Food Lobby Suppresses OPA Profits Study
Food Lobby Suppresses OPA Profits Study Bowles Yields to Packers' Pressure In Move to Halt Congress Probe By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, IX C —Bowing to the pressure and threats of the...
...According to the resort of the economists of the Mew York Times, it would mean a redaction of only one-half ef one per cent annually in the cost of food...
...They point out that victories in the Mediterranean area have had profound repercussions in Spain...
...The latest to join the exodus is John Edelman, CIO representative in the OPA Labor Division...
...In many areas they are run by competent CIO union chiefs such as Ted Silvey in Ohio, Franz Daniel in Pennsylvania, Gus Scholle in Michigan...
...The Sunday Worker, official party organ, said so in black and white, in a simple vignette...
...They would view a deal with Franco or Don Juan, or any of tat figures in Franco's government, not aa military expediency but as betrayal, just as they considered the "non-intervention'' policy of the democracies during the Civil War as anetrayal...
...The War Labor Board has turned down the contracts between the UMW and the Illinois coal operators...
...With food taking somewhere around half of the worker"'s wages every week, these figures lay the most serious indictment of war profiteering at the door of the chiseling food middlemen who beat down the farmers at one end and rob the consumer workers at the other end...
...the stupid WLB policy plays into their hands...
...14 or 15...
...Will the restoration of the monarchy under Don Juan, son of Alphonso XIII, and concessions to his domestic conservative critics in the Army and Church, be part of such a maneuver...
...Thus Passeth the Glory of the Soap-Box" SOME time on Sunday of last week one of the' greatest political ' and social myths of our time quietly expired...
...n on the part of those who produce items ef nood...
...Communist Partisans) and the E.D.EJ3...
...While the facts and figures on that industry's wsr profiteering therefore are unavailable to the public...
...Sulzberger's story is understood here as conveying unofficial confirmation of the "deal" between Britain and Russia...
...And be bangs his hand into his palm and screams of the injustices of society and the tremendous profits being roiled np by the corporations . . . and he tells of the many 'straggles' he participated in—and how the lot of the workingman today is pitiful and the need for more militant action by the workers and he coerces the growing crowd into 'organizing and making year voices heard' . . . and he winds np preaching in favor of strikes, elan* warfare and disunity . . . and if yon stay around long snanffb yon eaten the weazly Trotzkyite pull his act for a second time with the same come ana and 'baiters' . . . and yon realise how cleverly the...
...We read Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto of 1848, and foolishly believe that it has some relation to the contemporary...
...14 which stated: "Corroboration of the recent series in The New Leader pointing to the war profiteering of the middlemen in the food industry as justification of labor's demands for increased wages was forthcoming this week from the Office of Price Administration when your correspondent was able to obtain a copy of Volume Six of the OPA series of "War Profits Studies" shewing that the food profiteers have increased their profits as high as 500 per cent or more between 193* and 1942...
...ineii Fears Government Auditing One of the big motives which ly behind the t«rrent Big Business fight against government food subsidies to keep prices from rising is ftet the payment of subsidies will require the government going into their books ami auditing *heir accounts...
...which picked up The New Leader story and amplified on it The direction to be taken by the Congressional investigation was made vain by Rep...
...Harry Sauthoff (R- Wise...
...Following that The New Leader broke the story on the food wholesaler* war profits on August 14, and the following week, August 21, revealed that, spurred by the story, "labor unions and farm organisations this week were mustering their forces to get behind a Congressional investigation of the criminal profiteering responsible for runaway food prices...
...And there is a very gam* deal of question as to whether the goverairtent will >ay subsidies to businesses which show such tremendous war profits as have been revealed the OPA's War Profit Studies...
...Five * hundred million dollars divided among 132,000,000 consumers leaves s reduction of about $3.78 for each consumer annually, et, hi other words, a trifle over one cent a day...
...Franco and Hitler could not block Angio-American occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, should our General Staff decide on that strategy...
...The result is that the 16 railway unions are now taking a strike vote among 1.350,000 workers...
...in Cairo is a British censorship...
