OPA Caught in Food Muddle as Packers, Canners Run Rationing
MUNRO, DAVID A.
OPA Caught in Food Muddle as Packers, Canners Run Rationing 'Black Market' Crisis Laid To Sqeeze on Independents By DAVID A. MUNRO ONLY the worried inner circle of Administration strategists...
...Isnt a program like that worth fighting for...
...His agency handles the H. J. Heinx Co...
...Bc/roWln...
...And theological changes, as church history eloquently shows, are always easier to make than organizational revolutions...
...TPO begin* with, let us note that those who believe that * the future of human society is determined by laws already known set great store on our knowledge of these laws...
...Gold that does not exist is an important factor when we are in a turmoil of chasing for it...
...But it was a bits-and-pieces program, with some dasses uiider the jurisdiction of the elementary schools, others belonging to the trade schools and evening high schools...
...when these palliatives have smoothed down the crisis...
...Second, the law does not assert that every Protestant will vote against *tbe candidate or that every non-Protestant will vote for him, or that any particular person will vote in this way rather than in that...
...Having won the right to consider social and historical laws as relatively autonomous, it remains to ask to what extent they are conditions of human action and to what extent they are modifiable by human acion...
...In fact, they are usually so formulated that it is hard to know what would constitute evidence for them...
...The point of it all is, as Mr...
...x 2. /CONSIDER another rather different situation...
...Fourth, its validity is restricted to a certain historical domain...
...It is easy to see the complications that might ensue if an alien, a citizen of a foreign country with personal and social ties abroad, were to occupy the Holy See and exercise the very real power that a Pope can employ in the internal affairs of Italy...
...Groups begged for tbe continuance of dasses...
...OUT if the city was lying down on the job, while" it fiddled with the Starr appointment, what about the State...
...In the last few centuries we know that Popes have been Italian primarily because of the pressure of the Italian hierarchy...
...The first startling fact to be recognized is that the number of tax-supported classes for men and women who need to learn the language, understand the American way of life, prepare for naturalization and repair a lack of elementary schooling in childhood has declined almost to the low level existing at the end of the first World War...
...As this is written they are taking desperate measure* to feed the citizenry in big cities of the East...
...By this we mean that the chances of electing a non-Italian Catholic man as Pope would be much better than the chances of electing a Catholic woman, and as small as the chances of doing the latter, they would be better than the chances of electing a Protestant er Jew...
...Why ? Because the knowledge of these laws gives us power to direct the future...
...The Becond law is less binding than the first because if it ceased holding it would not require basic organizational changes but primarily changes in theological doe-trine...
...The mediant sge of those registered under the alien registration act was 47, therefor* at least half of them are potentially valuable workers in a country already scraping the bottom of it* manpower barrel...
...It will again prevent, by an excess of red tape, a high per cent of home-canning...
...The regulations have ¦ token the incentive for such commodities -to move into the markets where they were desperately needed, and they also erased the legality of such traffic...
...Let us consider a few typical situations...
...Think of the social consequences of turning away people in such need, because the dty is busy with other things and its educational authorities cannot see from one line of a budget to another...
...Grade labeling was made necessary' D>" rationing and price ceilings...
...Lou R Maxon, whoa* role Mr...
...By 1927, the registration had almost trebled, rising to 47,760...
...Will that be wiped out, making reconsideration of the Starr appointment more difficult than ever ? Strong liberal and trade union support of adult education is indicated as a necessity, not only for the sake of New York City, but for the sake of those upstate cities which take their cue from the metropolis, and the rest of the country, which always feels the impact of New York action...
...They were: (a) the money was needed for other things, such aa supplies...
...Neither "Of these views can be sustained by evidence...
...None of these laws is certain, but the first is more binding oft our prediction than the second, the second more than the third...
...These physical conditions and events have great significance in history and social affairs, but not as physical elements...
...These classes had been held in a variety of social agencies, like Y's and settlement houses...
...But universal grade labeling, soon to be required under an OPA order recently put on the books, is anathema to big canners such as Del Monte and Heinz...
...What is going to happen to the Board of Education's modest request of evening school funds for English and citizenship classes ($14,000 less than was asked last year) ? What about the budget item for a director of adult education...
