OPA Seeks to Appease Tories With Price Rises
STOUT, JONATHAN
OPA Seeks to Appease Tories With Price Rises Bowles Admits Suppression Of War Rrofits Studies by JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C—The OPA s new policy inder Chester Bowles, whs Last week...
...Frank Costello, bootlegger and gambler, revealed nonchalantly under questioning of District Attorney Hogan...
...A correspondent of tie "Times" now refers to the Italian regime as "the King and Marshal Pietro Bado glio's shadow government " and records that "they cannot 'act without authority from the Allied mission...
...Running with Judge Levy for the Supreme Court in the First Judicial District, comprising Manhattan and the Bronx, are Copal Mints, chairman of the ALP legislative committee, and George Salvatore...
...In defense of that stand, it is now the eflVeia...
...In the Bronx: No...
...15, 1942, as required by the Stabilisation Act* It doesn't seem as though the new OPA Administrator believes he can do both...
...It is now perfectly apparent that the big part of the exploratory talks among the Messers Hell, Eden and Motbtov were primarily political in nature...
...Why, then, is OPA making those War Pronto Studies...
...The Russian point of view has been and still remains quite different...
...The largest antagonistic factor is the Communist bloc, which has a representation far out of proportion to its actual strength in CIO...
...But they do represent a flash in interest, policy and strategy...
...From the beginning, it was the Anglo-Amerhan plan to save the Chetnik leader, Gen...
...This is coupled with the fact that the AFL resents the attitude taken by the Administration in regarding CIO ea the important voice of labor...
...November 1, is expected to endorse President Roosevelt (the support will be on a eesufttional basis to assuage rank-and-file rostiveness), to hear attacks on OPA for are^Bfc* halt the rise in the cost of living, and to ties ill the War tabor Board and Judge Vinson of the Economic Stabilization Office for holding down wages unfairly...
...2 for Frank Monaco, or Asm versa...
...The people of Yugoslavia have been paying the price already...
...That has •*•«* the role of the Communist Josip Brozovich, the to-called "Drug Tito" and his Partisans •» Jugoslavia, Greece and Albania...
...1 was that 'the mood of Europe's peoples is unqualifiedly revolutionary...
...ford's Failure "Labor Exposes the r Myth of Willow Ran" was the headline over The New Leader** front-page story of October t. This week Robert P. Patterson...
...At the convention of the Transport Workers Union last week, Joe Curran of the National Maritime Union proposed s merger between the transport and maritime groups...
...Forced to choose between the two courses, it was strongly Inferred, Bowles believe* that his No...
...That was the net impression left en your correspondent in an off-the-reeord interview Bowles granted The New Leader the same day the President announced his elevation from OPA General Manager to Administrator As though in further confirmation of this impression, last Tuesday OPA announced higher price ceilings for some of the finer gauges of women's full-fashioned rayon hosiery...
...disclosures in The New Leader last week that under the pressure and threats of the Packers and Canners Lobby, Bowles has suppressed the OPA War Profits Studies en the Canning and Meat Packing industries and, thereby, has denied to the public access to the bases on which OPA sets prices for mest and canned fruits and vegetables...
...The Resources of Reaction* American Danger-SSgnals About one-third of the American people are convinced that sherd are groups in the country who are "trying to get ahead" at their lininei Of that 32.8'V total, 21V4Cv blame the Jews, the largest single group identified...
...Or to devote himself to the job of curbing inflation by holding down living costs and rolling back prices to the level of Sept...
...More and more, British and American administrators have been called into to adjust "political crises," and the new set-up has practically proclaimed itself as a political agency...
...Fortune's conclusions are that "a great job of education in democratic fundamentals is still to be done, and that the job emphatically cannot be done,, as so many politicians and commentators have tried to do it, merely by making the word 'fascist' synonymous with the phrase 'bad man...
...The proposal was thinly opposed by Michael Quill, who would lose influence under the new set-up...
