Inflation Battle

Just before 2 o'clock one afternoon last week, waiting newsmen were summoned into the Senate's majority conference room. Frayed and weary after four hours of haggling, Senator Robert Taft announced that he was about to start rewriting the Republican policy statement on inflation. Could he give out the gist of it? Not until it was rewritten, said Taft. "The words have to be exact or they don't mean anything," he said, flashing a copy of the statement, which was X-ed out, scrawled over and heavily edited in nearly every line.

The newsmen were not exactly intrigued by the prospect of another statement on inflation. They had already read too many. All week long, Democrats and Republicans had exchanged a futile barrage of charges and countercharges. Republicans accused the President of attempting to set up full wartime powers to use at his own discretion. The G.O.P., snapped West Virginia's New Dealing Senator Harley Kilgore, was "rushing to a three-alarm fire with a garden hose."

President Truman himself had done little to clear the air. At his weekly press conference, he denounced a Republican proposal to relax antitrust laws and permit voluntary price agreements. He was apparently ignorant of the fact that a similar provision had been written into an Administration bill already submitted to Congress.

Ten v. Ten. When the Republican declaration of policy was made public, it turned out to be more than just another statement. It was the ten-point G.O.P. answer to Harry Truman's own ten-point anti-inflation program (TIME, Nov. 24). It held some surprises.

The Republicans bought half of Harry Truman's ten points without reservation. They agreed to tackle extension of export and transportation controls immediately. When Congress reconvened in January, it would extend rent control for another year, restore consumer credit controls and take action against inflationary bank credit and commodity speculation.

The Republicans also plumped for a cut in Government spending, a cut in taxes and a cut in the federal debt. Then they faced up to Harry Truman's request for price and rationing power.

No Ramming. For the moment, they were still determined to stick to voluntary agreements to control priorities and inventories. But, said the statement: "If it appears that voluntary controls are inadequate to meet specific problems, we will consider the granting of authority to meet such particular problems."

But this week neither Democrats nor Republicans were yet willing to yield another inch. House Republicans brought out a bill including part of what Harry Truman wanted (export and transportation controls) but stressing the Republican program for voluntary action. When the G.O.P. tried to ram it through with a two-thirds voting procedure barring all amendments, a solid Democratic opposition killed the bill--and the probability of any anti-inflation action before Christmas.

The week's events made two points clear: 1) both Republicans and Democrats were a lot more worried about the political effect of what they said than they were about inflation; 2) if there is crop failure or a meat shortage next spring, the U.S. will have to go back to a partially controlled economy.

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