...Sauthoff by the terms of his' resolution and by his argument that subsidies on the scale presently planned would effect oal| a "trivial'' reduction in the cost of living and...
...And that last week this column was the first to reveal that Britain and Russia, without consent of the U. S., had struck a deal •ver the Balkans, ceding hegemony over that region to the Soviets and agreeing to military support of the Communist Partisans operating there...
...He made it necessary to keep Angle-American forces in Morocco...
...It has been a long, long time since a Communist waited for "Lefty...
...The chair- JA^^ r(f|| man of that ^^^^^^w^^^^^RS^^^ Fulmer(D.,S.C...
...Oct...
...Fascist Spain is more and more dependent upon the powers he has insulted as "pluto-democracies...
...OPA has not questioned the honesty or accuracy of industry's ^res...
...the information in them for seme months before...
...The railroad case highlights the whole frail government policy of freezing wages as a means of curbing "inflation" Wage freezing affects the great majority of worker*, whereas -« sensible economic policy - would approach the question of...
...The recent wildcat stoppages in the South arise out of this condition...
...Only a loud outcry from the American people can save the War Profits Studies...
...The specific award of "eight cents" or "four cents" has been hanging fire for more than four months, but it is nearly thirteen months already since the wage demands were first raised, and the government delays have created wide resentment among railroad workers...
...They range in political loyalties from liberal and conservative Catholics to socialists and anarchists...
...The significant succession of events catne in the following order...
...Many hate and fear the Falange...
...They voted the Popular Front into power in February 1936...
...For the portrait of the Communist as a Revolutionary is one of , the deepseated images of modern politics...
...Sales were np 43',}, but profits before income taxes rose over 200V...
...f "We have got to get along with industry," was the explanation Bowles is said to have...
...Appeasement gained tor the western democracies certain key positions m Spain's economy...
...A minor issue at the CIO convention will be a jurisdictional fight between Harry Bridges Longshoremen and Warehouse workers and Samuel Wolchak's Retail, Wholesale and Warehouse workers for control of workers in New Orleans...
...However, there may develop quite anrt&er story if government auditors ever start *°ing into industry's books...
...A Communist reporter happened to wander past Union Square Park, and what.he saw horrified him—there were agitators there, arousing the proletariat...
...Wage Policy By MURRAY EVERETT WASHINGTON, D. C—The current railroad wage impasse, an impending coal crisis and the forthcoming CIO convention were the highlights of the labor week...
...The role of the Communist Partisan guerrillas ia the Balkans—their real purpose ef ousting the legitimate governments of the countries there and of claiming them for the Soviet Union —is indicated plainly enough by Sufacbergers' story, which states:, ' "The collapse of the Italians and the hope that Germany will soon be forced to withdraw have produced a state of internal tension and competition for predominance in Greek affairs...
...Franco has withdrawn his "Blue Division" from Russia...
...Oct 11—The printe7l'eliverea to OPA VoL 8 of the War Profits StudV on Canners...
...Spain's fate can be decided by the Anglo-American-Russian Mediterranean Commission...
...Two days later, en Oct 18, C. L. Sulzberger, New York Timvi correspondent in Cairo, Egypt revealed that "internecine 'fighting between rival Greek guerrilla organizations, on such an extensive scale that) it suggests small-sized civil war, has broken out in Greece during the past few days, according to reports that unfortunately must be considered as reliable...
...Democratic opposition forces among the people have been encouraged to expect assistance in their underground struggle, toward liberation...
...With defeat of his onry remaining "friend" a certainty, Franco must seek A solution of his dilemma...
...The railroad wage case, involving 350,000 transportation workers, has been kicked around governmental stabilization agencies since July...
...Franco faces Crisis as Spanish People Unite Against Falange By LISTON M. OAK With the conquest of North Africa, Corsica, Sardinia, and the occupation of Southern Italy, the military and political position held by Generalissimo Franco becomes untenable...
...that exiled liberal and labor leaders would not return to take part in the reconstruction of Spanish democracy...
...For some time there have been local armed dashes between various bands, and now what <an be described only as an extremely serious situation has broken out between the two largest groups—the E.L.A.S...