...Nor will Americans be the only ones to pay the price of Russian self-interest...
...The most important parts of the Tammany story were left unquestioned, and observers wondered why: how was Frank Costello, ex-convict and associate of gangsters, slot machine king and gambler — unregistered as a voter — able to wield this tremendous influence in New York politics...
...Oct 24...
...Long stripe ("U...
...It is obvious," Matthews concluded, "that the political road to Rome is not going to be strewn with roses...
...If Lewis opens new negotiations with the operators, unauthorized walkouts may spread sad the union would have a hard job in controlling them Along with the coal crisis the rail situation is still smoldering...
...The answer seems to be that his money and his "boys" guaranteed these district leaders against any competition...
...The Lieutenant-Governor race has been quite apathetic, with the American Labor Party drumming up most of the noises...
...Nazi-bonds to 1S...
...5% named Wallace...
...Which, in some circles, it would seem, is a heinous sin...
...Monaco, a former ALP assemblyman, made an enviable record in Albany several years ago...
...As stated in The New Leader last week, the report on the canning industry, which is the latest of the War Profit Studies, reveals even more shameful war profiteering...
...Apart from these two contests, interest in this election centers on the councilman ic candidates...
...It is now possible to amplify further the nature of that deal...
...is in the inauspicious position of fighting an enemy abroad that it cannot define at home...
...A large Hanley majority in the crucial state of the country would give Dewey hopes towards taking the Presidential leap...
...The official position on that qjuostisn to that the War Profits Studies are being made only for the purpose of giving OPA a basis for setting prices...
...Despite the ban against letting anybody but OPA insiders see the suppressed War Profits Studies, your correspondent was able to learn something of what they contain...
...18, 1943, discloses that this group of 15 big manufacturers have been reaping war profits averaging 290% above their pre-war levels...
...The Bad-man Symbol of John L. "has undeniably aroused latent fascism tendencies in a good many people, and labor as a whole has suffered thereby...
...as chairmar, of CIO'i Political Action Committee, ep the organisation of local groups for support of FDR in 1944...
...The Communists are opposed to labor unity, for they know that they would be swamped and lose their influence in any united labor organisation...
...UnderSecretary of War, informed official* of the United Automobile Workers that War Dept...
...The Survey, Fortune feels, made this dear: "The average American is very ignorant and very confused about native fascism...
...The circulation of "Italia Libera" was stopped...
...Almost 59% saw the necessity of "curbing" certain organizations and groups of people 'harmful to the future of the country...
...The new and all-powerful "Allied Mission" is, once again, "military in theory," but, the dispatch from southern Italy adds, that has not prevented its "getting involved in problems of high politics, since politics inevitably affect the military situation...
...In a dramatic move to avert an Aurelio election, the Bar Associations of New York moved to disbar Aurelio...
...Both points of view are understandable...
...To the question whether the public has a right to ask OPA on what bases such prices are set or to inspect the figures OPA nam for that purpose—there remains no official answer...
...The Russians are primarily interested in setting up "Second Fronts" in order to decrease the Nazi pressure on their front Thus, where the American strategy was for Gen...
...It is felt that it was this old system that made the present war possible...
...That unhappy region at present .is the cockpit of clashing national setf-interesta...
...On the other, the Haskell-Hanley outcome may shape the decisions of Governor Thomas E. Dewey as regards the GOP Presidential nomination...
...And in the end it ¦ay exact an unnecessarily heavy cost in American lives...
...The others are sore in the tradition of the Forty Thieves at Versailles...
...The same OPA study shows other hosiery manufacturers with average war profits running as high as 704% above their pre-war levels . . . which may lend point to the complaint of the "Big 16" that their profits—comparatively— are "inadequate...
...In southern Italy last week, prominent anti-fascist liberals found themselves in jail...
