The Government's Week

Last week the U. S. Government did the following for and to U. 5. Business:

P: The Federal Trade Commission has been investigating the possible existence of price-fixing and collusion in the cement industry for several months. Last week Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. announced that just to be on the safe side President Roosevelt had ordered that cement purchasing by all Federal agencies be concentrated in the Treasury's Procurement Division, that all bidders on cement and other building materials be required "to certify that there has been no collusion with other bidders. . . ."

P: FTC decided to hold a fair trade practices conference with the automobile industry (see p. 70).

P: As Franklin Roosevelt called another conference with railroad bigwigs to discuss the desperate railroad plight (see p. 64), the roads had their first good news in many a day. The House Interstate Commerce Committee killed a Senate bill to limit the length of freight trains to 70 cars--a law for which railroad labor lobbied long and earnestly but which would have cost the roads an estimated $125,000,000 to put into effect.

P: Federal Communications Commissioner Paul Walker recommended a 25% cut in telephone rates (see p. 60).

P: When 30 high officers and 16 major oil firms were convicted in Madison, Wis. last January of violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Federal Judge Patrick Thomas Stone withheld sentence pending motions for a new trial. Last week, he listened to an argument that the jury's verdict should be set aside because the jurors deliberated the complex case only seven hours, which was not enough time to give each defendant the individual consideration specifically ordered by Judge Stone. Meanwhile, in Washington, a Senate committee, studying a bill to require separation of marketing petroleum from producing, refining and transporting it. heard monopoly-hating Senator Borah claim that "four or five big oil companies" control the price of gas and oil and have done so "for four or five years."

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