...The Civil War cost 1,200,00 lives and left the country devastated, industry and agriculture crippled...
...He has fought an Wremely able fight for tabor in OPA...
...Already Portugal has given the Azores to Britain as an airplane base...
...Capital Comment By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C — Readers of this column will remember that it was first revealed hue—on Sept 25—that Secretary Hull would go to Moscow to head the U. S. delegation to the Three-Power Parley (a clean scoop of a ¦•nth...
...nd- handlers resulting therefrom with a view to determining whether additional legisiatioa is mmmmn for the control of such prices and profit*.' In this case the lobbyists' panic was increased by the fact that the resolution directed the investigation to culture Commit- 1 ^^^^ Jamnmn-^X tee...
...He gave information to Germany regarding fleet and troop movements in the Mediterranean...
...the study on Canners War Profits either inside or outside of OPA, and permitting copies ft the study to be seen only by his four top assistants...
...The coal operators are fighting bitterly against any wage increase...
...People will think of "Union Square" and make automatic associations with "Communism,'' a "proletarian agitator" haranguing his "fellow workers," a bitter cry for "social . justice" from the "oppressed downtrodden...
...that political consequences are bound to follow...
...During the week leaders of the former Republican Government of Spain, now exiled, sensing impending changes, have intensified their criticism of our "policy of appeasement and expediency" toward Franco...
...Sauthoff in his speech...
...12—Rep...
...Besides the common people of Spain, there are several other opposition groups which Franco has not been able to silence...
...According to figures secured from the Burees of Economics, this $500,000.00 for subsidies would mean a reduction of one per cent annually in the cost of food...
...0*4 Squeezes Oaf User Members ¦ There is a big squeeze play on in OPA to get rid of labor representatives in the organization...
...That *ay not turn out to be such bad news as it sounds, for on November 1, Edelman becomes legislative representative of the Textile Workers Union...
...that a much greater "reduction can be wmuSmi by reducing the wholesalers' profits HcKmC** the packers " Lobby into a panto...
...CIO Committees have been set up in nearly every major urban center of the country...
...Oh, the legend will linger...
...This is due to complex factors...
...The volumes have been available since November...
...Indeed, Sulzberger adds in his atary in the New York Tim—: Jk% inclined to suspect that this situation has been eaeouraged and abetted by the Germans in much the Kme manner that they have constantly provoked differences between the Yugoslav Partisans and the forces of General Draja MikhaiJovitch...
...Never has the Falange gained aa much mass support as did the Nazis and Fattiama...
...The current development appears to stem from the page on lead story in The New Leader of Aug...
...Front the feed auddlesserrs industry came threats of refusal to cooperate with OPA, or to supply OPA with any more financial reports on which the OPA War Profits Studies are based...
...As a compromise measure, the railway unions had agreed to a sliding scale wage increase, but Vinson stood adamant even against this...
...Jfkat'tfset was heightened b> the stated oh|ectlva» nfthe laathsf Reflation which authorises the House Agriculture Committee to "make a fall and complete investigation of (1) the prices at which agricultural food products are parchased and sold by processors, wholesaler*, and other handler* of ¦snmawatai lead products, and (2) tke profit* of such processors, wholesaler...
...But the OPA **»«« these studies on figures supplied them by toe industries involved...
...M is suggested that 1600,000.000 ha used for the purpose of keeping down the coat of living...
...In some other areas, however, the CIO Political Aetion committees have come under the sway of Communists...
...The pressure, it was learned, included threats to cripple any further OPA operations with "restrictive legislstion and to cut off further OPA appropriations...
...The resalt » - that the harden of tnftportlng the war economy falls unfairly on the wage earners while profits have risen steadily...
...Four out of every seven food wholesalers reported profits over 200^ higher than in 1939...
...In that paragraph the OPA tells the reel story of what has happened to wages and the cost of living...
...The OPA War Profits Study fills four books...
...1 will be Sidney Hillman's reporting on his tour of the country and the organization of CIO Political Action Committees...
...The New Leader, in fact, waa the first to reveal the existence of these studies...
