The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1947-12-11
ADMINISTRATION START
FIGHT IN SENATE, HOUSE
FORINFLATIONDAMPER

Washington (LPA) = Like a
first-string backfield, top Cabinet
officers last week battled on Cap
tol Hill for the Administrations
anti-inflation program. Both for the
Administration and it's COP oppo-
nents, it looked form the press box
as though there was some confu-
sion as to who was the quarter
back calling the signals on each
side.
For the Administration, definite
ly the brainiest witness before the
Congress was Chairman Mariner
Eccles of the Federal Reserve
Board, who traced the background
leading up to the current price
crises, and discussed the long-range
and the stop-gap steps that could
be taken to end initiation.
Even as he testified, government
statisticians were compiling a re-
port that primary market prices
rose to new high during the week
ended Nov. %, to a point 16 per
cent above a year ago. In subse-
quent days, private industrial in
dexes of wholesale prices showed a
continued climb.
Commerce Secretary Averill Har-
riman bluntly told the Joint Cont
mittee on the Economic Report that
ALLEGATION controls should be used
for steel. THE increased produc-
tion of freight cars, SO greatly
needed by our domestic economy,
is a case in point. Another exam
pie is that steel may be available
for increased production of farm
equipment so essential to maintain
our own food production on high
levels and to increase food supplies
in other countries"
Here are highlights of Eccles'
testimony before the same Con-
gressional committee: "The source
of the present initiation is war fl
nancing and the enormous Federal
deficits incurred in preparation for
and prosecution of global war . f.
We are suffering the consequences
today of an excessively swollen
money supply which neither the
bankers Individually nor Govern
ment authorities have adequate
means at present of controlling"
"When the harness of controls
rs prematurely removed and no
Effective substitute was devised to
aold back the flood of effective de-
mand, it was apparent, or at least
it should have been apparent, that
q sharp rise in prices was inevita-
bic. As a result, the economy was
in a dangerous wage-price-
spiral, acutely intensi-
fled by short farm crops abroad,
and reduced corn and cotton crops
az home. Critical conditions abroad,
ia part resulting from our rising
prices, impose upon us obligations
which must be met even though |
sp add to our inflationary diff |
the longer the necessary re-
adu taeot is delayed, the longer
it w take to reach a stable con-
diti9u of enployment and produc-
si0n The most serious maladjust-
n%nts are evidenced by the increas-
nN numbers # our people whose
ncdNmes DO ut keep pace with
.he Missing cost f living. They are
1eing tpriced cat If the market for
Nand ay other things, and
n countless iu aacNs their savings
lnd credifS hag ';idy been ex-
lausted. The. hri er prices rise and
,redit expandA he eaater the sub
'equent liquidA tor aad downward
pressure on prize 5 bo1nd to be
As the Nqyeu letter of
The National CieE Bank of New
York correctly sta&es, "Rapidly ac-
tebt iss botb cause
If the inflationary nsss res
GAS a practical mafk re can
not now put back thA laborate
harness of wartime cSfols, and
It seems thai ve are lefl y with
the choice OF ftan eurbsS re-
,traints select y applied al me
IF the more crl zeal points oa n
ger. In the absence of a contp e.
no,c;ye scheme OF controls we n4sii Il