit tn
west or the South. And there wa
no relief from bungling and IN
Justice. Certainly this admlnlsti a
ton has shown no evidence OF aollit'
IN do the Job. Look at the mes
made of the voluntarily d-savln
program to carry out highly de
sirable purpose.
Wheat Cakes for Eggs.
Meatless Tuesdays and chicken
less and eggless Thursdays neVe
did make any sense, because ever
one ate chickens and eggs on Tues
davs and meat on Thursdays, leav
ing them Just where they were
Last Thursday morning on the din
ing car. the steward told us that
while he could not serve eggs, n
would substitute wheat cakes OF
every order. So to save wheat 10
Europe, the travellers ate whea
CAKES in America. What differenc