Newspaper Page Text
»»»*«■«.
GOVERNMENT FEARS RISING
TRICES
WASHINGTON. Only insiders
know it, but the government is pre
paring drastic price controls if the
present upward trend continues.
They fear a runaway price situa
tion which would hit the pocketbooks
of the great mass of consumers.
And the last thing the administra
tion wants right now is a hot cost
of-living potato on its hands.
So far there have been marked
price advances only in a few com
modities—lumber, scrap iron, and
other basic raw materials. But re
cently there have been tell-tale signs
of a general upward movement, and
some of those mysterious late-after
noon White House conferences have
been over this problem. Three plans
of attack are under consideration:
1. Use of the priorities control now
vested in the office of production
management, under the supervision
of ex-U. S. Steel man Edward R.
Stetlinius Jr., to deprive price goug
ers of their supplies, thus forcing
them either to go out of business
or bring their prices into line.
2. Use of the “draft industry” law
to compel price gouging concerns to
sell to the government at a fixed
figure; also to “freeze” prices in
industries where quotations persist
in getting out of line with what
are considered fair levels.
3. Imposition of a price ceiling on
all commodities and on every step
in the industrial process from raw
materials to retailer.
The last was the recommendation
of Bernard Baruch, based on his ex
perience as head of the 1917-18 war
industries board. In private confer
ences with Roosevelt and defense
chiefs, Baruch emphasized that the
one big price lesson learned in
World War I was that half-way con
trol measures were worse than none
at all.
“You must either stabilize every
price or stabilize no price,” he de
clared. “If you impose controls only
at one point, you leave the door wide
open for a worse break-away some
where else. The only effective de
fense is total defense and the only
effective price control is total con
trol.”
* ♦ ♦
HOPKINS REPORTS
Here are some of the things Harry
Hopkins told the President.
First and most important, Hop
kins definitely stated his conviction
that the British would be able to
hold out against the Nazis. He thor
oughly agreed with Wendell Willkie
in spiking isolationist claims that
Britain would crack up, submit to a
negotiated peace, and leave the
U.S.A. to hold the bag after voting
“all-out” aid.
However, Hopkins got no request
from Winston Churchill that the U. S.
send five to ton destroyers a month.
What Churchill did request was the
right to repair British destroyers and
other naval craft in American dry
docks. This has been one of Brit
ain’s most difficult problems, since
all of her dry-docks are fairly easy
targets for air raids, so that vessels
needing repair frequently have been
bombed a second time or even a
third time and have to be repaired
all over again.
Churchill also asked that the Unit
ed States sell or lease “mosquito
boats.” These are small, fast motor
boats carrying torpedoes and
equipped to lay depth charges,
which the United States has been
building at the rate of about one a
week for some time.
Churchill wanted them particular
ly to ward off Nazi invasion, when
it comes. Virtually impossible to
hit because of their high speed—
they can do 50 miles an hour—the
mosquito boats would be especially
effective against Nazi troop-ships
and barges attempting to cross the
channel.
However, tire mosquito boats
which the United States is building
are a little light for the choppy wa
ters of the English channel, and it
is significant that the President al
ready has ordered the redesigning of
the stern of these boats in order to
improve their balance.
• ♦ •
CAPITAL CHAFF
Ex-Senator King of Utah visited
the senate the other day, sat in his
old seat and itched with the impulse
to rise and address the chamber.
Blind ex-Senator Gore of Okla
homa came into the chamber on the
arm of a page and listened with up
lifted face and rapt expression to the
debate.
Following isolation demonstra
tions in the senate galleries last
week, Capitol police keep all visitors
lined up on the lower floor, and ad
mit only a few at a time.
Latest issue of the magazine “Na
tional Republican,” blithely ignores
Wendell Willkie, but heaps four col
umns on ex-Ambassador Joe Ken
nedy for his fight against the lease
lend bill. The magazine also has a
few kind words for Norman Thom
as, the Socialist candidate, who also
opposes the bill.
The FBI is advising all plants do
ing defense work not to sell their
waste paper but to destroy it.