...Notes on Italy Political Crises Loom in Italy By MATTHEW LOW First glimpses into the political realities of Axis-Europe, which the military victories of the Allied Italian campaign are affording, dispel long-lingering myths about "the conduct of the war," theory and practice...
...In Manhattan, the American Labor Party has endorsed Pearl L. Willen...
...Before the conference opened it was asserted eockily by Pravda that only questions concerning the "Second Front" and immediate military problems related to the war were before it...
...And backed by British support ta the Tripartite conference in Moscow, Meletov has demanded a Russian corridor ta the Aegean See...
...But the trouble with Mihailovieh, apparently, is that he is a Yugoslav and primarily concerned with the interests of his own people...
...Socially and economically...
...The CIO convention will open in the she eon of an important labor crisis which may take the headlines away from the Philadelphia sessions...
...Until the past few weeks, the Mihailovieh tactics have been to haras* the Nazi lines of communication outside of the Yugoslavian towns...
...The leading (and only) Apulia paper, Gazetta del Mezzogiomo, had refused to nsrifash the statements of the liberals, fhsfta t,«V" a contained criticisms of the Badoglk regime...
...What decisive, clean-cut prejudices were found all ran in the reactionary direction...
...These were the facts suppressed to appease Big Business...
...And he was able to do much or more damage to the Nazis by harassment of their lines in unpopulated areas or open roads...
...Ceetello's area of control was centered in the Italian districts of the city—on the lower Eastside and downtown Manhattan in the let, 2nd and 8th, and in East Harlem in the 20th...
...The AFL now feels that it no longer need regard CIO as an equal, and that after the war it will be easy to raid CIO or abases the leading unions...
...The makers of the - Survey also noted "the strong tendency among factory workers to regard Jewa and the bosses as groups trying to get ahead at ' 1 Their expense, and the definite tendency among salaried ex ecu tires to name both Jews and labor as groups hostile to them...
...This is one of the startling conclusions of the new Partus* Survey, conducted by Elmo Roper...
...Aurelio, whose nomination precipitated the biggest scandal in Tammany Hall since the Seabury days...
...geeejetni before Referee Charles B. Sears revealed for the first time the coherent story of gangster control of New York politics...
...under Allied-Badoglio rules, labeled "unauthorised.*" and so Giusseppe Laterza (Croce's publisher...
...S. fascism will be called and.fascism") can easily capitalize on them—although "this preoccupied nation in these days of snperemaloyatent has tittle provocation for uniting against a scapegoat...
...The new journal was...
...Among the "harmful individuals" who had to be "curbed...
...Y. "Times" (Oct...
...Administrator Bowles therefore believes himself to be on the twin horns of this dilemma...
...The Urozovieh grand-stood tactics have been to rush into some town or village, rush the news to the wires that they have "captured" another city, and then beat a hasty retreat before the more new erf nl Nazi counter-attacks...
...These facts remained undented by Bowles or any other OPA official either before, during or after The New Loader correspondent's interview with the new Administrator...
...Labor" ran the recent crack at Admiral Land, "is simple smarter them assnaoememt " Perhaps the Government la beginning to think so too...
...position of OPA that it is not the li ml uses of OPA to keep the public informed of the extent of war profiteering, or who is doing it...
...The state-wide race between New Dealer General William N. Haskell and Republican Joseph R. Hanley has nationwide significance...
...In the Bronx the ALP has renominated its veteran councilmen Salvatore Nir.fo and Gertrude Weil Klein, both of whom have been in the progressive bloc in the Council...
...Louis P. Goldberg has been one of the outstanding figurea in the present Council, having taken the lead in all progressive measures...
...All of which means that when the American •nd their British allies hop the Adriatic to breach the Dalmatian coast they will find awaiting them a Nasi army three or four times the *«e that was there before...
...Because of the nature of the war-born alliance among America, Britain and Russia, even such essentially military questions as the invasion of tht French Coast have become political...
