Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1948-08-07
Neither Party Faces
Facts in Proposals
To Halt Initiation
Plans to Roll Back Prices
Seen Intellectual Unless
Five Big Steps Are Token
BY Frank r. Kent

and lowering prices, emanating
from the White House on the one
side and from Republican leaders
in Congress on the other, is dis
ingenious. demagogic and, in many
respects, downright dishonest. The
only honest thing either side is
saying on this subject is that the
high cost of living is an exceed
ingly serious problem, and some
thing should be done about it, which
is as inane as it is innocuous.
Neither in their platforms, their
subsequent proposals nor their
speeches does either party squarely
face the facts-or tell the truth.
Some years ago when the late Mr..
Roosevelt created the first OPA,
Bernard M. Baruch, asked for his
advice, said the job could not be
done piecemeal. To control prices
you had to have f1ve-point pro-
gram. You had to control food,
wages, rents, profits Through taxes
and governmental spending. To
leave any one of these undone was
to render the effort Intellectual.
Everybody, including Mr.. RooSe-
welt, agreed about that.
Fraud On the Public.
But nothing was done for the
simple reason that Mr.. Roosevelt
had gone so far in making his New
Deal a labor and farmer party that
it required more courage than he
had to do what was necessary. Ac-
cordingly, without authority to at
tack the problem, one OPA admin
istrator after the other made lot
of hollow gestures and put out
quantities Of personal publicity and
propaganda. which meant nothing
whatever Some of these were smart
enough to know this; some were
not. Whether conscious or uncon-
scious, it was fraud on the public
and every sound economist in the
country knew it.
The present proposals to roll
back prices differ in detail but not
in essentials from the Roosevelt
proposals on which the first OPA
was founded. For example, they are
Identical in ignoring the tremen-
douS degree to which the Govern
ment itself is responsible for the
initiation now upon us. Not one word
Is said about the vast and unneces-
sary Government spending On the
contrary, there are plans vastly to
increase that spending. Not one
word is said about the reduction in
size and cost of the shockingly SWol-
len Federal bureaucracy. On the
contrary, as Senator Byrd points
out, the number of civilian Federal
jobholders has risen above two
million and for months has been
increasing at a rate in excess of
800 a day.
1t, OF course, is impossible to
reconcile any administration rec-
concentration to check imitation with
simultaneous administration pledges
for a great new spending program
and daily increases in the size and
cost of Federal machine already
so gigantic and expensive that its
lneff1clency is too clear TO deny. But
an even more appalling inconsist-
ency, of which both parties are
guilty because both are eager for the
votes of the farmer in the coming
election, lies in the gestures toward
reducing the cost of food while a
basic Government policy to keep
the cost Of food up is not only still
adhered to but proposed to increase.
This farm-subsidy policy began the
first year of the Roosevelt Admins
tration when Henry Wallace was
Secretary of Agriculture. It's most
sensational aspect was in the killing
Of $685. 8l young pigs and 232 0OG
SoWs about to farroW, in order to
keep up the price of pork.
Still Against Abundance.
According to Mark Sullivan.
the Government still sets the ada
mant face of bureaucratic power
against food abundance. To prove
this he cites the fact that in the
last two years the department has
destroyed millions of bushels of po-
tatoes. And it may be obliged to
do the same in it's present effort to
support the price of this years great
potato crop. Says the New York
Times on the subject: Britain has
been chided by her critics for spend
ing two billions a year since the
war to hold food prices down. We
can be charged with the even great
er folly OF having spent as much to
keep farm prices up. But never
until now has it been seriously pro-
posed that a nations taxpayers
shoulder the burden of substituting
price initiation in one political area
and price def1ation in another-and
at the same time"
Thus, it seems clear that Mr.. Thu
mans attack on the pressing prob
lens of high prices is no sounder
or more sincere than that of the
late Mr.. Roosevelt-and for the
same wholly political reasons. The
piecemeal and petty Truman recon-
mendations would not work if
adopted. The Republican Congress
will not espouse the fve-point
Baruch plan. though few of its
members privately question its
soundness. but because, with an
election looming, they are not up
to bucking the two great groups
wage earners and farmers-who
have to be bucked if imitation is to
be checked.
Certainly, there is no painless way
In which this can be done now. Any
effective plan means real pain for
bankers, industrialiSts, merchants,
wage earners, farmers, professional
men, politicians-the public as a
whole. There is no possibility of
any such plan until and unless we
have in the White House a really
strong President who puts the ma
tional interests ahead of his per-
sonal political fortunes. Perhaps
we'll have the luck to get that kim