Henry Wallace presides over the
senate from the opening at 12 until
1:30, then retires to lunch on orange
juice and a cheese sandwich.
jf 3^ 1 General
|©<l HUGH S.
tci JOHNSON
wA Jour:
United Fniurn W KNU.Vf'W*
Washington, I). C.
‘WAR’ PRICES
One of the principal causes of war
time shortages and sky-rocketing
prices is the fear of them. The man
ager of any company making fin
ished goods out of raw materials is
responsible for continuous supply. If
| he sees ahead what seems to be a
i period of scant material and rising
prices, he not only “covers” by buy
-1 ing for his usual output for six
1 months or maybe a year, but he
goes as far beyond that as his re
sources will permit.
This is “good business” from ev
ery angle. It is a good speculative
risk from the'angle of probable ris
ing prices. It is good insurance
against possible future shut-downs
or delays due to inability to get ma
terials later. Finally, there is a
temptation even to borrow money to
increase stock piles and inventories
to abnormal size. A period of price
inflation is a good time to owe money
and to own things.
The combination of all these rea
sons is almost irresistible. Apply
them to all the thousands of busi
ness concerns, big and little, and
you have a tremendous national
force working everywhere to create
the very condition of fear which has
caused it.
Part of these reasons work in the
same direction for all individuals
and for the great war purchasing
government departments. All peo
ple like to buy while they “can get
the stuff and before the price
rises.” An officer in charge of an
arsenal or a navy yard turning out
munitions has a really dreadful re
sponsibility for producing on or
ahead of time and in quantity. He,
too, fears the delays that future
shortages may cause and to the ex
tent of his powers, will overstate his
requirements and build up his inven
tories.
Of course, this is a form of
“hoarding”—which is a war time
word of evil omen. It is truly evil
because the certain result of these
practices is soaring prices, to the
detriment of the whole nation and
sometimes with a result of complete
economic collapse and disaster.
This column has continuously ar
gued against centralization of fed
eral power, but in a war economy
some centralization is necessary in
the public interest. In the haste to
get the defense program through the
legislature, not enough attention has
been given to this phase. We need
simpler and more direct emergency
statuatory authority to control price,
priority and increasing inventories.
This is a subject that should have
the immediate attention of congress
—even before tax legislation. We
could lose more through price in
flation in a year than increased taxes
could recover in 10 years.
* * *
MILITARY EXPERTS
This has certainly been a tough
war for the military “experts”—
both the columnist kibitzer or radio
amateur variety and the real pro
fessiooals. The amateurs have
been bad enough, but the biggest
boners of all have been pulled by
those who from training, education
and profession should really have
been expert.
The English and French bet their
national existence on the exporting
of their soldiers and sailors that
they could hold Hitler on the Magi
not line and outmaneuver him north
qf that. They pushed Poland into
the storm and then tossed her to the
wolves and left all the small na
tions of Europe (that had been ad
vised by their own military experts
to rely on allied strength) to be con
quered in a few weeks.
The English experts bet that they
could outfox Hitler on the Norwe
gian coast. They were wrong about
that, too. Then Hitler’s military
high priests told him he could clean
up the British Isles in 1940, but he
is still at the channel ports.
Mussolini’s mighty military men
told him that Greece and North Af
rica were pushovers, and see what
happened to him. Japan expected
a tea party in China. She got it, but
it was spiked with arsenic. Russia
was advised by her professionals
that she could swallow Finland at a
gulp. That didn’t happen and since
Joe Stalin is more direct in his
methods, he liquidated his experts
and got some new ones. I don’t
know if they are any better.
The sciences of both tactics and
armament have shifted too fast for
the experts. There are too many
imponderables in modern war. The
basic principles of war never
change, but military genius consists
in applying them to new conditions j
and no such genius has yet appeared j
—no, not even Mr. Hitler’s bright
young men, notwithstanding their |
unparalleled conquests.