...We would be assuming that our dedsion and the actions following from it made no appreciable difference to the outcome, that the future is determined by the past and not by the past together with the intervening present...
...Looking back on the old or Henderson OPA, there is no doubt about its economic crisis as the giant monopoly interests which bad a backdoor access to OPA through the standard arrangements provided for such emergencies by the Democratic National Committee, upset real planning...
...This month, it is' down to 18,000...
...This law states that "no CathoKc or Jew can be successful in a race for he highest political office in the United States...
...When President Buck of the Board of Education explained naively that the 4-2 rejection of Starr was largely because he was a "protagonist of labor," he really did a backhanded unconscious public service...
...The first attack of the Maxon contingent has been upon the grade labeling order of OPA...
...By 1939, it had dropped to 30,000...
...A few dasaas were subsidized one way or another, and continued...
...In the situation considered, of course, the assumptions would be obviously mistaken...
...The long-term trend in education is toward more intensive use of school equipment, keeping buildings open not only up to 3 o'clock of a weekday afternoon...
...It asserts not the impossibility but the unlikelihood of such an election...
...like the old OPA, will continue to keep sugar on rationing...
...Naturally, neither Prentiss Brown, the politician, nor Lou Maxon, the advertising man...
...The third law, however, has a different status insofar as the possibility of modifying it is concerned...
...It should aim to improve living habits, in housing, homemaking and health, particularly in health, since surveys indicate fully a quarter of a million persons are ill in bed in the metropolis every day...
...Widespread attitudes and beliefs of this kind have their > causes in' the objective conditions of the times...
...Similarly the new OPA...
...account...
...The nature of the tragic impasse was neat dearly manifest in the ootrfusToa that ruled in post-Henderson OPA...
...But the truth is that the big packers have been " responsible" for the Black Markets...
...His nomination may be pressed on the ground of another "law" that the American people are always grateful to successful military heroes and that they show their gratitude by electing them to office...
...The city used to give day dasses for those who could not go in the evening...
...It u his job to keep relations between OPA and the Congress sweet, as well as, with the help of ex-Senator Clyde L. Herring, to hammer the multifarious local organisations of OPA into a functioning, vote-getting machine...
...This month the Board of Estimate will hold hearings on the tentative 1943-44 educational budget...
...Distinctive of historical laws is that the classes of events which they relate, designate the behavior patterns of human beings as members of organized social groups...
...All sorts of hidden pressure rose to block the Starr appointment: perhaps some of them will be laid bare by the probe of Commissioner of Investigations Her-lands which Mayor LaGuardia has now authorized...
...If yea think this is overdrawn, look at a few cold figures...
...Further, without hostile pressure or opposition those who control a successful organization that serves their Interests effectively never liquidate it, or even profoundly modify the doctrines that have been useful to it...
...Roughly speaking, a law in history is a determinate relation between classes of-events which we discover can be relied on.in solving a problem, overcoming an obstacle, or predicting the future...
...In other affairs what we do or leave undone may have more determining significance than any other known factor...
...Such laws are relevant in history only when they are taken together with physical and cultural conditions...
...In other words, the net effect of the OPA regulations was to force a certain per cent of *he , meat business to go bootleg and thus suffer pnblk odium...
...b) Those who disliked his advocacy of planned parenthood and (c) Those who resented his work with the American Federation of Teachers in extracting some of that union's locals from Communist control...
...The attitude that man's future is already determined, that the shape of things to come is now settled and cannot be escaped, makes for a slighting of the concrete problems of choice that face us at every turn...
...But so far as the calculable future goes, both of these laws are binding upon our prediction...
...We rely on other laws when we do so, but it is ice who give them an opportunity to come into operation by the changes in the physical, psychological, and social scene produced by our activities...
...That is why the presence of coal and iron and oil in America explains nothing about- the history and social life of the American Indians, and so much about the history and social life of the American settlers...
...Whichever "law" is invoked, if our decision were based on it alone, we would be assuming that the future of the election is determined by fixed patterns of behavior that have operated in the past...
...And we know that human choices or decisions are "influence-able" in certain ways, that they ,may be changed and modified by changing the conditions under which they have developed...
...c) the money could be transferred from one line to another bat not to a "nonexistent item," since there was no current provision for day classes in these subjects...