...In return for Balkan hegemony, Stalin cedes Iran as a British hegemony...
...Goldberg is also endorsed by the Citizens Union...
...It is now revealed more and more that of the three main figures at the Moscow conference, Secretary of State Hull is the only one who represents the Wilsonian tradition...
...Reminder to Vstora: Vote Haskell and Levy end the other ALP candidates oh Row C. On the special papa ballets for councilman fa Manhattan write No...
...20) to the "Herald Tribune" emphasized that any attempt "to reimpose the economic and social system which existed before this war would be strenuously resisted...
...that will open in Philadelphia on Monday...
...The increased prices were OPA's answer to the appeal of the hosiery manufacturers that the eld ceilings did not gire them "adequate" profits...
...Translated into absolute percentages, Fortune explains these figures mean that about 7% of all people "think that Jews are-'' trying to get ahead at their expense, and fewer then'4 per cent V feel this about big business and capitalist...
...Both strategies are logical...
...The Russians are not interested in searing beachheads for an Anglo-American invasion of the Balkans...
...And only Hull seems disposed to put up a fight for them...
...Property over the years has been subjected to extensive confiscation and destruction...
...Do men ic a Pastina, and Vfncenzo Calaee (prominent in the underground anti-fascist movement) were rounded up by the police...
...so recently they have made several mores to amalgamate their unions...
...These increased profits will go largely to a group of 15 manufacturers who dominate the women's hosiery industry in America...
...5% named Roosevelt...
...What is both interesting and significant about this is that OPA has in its files a War Profits Study on the women's hosiery industry which, as was first revealed exclusively in The New Leader on Sept...
...Hill's dispatch (Oct...
...This comes about through the difference between the guerrilla tactics of Mihailovieh and Brozovich...
...From all the reports of misery, hunger, resistance, dissension and strife, several uncontested facts emerge...
...They had printed and circulated a newspaper of their own, expressing views which they had previously published in the underground press...
...1 for Salvatore Ninfo...
...Although Fortune does not "view with alarm" the chances of native fascism, it does boldly highlight the dangers of national frustration...
...22), "because it has created such a sensation and suck unhappy bewilderment tn liberal...
...If Haskell wins, GOP pressure in the state may force Dewey to stay in Albany, for a Democratic Lieutenant-Governor, succeeding to the Gubernatorial chair, would upset the patronage 'cart...
...To devote himself to the bureaucratic preservation of OPA's continued existence...
...It was for this reason that Mihailovieh avoided "capturing" Yugoslavian towns and villages...
...16 this coleoui revealed that Britain and Russia, without participation of the U. S., had struck a deal over tat Balkans, ceding hegemony orer that region to the Soviets and agreeing to military support of the Communist Partisans operating there...
...Of these 5h% Bated labor union groups' Negroes and Jews came to 15%, Communists to 16...
...For instance, it is now verified that the war profits coined by the rapacious canning industry range as high as nearly 1 .<?©<>% above the pre-war level, an average ssore than 500% above pre-war levels for the whole industry...
...The "wildcat" coal walkouts have been growing, and the War Labor Board decision this week rejecting the contract between the UMW and the Illinois Coal Operators is adding fuel to those flames If the UMW rejects the War Leber Board action, the President may move to seise the coal mines again and force the miners to week...
...the coal trace aspires, and the coal miners have long not had or refused to work—under the slogan "Mo contract, no work...
...Against Costello'* candidate, the liberal forces in the city named Judge Matthew M. Levy...
...am putting it nto record," Herbert L, jhattmsmr n pis W W in mt% sfSe aw* a»-r»» fv...
...A strike vote is being conducted among 1.350.000 rail workers, and while it is extremely doubtful whether the Railway Brotherhood leasers would go ahead end eefl a strike, trouble may be expected hi this area, too...
...Capital Comment Behind the Balkan Deal ¦y JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C—On Oct...