For example Mr. Winston
Churchill now tells us that this is
just a war of machines—ships and
land mechanical monsters —and that
we shall never have to mobilize great
masses of men to go to Europe. I
don’t know whether war is no longer
a matter of mass man power or not
—and neither does Mr. Churchill. I
only know it always has been. He
is clicking pretty well on military
matters just now, but it’s doubtful
whether any leader ever made so
many military mistakes in the
course of one lifetime and survived
them as a public character.
HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL. *
Kathleen Nor ris Says:
Keep Your Marriage Alive
(Bell Syndicate—WNU Service.)
Plan for old age. And by old age I mean the late fifties, the sixties and the seven
ties, which don’t seem like old age at all when you get to them. How about cruising
around in the car, just seeing what sort of a little place we could pick up.
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
THERE comes a bad time
in the life of almost every
woman. It comes when
the children grow up, graduate
from college, depart to lives of
their own. And when at the
same time, youth and beauty
say an eternal good-by to her
I mirror.
Oh, she’s not old! She’s forty,
or forty-two, or perhaps only
thirty-five or eight. But life sud
denly goes fiat for her. She
moves through the familiar do
mestic round dully. The daugh
ter is away at school; Bill goes
off to the office; Jean faces a
long stupid day.
Of course she may go -out to the
kitchen and talk meals with Carrie.
Cold beef and the broccoli and the
last eclair; that will be plenty of
lunch. The Millers are coming to
dinner, so they must have something
nice. Carrie makes suggestions,
| and Jean approves. She looks in the
| hall closet; yes, there are cards and
i scores. She telephones Ethel; is
Ethel going to the club? She looks
at the list of movies in the papers
and the radio programs; nothing
thrilling.
“Papa lived to be seventy,” thinks
Jean. “Am I going to have thirty
years more of this?”
Middle Age Has Its Joys Too
Now, middle-age has a job, just
as youth has. Good times and get
ting married and first homes and
i first babies are all very well, but
they only belong to certain years of
■ life. You can’t carry the thrills and
j glamours of early wifehood, early
motherhood, into the forties and you
only make yourself ridiculous if you
try. But the forties have their own
j satisfactions and joys if you will
take the trouble to find them, and
one of the most inspiring of them
all is a plan.
A plan for old age. And by old
1 age I mean the late Fifties, the
[ Sixties and the Seventies, which
don’t seem like old age at all when
you get to them. They seem just
like—well, living, like any other
time of life. Comfort and friends
and mental security and even beau
j ty mean as much to you as they ever
! did —perhaps more. To be able to
do as you like at sixty is just as
j pleasant as it is at twenty. To have
| a small farm, a dog or two, a
i cat or two, flowers to train, friends
j to come in to barbecue luncheons on
Sunday is to still be expressing your
| own personality, just as you did as
a young wife. To travel when you
j feel a great need to see the Cana
j dian lakes or Mexico City, to send
friends preserves made of your own
| fruit, to putter about in the strip of
j your own woods, to dress your white
hair as becomingly as your darker
hair ever was dressed and to wear
! the comfortable brocades and vel
vets becoming your age—all this is
very keen delight.
Plan Together,
And all this is especially delight-
I ful if you take the old partner of
your younger joys and sorrows along
I with you. If you want to put a thrill
into a marriage, that has gone a
little stale and monotonous, try dis
cussing your plan with the man of
the house tonight. Ask him where
and how he would like to live when
you both get really old; farm, sea
side, mountains? How about chick
ens or squabs or raising fine kittens
or puppies? How about having
your own vegetables, corn and let
tuce and tomatoes? Thousands and
thousands of families have had their
own vegetable patch, their own ber
ries and fruit, and enjoyed the lux
uries of the table for almost no out
lay at all. How about cruising
around in the car, now that the
weather is getting warm, and just
seeing what sort of a little place w®
AFTER FORTY . . .
You dread old age? How can you
make the years after forty satisfying
and full “sparkle”? Will your mar
riage survive the change from youth to
middle age . . . and after? Read Kath
leen Norris’ frank, 10-the-point answers
to these age-old questions. You’ll learn
tluit the sixties and seventies can be
the “highlights ” of one’s life!
could pick up, and what we’d have
to pay monthly to own it in seven
or eight years?