...Any deal made with Franco or with Don Juan, or some Spanish Badoglio, would necessitate sending troops first to clean out the Nazi Fifth Column, aed-then, perhaps, to suppress a Spanish revolution...
...13—Bowles' office ordered the Canners Study sequestered until,-furlher notice while top OPA officials conferred and considered what course of action to take...
...Some of the republican tenders complain that their efforts to aid the democratic forces within Spain are blocked by the Bute Department and the British Foreign Ministry...
...Thus passeth the glory of the soap-box...
...There a group . of Negro workers revolted against Bridges, frwho sent a receiver down to supersede the democratically-elected administration, and swung over to Wolchak's union...
...16—Bowles' office issued the order, forbidding distribution of...
...Rail, Coal Impasse Brings Crisis in U.S...
...In that case, of course, the war profiteers will lose on both eads—they won't get the subsidies and they W'U have lost their chance to increase war Profits by hiking prices on spurious pleas of increased costs...
...Sulzberger adds, significantly, that "unfortunately, censorship here has, until the present, seen fit to prevent any fair or open discussion of the situation in that country...
...21 by "Labor," weekly newspaper published in Washington by the Railroad Brotherhopdi...
...Franco served as Hitler's muothpiece and propagandist...
...Her desperate need for food, oil, cotton, etc., could not be filled by Germaany and Italy...
...And the pay-off was.the order suppressing the OPA War Profits Study on the Canning Industry...
...10-10-43...
...And *u addition now to the fighters among labor's legislative representatives is hardly bad news...
...A sudden end of appeasement might bring collapse and revolution...
...But here is the document The date is October 10, 1943...
...Wholesale slaughter, imprisonment, exile, and torture have not crushed opposition to Franco among the peasants and workers 'of Spain...
...supplies to Germany have dwindled...
...It marks the official and definitive end of the Red Myth: "UNION SQUARE PARK—A circle of people of all descriptions crowded around a middle-aged short -sleeved orator...
...Sauthoff baaed foe demands for a Congressional investigation...
...work and tke urgent need for imparting real education to the people ease these demagogues spread their poison...
...Franco's fascist poison was spread in Satin America, especially in Argentina...
...Spain is chaotic, unreconstructed, hungry, weak militarily and economically...
...Keeping up the running fire on war*1 profiteering, The New Leader on Sept 18 again exclusively revealed the OPA war profits stuffy on Women's Hosiery Manufacturers...
...A similar situation exists in coal...
...These threats and the Congressional asasaasnj steamed up by the Food Packers Lobby, apparently, were too much for hVwvhs, who waa brought in by OPA Administrator Prentiss Brown to work out an appeasement program to halt attacks on OPA, on the- one hand, by war profiteers seeking to increase their bloodstained gains and...
...Only in the Iberian Peninsula did the anarchist movement thrive in the twentieth century...
...Food Lobby Suppresses OPA Profits Study Bowles Yields to Packers' Pressure In Move to Halt Congress Probe By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, IX C —Bowing to the pressure and threats of the politically-powerful rood Packers Loony, or*A General Manager Chester A. Bowies has made a gesture of appeasement toward war profiteers enraged by the limelight of publicity by suppress!** the latest OPA War Profits Study—Volume 8 on the Canning Industry—it was learned exclusively this week by The Ne* leader...
...However, there hi a reduction that can be obtained which it seams to me is far more valuable than the trivial ana referred to above...
...For the British censorship served to hide from the American public that Russia, far from behaving like a helpful ally of the small eastern European countries which were steam-rollered by the Nazi juggernaut during the first two years of this war during which the Soviet Union had a pact with Nazi Germany and helped supply Hitler with war materials, was interfering in an unfriendly way in the internal affairs of these small countries and establishing armies on their .soil directly under Soviet control...
...The monarchists and the Carlists or Traditionalists remain powerful as actual or potential opponents of Franco...
...He has played this pro-Axis role with complete impunity...
...The time has coma to apply the Atlantic Charter to that unhappy land, with its guarantee that sabjagatod peoples will have the right to determine their own form of government...
