OPA Reluctance

President Truman did not like the new OPA bill but he knew that this one would have to do. He signed it "with reluctance." He also attached a message. To the public he said that holding prices in line was as much its job as it was Government's. To the Congress he said that if the bill and the people themselves fail to dam inflation he would call Congress back into a special session to frame a stronger act.

No one knew where prices might go under the new law. Much depended on the three-man OPA Decontrol Board. It would be all-powerful in determining what commodities and goods would be under price ceilings. In choosing the Board the President was expected to follow a well-grooved pattern: one member to represent labor, one to be an industry-management spokesman, one to sit for the public. But the Board named by Harry Truman fell into no such groove. The three men nominated for the $12,000 jobs were:

ROY LELAND THOMPSON, 55, Mississippi-born. Chairman of the Federal Land Bank of New Orleans, tall (6 ft. 3 in.) Roy Thompson has been working in Farm Credit Administration agencies since 1933, but he is no crusader for Government controls. His aim as Chairman of the Decontrol Board: "Get things out from under price controls as quickly as possible; if we can get production going at its proper rate, competitive force can remove the necessity of Government control."

GEORGE HOUK MEAD, 68, an Ohioan. Chairman of the $39,600.000 Mead Corp., which he built into one of the nation's leading papermakers, George Mead is an experienced Washington hand. From NRA days on, he has served on many Government boards, including the War Labor Board, is now an advisory member of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. His philosophy: free enterprise.

His practical application of it: smooth out the extreme differences between Government and business.

DANIEL WAFENA BELL, 55, Illinois-born. Until he resigned last January to join a Washington (D.C.) bank as president, he had been a Government employe for 34 years, rising from a clerkship to be Under Secretary of the Treasury. Daniel Bell helped the New Deal by keeping its books. He neither embraced nor repudiated New Deal measures for controls over business. An impartial appraisal of his philosophy: the complete impartiality of a highly competent public servant.

After Senate confirmation, expected this week, the Board faces an unenviable task under the pressures of industry, consumers' groups and labor. Its first job is to decide, by Aug. 20, whether meat, milk, poultry, eggs, soybeans and cotton seed (and all food products made from these commodities) shall remain exempt from ceilings. As a court of last resort, it can overrule the OPA, the Department of Agriculture or any industry advisory committee on price regulation.

Last week Paul Porter tried to put a brave face on the law that extends rent controls and his job. But the act opened the way to rescaling of ceilings on thousands of items, and Porter warned 'that many prices--particularly on clothing--would surely rise. Best guess on new automobile ceilings: $75 to $100 more on standard low-priced models.

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