If you’ve been paying $B5 a month
for a city apartment for 15 years
you’ve paid away $15,000 for nothing.
That is, nothing permanent. That
sum would buy you an enchanting
farm of perhaps a hundred acres;
I have seen delightful old places,
with old brick houses on them,
and streams, and elms, and fruit
and view and woodland for one-half
of that sum.
Age Brings Different Interests.
Of course you weren’t interested
when the children were small, and
schools and dancing lessons and den
tist and shops and doctor were all
important, and had to be within im
mediate reach.
But it’s different now. Now you
want to think of the quieter years,
of puttering in the garden, of read
ing by an open fire, of having the
few old friends you really love down
for real hospitality and sending
them home with arms full of lilac
and jars of strawberry preserve and
huckleberry branches.
Now you want to think of the
grandchildren, or the grandnieces
and nephews, who are very stiff un
communicative little persons in the
sittingroom of a town apartment, but
who will come rioting out to you
gladly for the happiest holidays their
small childhood will know if you give
them a chance.
The places -you look at, by the
way, will be picturesque outside and
ruins within. You’ll have to re
model by degrees; a bathroom this
year; a brick terrace next; electric
light whenever the company runs a
line out that way. But all that is
part of the fun, and if you buy a
place with a real crop on it, and a
tenant farmer, your taxes will be
paid from the beginning.
A Real Home.
And when you’ve finished you
have a home, a place whose windows
and stairways reflect yourselves,
your likes and fancies; a place
where a superbly scornful cat sleeps
on a fireside bench, and a big dog
draws himself up to welcome you
when you come in. A place in
whose garden you have perspired
and panted and all But broken your
back in the spring sunshine, and un
der whose oaks you’ve had many
a summer supper. A place whose
sunrises and sunsets, whose glori
ous winter storms and spring blos
soms belong all to you.
All small children ought to live in
such a place, and all aging folk.
The cities, the excitement and pres
sure and strain, the shops and
movies and taxis and beauty par
lors, the competition and struggle,
these belong between the ages of
fifteen to forty; they are good, and
they belong to our normal American
life.
But they aren’t the best of it. The
best of it is to reach the age when
you may pause to discover a hun
dred likes and hobbies for your
self; discover that you like outdoor
cooking; that you like to dress in
peasant dirndls or old Chinese cot
tons; that you like raising ducks;
that you feel gloriously young after
an hour’s woodchopping, or helping
in the hay field.
Incidentally, the chief discovery
you may make is the companion,
the enthusiastic partner and admir
er and assistant you have in the oJ/
man.
PhiHipr r
ANOTHER LETTER FROM
PRIVATE PURKEY
Dear Mom;
The cake and things you sent ar
rived okay only I did not get none
on account of my buddies opened
j them. The trouble with the army is
that you can’t keep a separate mail
ing address. Well, everything is go
ing along good and life in the army
ain’t so bad once you make up your
mind it can’t be any too good.
We have movies here but no
screeno, so you would not like army
life, mom. We have hostesses here,
too. I thought a hostess was some
body you found in airplanes, but in
the camps a hostess is a lady who
has charge of the
entertainment ffiSalfc’ j 2
side of life and I
think we may | tC
lessons in this II WS
war. There are || j|s p^
quite a few host- ||,- t JRLI -J—,,
esses here, but do * * 1
not worry about me, Mom, as they
are all pretty old, some even as old
as 38 and 40. I don’t know who is
picking them, but it ain’t Billy Rose.
At first I thought the Camp Fire
Girls were being drafted, too, but I
found out the government wants the
soldiers to have as much amuse
ment as they can get in the next
war, including double features,
swing music and Mickey Mouse.
They even have cafeteria lunch
rooms for visitors so if an outsider
gets poisoned they can’t blame it
on the regular army cook.
More rifles are arriving and I
guess maybe by the time war comes
almost every soldier will have a
gun.
Do not keep sending me heavy
underwear as you have my tent full
of it already.