...Half of these had never been to school at all...
...Let desires, skills, purposes, beliefs be what they will, what happens is the product of the interracting intervention of physical conditions like soil, sea, mountains, climate, tools, and machines, in all their vast variety, with the human factor...
...Note that it does not rule out the election of a Catholic or Jew as something literally impossible...
...Unless more support materializes, the situation may-get worse in the immediate future...
...This Wiethe background, exclusive of the farm situation, whea President Roosevelt suddenly appointed Davis as food czar last week...
...They will undoubtedly no longer be able to enjoy such overpricing or such wide advertising if they are forced to adopt Government grade labels, which would manifestly put a can of Heinz Grade B pork and beans on a par with a Grade B can of pork and beans by any other name...
...PRENTISS BROWN is a politician and an ex-senator...
...Even if the outcome of activity in this direction were doubtful, the chances of success would not be overwhelmingly unfavorable...
...It should offer cultural opportunities for the more ambitious adults...
...THHE subject matter of historical laws, since it concerns * the relations of groups of socially organized human beings to each other, involves reference to human behavior that can be often described by psychological laws...
...Maxon, like Prentiss Brown, is from Michigan*- He is founds sjbIu chairman of the board of Maxon, Inc., one of the largest Detroit advertising agencies...
...Just a few words on what a genuinely modern program of adult education .might include...
...The Crisis of Oar Arc...
...On the industry- side, Maxon, Gerber et al have been backed up by an institution known as the Food Industry War Council, headed by Clarence Francis, president of General Foods...
...The reins of the practical business activity of OPA have been m the hands of Lou Maxon—who for obvious reasons has preferred to remain in the background ao far aa the public was concerned...
...They are slashed secretly and in the dark with little knives until they fall bleeding and senseless to the ground...
...The Big Business interests in food wanted an OPA as "reliable" and "trustworthy" as Harold Ickes had proved for the Major Oil companies...
...Twenty-two states in the union provided State aid to localities for adult education...
...CERTAINLY the Board of Superintendents dallied * far months with the appointment after the Board of Examiners certified Starr, and then the Board of Education dallied for more months after the Board of Superintendents passed the appointment along...
...But these psychological laws alone can never explain historical or social events...
...The Board of Superintendents trifled with the idea of keeping going a minimum of 100 such classes until June, then changed its mind *fMM^Tmaem were advanced, one after the other, * for the change of heart...
...This remains true even when we seek to explain historical activity by reference to conditions and to events that are themselves controlled by physical laws, like the presence or absence of precious metal* or oil in the soil, or the occurence of drought, floods, and earthquakes...
...The more we know about the conditions under which the attitudes of people have been set, the more intelligently we can go about the task of changing them...
...Naturally, Maxon and friends have attacked grade labeling—without considering how serious the lack of it would be to the whole OPA program...
...but all day, seven days a week, not only for children, but for the whole community...
...For historical and social events are determind by the way human beings interact with the physical elements of their environment...
...Sup-^ pose we were trying to foretell who the next Pope of the Catholic Church will be...
...b) the money could not be transferred from on* line in tbe budget to another line...
...This "underground" traffic came into being because the OPA (read big packers) issued orders which made it no longer possible for independent* to do business legally...
...What,' after all, shall we understand by historical laws whose iron sway is supposed to determine our future...
...Such a b*n would force the consumed to buy the coffee roasted in his region, the beans packed in his region, etc...
...They are by no means all elderly...
...is interested in restoring any of the key commodities to a freer flow of commerce...
...Law, Freedom, and Human Action By SIDNEY HOOK [This is the second of * aerie* of articles by Sidney Hoek, the first ef which appeared March 20...
...There continued to be and is to this day a plethora of meat in the dairy regions, where cattle are "barn-slaughtered," as well as in the meat-producing regions of tbe Southwest...
...Those who scoffed at economic determinism during the heyday of capitalism are now become converts to its chief dogma, namely, that the character of a given, economic system can determine one, and only one, political and cultural phttern.- Although they were able to conceive of capitalism in many political variants, socialism to them seems simply to be what Hiler and Stalin have made of it...
...c) "Whoever the Pope was, he would be an Italian Cardinal...