...Rep...
...News of meetings of such oppositionists have leaked out ia recent weeks, indicating growing dissatisfaction and a demand for the restoration of the monarchy...
...Further action along this line is on the agenda...
...This reduction can be secured hy reducing the wholesalers' profits and those of the packers...
...Sauthoff introduced his resolution for a Congressional Investigation on middlemen's profits in the foci industry...
...Franco has been unable to achieve complete national unity and to purge hit opponents and rivals...
...on the facts and -figures of war profiteering bjr food wholesalers and other middlemen, aa originally revealed exclusively by The New Leader on Aug...
...Will El Caudtilo follow the example of his neighbor, Portugal'* Salazar, and Italy's Badoglio, and try to make a deal with the United Nations...
...As a result, their homeless governmentsiu-exile are not only faced with the necessity of trying to drive the Nazis from their soil, hat also of contending with Communist armies determined to finish what the Nazis started...
...The government mediation agencies gave the railroad workers an eight cents %n hour increase, but Economic Stabilization Director Vinson set aside this award and decreed a four cents an hour increase...
...On January 9, 1943, in the Capital Comment column, it was revealed that: "Several months ago the OPA Division ef Research made a study of the war profits of 1,753 of the larger industrial corporations and 200 of the more important war contractors...
...14 and as reprinted in large part on Aug...
...But Ambassador Hayes has assured Franco that no aid would be given his opponents from abroad...
...The New LmSat was able nevertheless to ascertain from reliable sources that the suppressed OPA sandy reveals even more shameful wsr profiteering than was disclosed in the previouslyissued OPA War Profits Studies on the Meat Packers and the Wholesale Food Grocers...
...Speaking of the plan for food subsidies, lie said: "It is stated that the purpose behind the subsidy payments ia te 'hold the one* en living costs and yet prevent any loss of product...
...Edelman has been a fighting repre•eatative of labor unions for more years than e»en he cares to remember...
...policing inflation through tax means...
...The facts and figures in this OPA study are not only a blistering indictment of the criminal war profiteers who have subordinated the war effort to war profits, but are an equal indictment of the culpability of OPA Administrator Prentiss Brown who has permitted them to get away writh it...
...This situation, first revealed as- existing in Yugoslavia and then in Greece, can now be ¦aid to exist throughout those Balkan nations which are our allies in the war—and were our allies long before Russia was...
...This economic power ia now enhanced by Spain's isolation from her fascist allies, and hy military victories, and the Allies are now ia a position to demand polittoal concessions...
...And seven out of every 10 food middlemen reported profits over 200^ higher than in 1939...
...Oct...
...It ft...
...gives his subordinates hi OPA in ordering that none bat his four top assistants be allowed to have or to see copies of the War Profits Study on the Caaaiag Industry...
...It was this story, as rewritten and reprinted the following week, August 21, by "Labor" (which is to be congratulated for being the medium through which it was directly brought to the floor of the House), that was cited by Rep...
...Franco has not rewarded his appeasers, thus far, but gave whatever aid he could to his Axis partners...
...In the Army and Church are many conservatives who fought against the Loyalist Government, but whose support of Franco has been conditional and critical...
...The National Farmers Union was the first of the farm organisations to declare its intentions of working with AFL and CIO unions to this end...
...We hear of "radicals" and "left-wingers" and mistakenly identify them with the apostles of the Kremlin-Set . . . who no longer possess, nor care about, Marxian theory, radical programs, left-wing ideology...
...But as late as this week, the OPA Publications Division denied knowing anything about a War Profits Study or the existence of the four volumes...
...Since the censorship...
...From time to time during the course of almost a year, The New Leader has been exclusively printing the revelations of war profiteering aa disclosed in the confidential OPA War Profits Studies...
...and Canners Lobby swung into a furious offensive on Capitol Hill to kill the investigation and to not pressure on OPA to stop distribution of the War Profits Studies which have beenuiaking the ammunition for those demanding i Congressional investigation...
...The facts in the OPA study show that: "One out of every 10 of the big wholesalers in food reported profits up to 600r/r over 1939...