Love,
Oscar,
• • •
Dear Mom;
I am getting so I do not mind be
ing here at all and my morale would
be good except I didn’t keep getting
newspapers and reading the news
from Washington. I have got around
to the point where I am used to tak->
ing orders and to facing a war if
there is no way out, but what is all
this stuff about going to the aid of
China, Greece and all nations ev
erywhere?
In one breath I am told I will
not be sent out of the United States
■in " ■■■■■ anc * next *
Hw hear all countries
‘ * n trou ' 3^e any
‘ where can depend
on help from me,
OK& n >j. j Q j n jjjg naV y
to see the world, which I may have
to see anyhow.
What is all this lease-lend stuff,
and do I go with the lease? Also
could you send me some newspaper
article explaining what is being
lended. I hope no tanks are being
lended as we are still using ice wag
ons here. If we must lend some
thing let us lend first sergeants as
there are too many of ’em around
this camp.
The food here could be better. I
haven’t had a good juicy steak yet.
Are they lending them to somebody,
too?
Well, do not worry, as I am get
ting used to everything and am very
happy today because I learned Otto
Bixby, who was my boss at the
store, has been drafted, too, and will
be here, too, any day now.
Love,
Oscar.
• • •
Dear Mom:
Bixby, my old boss (who was such
a stinker), just arrived and is in
my company, I ______
am going to work
hard now to be a
sergeant, or at
least a corporal. Y
I will write li 'l
more later. ■
Oscar, ■
• * •
OVERLOAD
Modish ladies may expect
Curvature of spine and neck.
And toward moving turn quite pass
ive
If costume jools become more mas
sive.
—J. H. Niles
• • •
Add Things for Which There Is
No Explanation Outside the Psycho
pathic Wards: Miami, where more
naked women are visible on the
beaches than anywhere on earth, is
featuring Sally Rand in a night-club
disrobing act! And the people are
flocking to see her!
• • •
Seymour says that Italy is shaped
like a boot and that its generals are
shaped like heels.
• * *
The greatest understatement in
history: Sherman’s verdict that war
is hell.
• * •
ALL SET
If the war ends, as almost every
body expects, with every nation on
earth broke, busted and flat on its
uppers, the world has at least an
appropriate post-war song for us all:
“Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys
Are Marching.”
ff
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Pull the Trigger on
Lazy Bowels, and
Comfort Stomach, too
When constipation brings on add in
digestion, stomach upset, bloating, dizzy
spells, gas, coated tongue, sour taste and
bad breath, your stomach is probably
“crying the blues” because your bowels
don’t move. It calls for Laxative-Senna
to pull the trigger on those lazy bowels,
combined with Syrup Pepsin to save
your touchy stomach from further dis
tress. For years, many Doctors have used
pepsin compounds as vehicles, or car
riers to make other medicines agreeable
to your stomach. So be sure your laxa
tive contains Syrup Pepsin. Insist on
Dr. Caldwell’s Laxative Senna combined
with Syrup Pepsin. See how wonderfully
the Laxative Senna wakes up lazy nerves ,
and muscles in your intestines to bring
welcome relief from constipation. And '
the good old Syrup Pepsin makes this •
laxative so comfortable and easy on
your stomach. Even finicky children
love the taste of this pleasant family
laxative. Buy Dr. Caldwell’s Laxative
Senna at your druggist today. Try one
laxative that comforts your stomach, too.
Our Vanity Hurt
That which makes the vanity of
others unbearable to us is that
which wounds our own. La
Rochefoucauld,
HOT SPRINGS MAY BE GREAT FOR
RHEUMATIC PAIN
But this famous Prescription
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Not everyone has got the money to visit
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real grateful help for rheumatism’s
pain, muscular aches, or rheumatic
fever. It does its work as an effective
analgesic—thousands enjoy its pain
relieving action. Sold on money-back
guarantee, 60c or $l. Demand Pre
scription C-2223 by its full name.
The Heart Knows
We know the truth, not only by
the reason, but also lay the heart.
—Pascal.
Childrens—
gjftge >■
Anger Is Costly
Anger makes dull men witty, but
it keeps them poor.—Bacon.
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