...Companies which go in for vast advertising, and therefore exercise a "brand monopoly" which enables ^tbern to force their full line of products upon retail outlets, generally have products considerably over-priced...
...Such a ban has already been partly enforced upon the brewing industry...
...It makes a difference, they insist, whether we know them or ignore them...
...No longer could the doctrine be accepted thai women are a negative element to Holy Orders...
...Starr himself has attributed opposition to three chief sources (a) Those who considered anybody connected with * labor organization to be suspect...
...Maxon...
...What's Happened to Adult Education...
...of Fro-mont, Mich., makers of Gerber's Baby Food...
...Mure has been insisting in these pages in report after report on the V. S. War Economy, the interests of the American people are badly served in Home Front Affairs by administrators whose first allegiance, by life-time training, is to Big Business Monopolies...
...In the past there have been non-Italian Popes...
...But this admission means that a considerable area of social history, the area affected by man's knowledge or ignorance, is not determined by the original set of laws but by other laws that come into operation as a consequence of what we know, value, and do...
...The subject matter, then, of historical laws always involves reference to the associated, interacting behavior of human beings as members of a society or culture...
...The beneficiaries have been the giant packers and their friends in politics...
...The "Grade-Labeling" dispute came to a crisis, sad our Washington correspondent outlines that in his front-page dispatch...
...Together these man have been attempting to change the whole policy of OPA so that this agency will serve the wishes of the dominant combines in the food business...
...It should certainly provide the tools of information and understanding needed for active participation in democratic life...
...We present them as purely illustrative of the position to be developed...
...fJERE we have a "law" which every realistic practi-tioner of politics must take into account...
...Nonetheless it would be foolish for those responsible for the nomination to accept the law as binding, or even as a decisive guide to action in all cases...
...The bootleg traffic was the result: though the personnel—the slaughterers, the truckers, the retailers—are the same men who operated the so-called legal traffic...
...But this business does not take care of public demands...
...Naturally, Heinz...
...For the first law to be violated or, to cease operating would practically require the entire transformation of the nature of the Church organization and the abandonment of basic theological doctrines...
...About, two and a half years ago, some of the more liberal educators in town urged a purposeful, unified program of adult education which would go far beyond Engiigh-and-citizenship...
...As long as we grant, then, that knowledge makes a difference, we cannot really believe that the future is fixed to a degree where there are no alternatives...
...We have not abolished the law, but as a result of our action in changing the conditions we have rendered in nugatory.' The extent to which our intervention in the present will affect the future outcome, when this is projected as a simple induction from the past, is a matter of degree...
...Because of its foreign-born population, greater than (bat of any other city in the world, New York for more than a century acknowledged a faint responsibility for free schooling of grownups in certain fields...
...OPA Caught in Food Muddle as Packers, Canners Run Rationing 'Black Market' Crisis Laid To Sqeeze on Independents By DAVID A. MUNRO ONLY the worried inner circle of Administration strategists knew of the breakdown last week on all sides of Government agencies affecting food, which precipitated the appointment of Chester C Davis as America's food czar...
...Under him is a third Miehigander, Daniel F. Gerber, vise* president and advertising manager of Gerber Products Co...
...Third, it tells us something about patterns of distribution in a series of human choices or decisions...
...They range all the way from the view that men are creatures of environment and circumstance to the view that everything is possible to them...
...Obviously these controls become meaningless if there is no legal definition of what constitutes "a can" of peaches, or "a yard" of cotton sheeting, or "a pound" of butter...
...It is extremely improbable that anything that could now be done would lead to their abrogation...
...We nught discover, if our efforts are wdl organized and if our political campaign is tied into • genuine educational crusade for democracy, that the law "no Catholic or Jew can be President of the United States" holds no more than the "law" which previously had been regarded as just as valid, viz., "no President can be elected to more than two terms of office...
...They got Prentiss M. Brown—and his alter ego Lou P...
...It is objected that, although there are no constitutional bars to his elec-ion, the history of the country reveals a law of American political behavior that "dooms" him to defeat, despite the fact that in every other aspect he is an ideal candidate...
...Then on Feb...
...These articles on Power, Politics and History are selections ' from Mr...
...We would have to take note of at least the following "laws": (a) "No Protestant or Jew could be Pope...
