Campaign at Home

Franklin Roosevelt, fighting a rear-guard action against inflation, last week ordered his aides to think up some new tactics. His price lieutenants jumped in with the usual set of one-page memos of their ideas, for him to cull and con. Soon, perhaps in the first fireside chat since February, the plans will be unfolded. The usual "informed sources" said that the tentative program, subject to change without notice, will include:

>A big Government purchasing program to absorb high farm prices without letting retail ceilings rise on important cost-of-living items. For instance, this could be done if the Government bought up cattle at going market prices, resold to packers at a figure low enough to give the packers modest profits at current beef ceilings. In effect, the Government will buy up all cattle and sell them at a loss, with the taxpayer ponying up enough money to keep producers and processors in business.

> New ceilings on canned vegetables, cutting prices well below present levels.

> Incentive payments to encourage the production, without raising prices, of such scarce food items as milk and eggs. These would be direct subsidies to growers.

> Higher taxes.

Rollback. Franklin Roosevelt now concedes that he cannot roll prices back (see p. 21) to last September's levels, as his April "hold-the-line" order contemplated. But his price lieutenants still hope that a new program, plus normal operations of the law of supply & demand as summer vegetables flood in to market, will keep the cost of living within reasonable bounds.

If not, Franklin Roosevelt must revise his whole cost-of-living strategy. For last week A.F. of L.'s William Green and C.I.O.'s Phil Murray, who have held labor in line with the Little Steel formula, marched to the White House to threaten mutiny unless prices went down. This was a very interesting piece of byplay, for everyone guessed that while the two labor leaders talked tough on the front steps, to impress their members, they were probably much less belligerent inside, imploring the President to hold prices level, rather than threatening him if he did not roll prices back.

Theirs was no ultimatum. But the fall season for important wage negotiations begins on Aug. 5 with General Motors Corp. Soon afterward the Little Steel formula must stand or fall.

Stand By. Last week the War Labor Board once more stood by the Little Steel formula in a memorable opinion written by Public Member Wayne L. Morse. Brainy Wayne Morse, dean of the University of Oregon Law School, was an ace labor arbitrator on the West Coast, has moved impartially between labor's and industry's side on WLB. Last week, denying a wage increase to Los Angeles traction employes, he wrote:

"The Board wishes to have it understood that it is in entire sympathy with plans for the effective rolling back of prices . . . and for the imposition of heavier taxes to check inflationary incomes and profits. . . .

"Workers are entitled to a standard of living of health and decency that will permit maximum war production, but beyond that workers should not expect wage increases in the midst of war. . . . There is something almost sacrilegious about insisting upon improving the economic conditions of our civilians at home . . . while at the same time so many of our young men are suffering and dying. ..."

Look Forward. "It is specious reasoning for labor to demand wage increases ... on the ground that other sectors of our battle line against inflation are not being held . . . WLB wishes to make clear that it does not intend to retreat . . . even though other divisions of the anti-inflation army may weaken. Before making wage demands which WLB cannot grant under the wage stabilization program, labor should look to what is likely to happen if that program is broken down. . . ." These were brave and thoughtful words, well worth the attention of civilians in & out of labor. Nevertheless, no one, perhaps not even WLB's Morse, really expects the Little Steel formula to stand--unless the President's new tactics accomplish what no previous ones have done.

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