No Control

The House Banking & Currency Committee finally reported out a "price control" bill. The committee had been three months in labor, but its offspring was a monstrosity. No controls were placed on rising wages, one of the main sources of inflation. The committee voted against putting a ceiling on the prices of farm commodities.

The committee's mice-like labors had brought forth a mountain of confusion. The chairman, bulb-nosed, tobacco-chawin', houn'-dog-lovin' Henry Bascom Steagall of Ozark, Ala. had shown no disposition to hurry price-control legislation until the cotton-marketing season was over. The farm bloc, in complete control of the committee, had searched long and skillfully for a formula which would substantially inflate all farm prices, had finally found it: a ceiling on farm prices may not be set below the highest of these three levels: 1) 110% of parity; 2) the average price from 1919 to 1929; 3) the prevailing price of Oct. 1, 1941.

In short farm prices could not be checked until they were out of sight.

In a seven-hour session, distracted by members rushing in & out to telephone for train reservations, to phone long-distance for the latest football scores, to rush into the chairman's inner office for a quick nip at a mysterious jug inside, the committee also struck out the guts of the enforcement system proposed.

Summed up Oklahoma's Mike Monroney: "This bill gives Price Boss Leon Henderson the right to regulate everything except inflation."

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