...It states that a sufficient number of Protestants will vote against the candidate solely on the grounds of his religiou's faith to insure his defeat...
...Under the circumstances, we may believe that the second law will be fulfilled rather than the first...
...But the economics of the market place would undoubtedly prevent cross-hauling without added compulsion if grade-labeling were allowed to stand...
...This would be tantamount to virtual dissolution of, the Church...
...It reminds publishers who it is that pays their bilk...
...Behind the Case of Mark Starr By OLIVER PILAT IMPORTANT social programs do not succumb usually * to a single dramatic dagger stroke of reaction...
...But we wish to discuss not the causes of these ideas about history but their validity...
...The candidate may be a national military hero...
...These facts are spotlighted in a statement issued by New York meat wholesalers charging that the meat packer—and in the New "i ork case the Wilson A Co.—were squeezing out independents...
...Bat public interest shoald net be allowed to concentrate exclusively on the Starr investigation...
...Sea also Cultural and Social Dynamic*, vol...
...This covers, however, physical and biological...
...New York did not, despite the fact that it contained more than 1,000,000 persons 26 years of age or over who had not gone beyond the fourth grade...
...The Processes of Government, p. 182...
...More than 800,000 ef the 5,000,000 aliens in the DA still live hi New York City...
...Nonetheless, if Catholic sentiment were organized against existing Italian Fascism, and if the defeat of Italian* Fascism were followed by a progressive and democratic regime, the next Pope might well be non-Italian...
...Scandal AS David Monro's article oa the scandalous loopholes ia the Washington Rationing Administration was being set np in type this week, all hell broke loose...
...Before we can have knowledge of history and society we must have some prior knowledge of nature...
...What assumptions are involved, and are they brae...
...It should be broadened to include: 1. What has been happening generally to- New York City's program of adult education...
...b) "No Catholic woman could be Pope...
...Think of the new problems faced by the foreign born because of war regulations, such as rationing...
...Gold in the ground is a cipher for a study of society so long as we are doing nothing and not tending to do anything in connection with it...
...p. 130, New York, 1*41...
...Hook'* forthcoming book published by John Day, The Hero in History.] THE understanding df history, like other forms of human evaluation, has its fashions...
...Out of intelligent self-interest the Catholic hierarchies in countries other than Italy, encouraged by their own governments, might bring influences to bear on the College of Cardinals...
...In 1939, the WPA entered this field, giving the city a pretext to jettison its own day classes in Englisb and citizenship...
...Generally that meant courses in grade-school English and citizenship, occasionally experimentation with a recreational course like photography...
...The variable historical and social behavior of men, who are subject to the same psychological laws, indicates that the latter cannot explain the former...
...The first and most active side of their program is to rescind the grade-labeling order...
...Naturally the business interests, representect\by Maxon and Gerber, are hardly as concerned with public or consumer interests as were the Henderson crowd...
...What is the character of such a "law...
...The wave of the future is described as * kind of predetermined fatality that not only will transform our economy but will destroy the last refuges of democratic culture.* The drift toward totali-\ tarian political controls is accepted or bemoaned as a natural consequence of the development of our economy aad aa an inescapable consequence of total war...
...The pressures against which it had to contend in the past are diminishing in intensity, while its own influence on public affairs is growing...
...They proposed only to change those rega lations and policies which interfered with their profit...
...No ma* can serve two masters...
...That is hard to believe ? Well, the register in evening elementary schools for this sort of training was 16,000 in the spring of 1919...
...1. Suppose a political organization has before it a proposal to nominate a man of Catholic or Jewish faith for the office of President of the United States...
...Business interests were delighted that the "lonir-hairetr contingent was thrown oaf along wfth Falstaffian Leon Heater son They talked ef the introdactMa ml "Woe seas*" Into the OPA operation...
...Bat in truth they did not propose to correct the errors ef OPA...
...4, p. 768...
...At the present time this organization is growing in power...
...The victims of these policies have been consumers, small retailers, wholesalers and small packers...
...It would be false to apply it to the selection of presidents or prime ministers in countries like England, where the majority of the population is also of the Protestant faith...
...Monro exposes here, is now the center of a fight in OPA...
