Going, Going ...

Price control by OPA was never deader than in the bill which finally reached the Senate floor this week.

A Banking & Currency Committee majority had done the job. Its bill abolished all ceilings on meat, livestock, dairy and poultry products, boosted the lid on clothing, household appliances, automobiles and farm machinery, and eased controls over restaurant meals and hotel rents.

It called for a three-man Price Decontrol Board with the power to override OPA and cancel price regulations on any commodity. As a kicker, the Secretary of Agriculture could increase the price of farm products without consulting OPA. Under these terms, a clause extending OPA until June 30, 1947, was an invitation to its own wake.

Committee Chairman Wagner of New York along with three other Democratic dissenters rushed into print a vigorous minority report:

"The bill . . . writes the death sentence for effective price, wage and rent stabilization. . . . The law of supply & demand will blow the price bubble up further and further until at length it will burst."

Economic Stabilizer Bowles called the bill "an outright fraud . . . a monstrous thing" and promised to ask for a presidential veto if the bill passed in its present state. C.I.O. President Philip Murray sounded an ominous warning of new outbreaks of labor unrest.

Amid the sound & fury, OPA approved a 1-c- hike in the price of a loaf of bread, already cut 10% in weight to save grain. The increase, on the heels of OPA boosts in the price of butter and milk, looked like a lively hint of things to come.

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