...IV^s* who himself introduced, a resolution in the past session of Congress for a Congressional investigation into the price spread between what the farmer *«w for the food he produces and what the* eopsnmat any* at the other end...
...Matthew Low...
...The President had agreed to the eight cent decision, but apparently, Vinson and Byrnes stood firm and persuaded the President to side with them...
...It would constitute such an international 'scandal that it is improbable that it could be justified even as military expediency...
...Greek Liberals...
...A large number have gone already...
...The United States and British exploited Spain's need for economic aid to keep Franco a "non-belligerent"—now changed to "vigilant neutrality...
...Although the Falange is modeled after its Italian and German prototypes, it has not succeeded so well in establishing totalitarian power...
...And now that Congress has the information before it, there is grave danger that the Food Packers Lobby will succeed in killing the resolution and the efforts of OPA in publishing the War Profits Studies on which it is based...
...Three out of every 10 food wholesalers reported profits over 300cr higher than in 1939...
...This was followed on Oct 2 by a story in The New Leader on the OPA war profits study on Meat Packers...
...The larger companies showed the greater increase in sales, but the smaller concerns reported the greater increase in profits...
...The psychological factor contributed to Franco's problems—Spaniards are individualistic, fanatically opposed to tyranny and regimentation...
...Sunday "Worker...
...Communist of Stalin's persuasion...
...The labor unions are practically unanimous in their'demands for an investigation...
...Major interest at the CIO convention which opens in Philadelphia on Nov...
...It has taken almost a year of steady firing away at the subject to bring to the atlsathiu of one branch of the government (Congress) what is being dene by another branch of the government (the OPA) on the collecting of vital facts and figures in the meet important phase of the war on the Heme Front...
...Oct...
...This feeling has been accompanied by an increasing neglect of the primary military task —fighting the enemy...
...Henna the reduction prspssed on this basis lis negligible...
...Another OPA rdaeiaL however, confirmed their existence and admitted that circulation of the volumes 'had been resricted to a few government officials'.** ' The New Leader then tan a assies of articles until February 6, making public the revelations of war profiteering by Big Be^neae, ,t, That series broke the iee, and thereafter OPA admitted the existence of the uiuolsii end read them available to a restricted list of persons both (n and out of the government...
...Even if appeasement were necessary before the recent victories, it now strengthens Franco and prolongs the suffering of the Spanish people, the rea>oblican leaders stated...
...The net result will be an actual "production slowdown" in the vital transport sector...
...And the administration is taking advantage of this fact to keep down the wage award...
...There) should be an immediate investigation into the profits now being made by wholesalers dealing in foSd products and also the profits made by packers of meat products...
...i The suppresses order, it was learned, came as the answer to a resolution ordering a Congressional investigation into the war profits of pa Iters, pa—w and other food processors and middlemen introduced ia the House by Rep...
...they bravely dafaeamd it against the rebellion engineered by Franco with German and Italian aid...
...Oct 13—The 'Packer...
...Last week it was all made official...
...The majority of the Spanish people hate all that Franco and Hitler and Mussolini stand for with bitterness that has grown during five «ears of tyranny, terror, and hunger...
...on the other hand, by labor desperately trying to stem the rise in the cost of living...
...Franco did not remain out of the war because of the food, oil, and cotton he got from the democracies, but because Spain was too weak to participate actively in Axis aggression, and because Germany could not invade Russia and attack Gibraltar simultaneously...
...In many sections of the country, the UMW is working without any contract, which violates one of the most important traditions of the coal union...
...ft s The study cm the caaners' war profits was originally scheduled for distribution on Oct...
...And there is still another factor involved...
...80 far, the OPA War Profit Studies' figures {••ve been accepted at face value...
...The resultant pressure exerted by the Food Packers Looby on OPA General Manager Chester Bowks, as revealed confidentially by authoritative sources, was SOMETHING TER RIFIC...
...doubtful whether the men will actually strike...
...The OPA study states: "Wholesale food grocers realised twice as much on every dollar of sales in 1942 as in 1939...
Vol. 26 • October 1943 • No. 43