...In fact, as has been widely suggested, there is reason to believe that the whole legal basis of rationing and price ceilings may be successfully challenged if it is not buttressed by "standards of identity" to define what the official orders are talking about...
...Their next worry is that the Office of Defense Transportation will order a so-called "cross-hauling" ban...
...Chester Davis will naturally have to change the Brown- , Maxon polides of politico-economic appeasement...
...Del Monte, Gerber and perhaps even the giant chain stores can see eye to eye on this...
...That is why the Board of Education's recent rejection of Mark Starr as director of adult education in New York City is only part of an involved story of significance to the entire country...
...And the House is Mating up a committee to investigate the whole mess...
...The law that "Catholics and Jews cannot be elected to the highest national office" may cease to be true as a result of changes introduced by our efforts to elect one...
...Another midwestora canner in OPA is Harold O. Sorensen, secretary of the Country Gardens Canning Co., of Gillette, Wisconsin...
...The reasons are obvious...
...This is only a partial picture...
...The school staff adopted a statement of qualifications for a director in the field, ' at $7,500 a year, got a list of candidates, then revised qualifications and out of 100 candidates selected Mark Starr...
...People generally agreed with David Dubinsky that such an attitude, suggesting that a bona fide labor official must inevitably be treated as a second-class citizen, ought to be studied farther...
...i 2. What should be the aims of a genuine, modern program in that field...
...Today the first of these general attitudes is very moofc> fa evidence among the opinion makers of the western world...
...There is so much sugar that it* excess may precipitate a political crisis in Cuba, but rationing will come is handy when the canning season comes around...
...N the meat side, there is little indication that Maxon aad v friends will change the foolish and unrealiatic rules which ¦*** mismanaged this industry...
...Where the dasses ended,"students wept at the news...
...1 of this year the WPA classes folded up...
...Burnley...
...If it happens that the country is involved in a war for the survival of its democratic faith, we may go to the country with the demand for an expression of its sincerity in respect to its professed principles...
...A similar, mystical view of social fatality ia presented in the mors Influential works of Spender and Toynbee...
...It is only in relation to some activity or interest of men that they assume significance...
...It is presented as an induction from experience and fortified by social and psychological generalizations about other aspects of the behavior of American citizens, for instance, their religious traditions and social prejudices...
...Liberals and trade unionists know who Mark Starr is: a former British mine worker who carved out an education for himself as a grown man and rose to direct the far-reaching educational program of one of America's great trade unions, the International Ladies Garment 'Workers Union...
...As members of social groups, the behavior of individuals is marked by ideals, habits, traditions, and other wayg of •"Like at-log on the brisk of Niagara Fulls we are Impelled by, unforeseen and irresistible socio-cultural currents, helplessly drifting from one crisis and catastrophe to another...
...OPA may be expected to put the old restrictions right back where they were...
...Together with the moral pressure of anti-Fascist Italian Catholics on the Italian Cardinals, this might result in the election of a non-Italian Pope...
...In some affairs the future may be accurately predicted with little concern over what we can do about it...
...Nonetheless, they have important bearings on the way in which specific problems are Approached...
...It is folly » expect votes or cheers from citizens who don't eat so good...
...To be concluded...
...Naturally this new commercial slant for OUA is being supported by a flood of advertising—all quite pretty and even poetic ads of an "institutional" character—which serve* to keep the prom favorable...
...The big meat packers, in cooperation with OPA, have* begun an advertising campaign against "Black Markets...
...It should broaden activities for enjoyment of leisure and personal expression, in hobbies, arts and other non-vocational skills...
...That's the long-term trend, and the next item on the Rapp-Coudett committee investigation calendar will be development of adult education in this State, but there is no reason why everything should be allowed to collapse meanwhile...
...Laws, too...
...Before we can say that it was Brutus who slew Caesar, we must understand something about the biology of death and the physics of the instruments of death...
...On the other hand, the attitude that man can storm the heavens at any historic occasion, that ail he needs is a good will or a strong one, leads to a disregard-of the limiting conditions of intelligent action...
...J°hn Dewey, Loglci Theory of Inquiry, p. 192, xew jTork, i9o9, . acting associated with the anthropological term "culture...
...Some students showed their appreciation by chipping in to pay for teachers...
Vol. 26 • April 1943 • No. 14