...Willen, the chairman of the ALP Women's Division, has been endorsed by the Citizens Union and other civic groups...
...Local political and military scenes are reinforcing this general picture of continental realities...
...that he had been instrumental in electing Michael Kennedy leader of Tammany Hall, that he controlled the votes of several district lenders and that his pressure on Kennedy had placed Aurelio in nomination...
...As the situation is now viewed officially by OPA, to take an aggressive attitude towards the war profiteers means to incur the wrath of the reactionaries on Capitol Hill and, therefore, to threaten the existence of OPA as a functioning organization...
...wrote correspondent Russell Hill this week from Cairo—and No...
...The 70.6% who named Lewis amount to about 55% of the whole population...
...This, of course, will not bother our local Russian apologists too much For the premature erection of a f ulLscale" Balkan Front has accomplished the Russian aim of diverting a large Nasi army away from the Russian front and into the Balkans...
...CIO Parley Faces Issue of FDR Support, Labor Restiveness WASHINGTON, D. d—The CIO conventior...
...labor policies a rhetorical gesture, CIO faces important problems at this convention, the most important one being its pestwar role...
...Fresh attempts toward unity with AFL ire a necessity now for CIO, but it is improbable that such steps will be taken...
...Draja Mihailovieh, and bis Jugoslavian Patriot army nUil our forces were ready to invade the ialkans...
...OPA Seeks to Appease Tories With Price Rises Bowles Admits Suppression Of War Rrofits Studies by JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C—The OPA s new policy inder Chester Bowles, whs Last week succeeded Prentiss Brows as Administrator, is being formulated on the bluntly phrased belief that reaction is firmly is the saddle and that OPA to art serve its own existence must follow a formula of appeasing Big Pnalneaa and Its Tory representatives on Capitol Hill...
...circles here...
...The Communist bloc will be strongly behind Sidney Hillman m support of the President's policies and will fight sny attempts at criticism of the Administration...
...From the Anglo-American point of view, the greatest usefulness of the Mihailovieh forces atnild net arrive until they would be called into action to help clear beachheads for the invading American and British forces, and to harass from the rear the Nasi defenses at that time...
...1 next to the name of Louis P Goldberg and No...
...1 far Pearl U WBlen...
...The US...
...than was disclosed in the* previously-issued reports on the meat packers and the wholesale food grocers...
...On October 31...
...1 job right now ia to safeguard the i*on tinned existence of OPA—on the apparent ground that while there's life in OPA there's hope...
...2 for Gertrude KU^ er *efwur»e...
...Ia each cane the Nazis have punished the/ nonconrbattant inhabitants of those towns and have partially or totally leveled thorn...
...He tried to spore as much as possible the visitation of Nazi ruthlessness on his helples noncombattant countrymen...
...Opportunists of the Hue...
...And the fact that th> item wQl loom so large in the agenda makes the recital of grievances against the Administration...
...On the one hand, the contest is being watched closely as a test of New Deal sentiment and as a "rehearsal" for 1944...
...Europe is a clean slate, and the way is clear for a real new order to be created...
...noted women leader in social work activities...
...The net effect of this campaign of confusion and the lack of coordination of military strategy was to lead Mihailovieh to fellow the example of the Communist Partisans in premature military operations before the Americans were ready to make their Balkan invasion...
...Although it has 5,000,000 members, all observers agree that this number is an inflated figure derived from the influx of workers into war industries...
...In Brooklyn, the ALP has named Louis P. Goldberg and Frank Monaco for Council...
...Mihailovieh, Minister of War of the Jugoalavain government-in-exile, has all along been under the Anglo-American Middle East Command, and therefore conducted himself in accordance with Anglo-American ideas of military strategy...
...And in America, the Communists, and certain Soviet apologists such as Louis Adamic, opened »P on a propaganda campaign to vilify the heroism of the Chetniks and their leader who immediately sprang to the fight against the Nazis while the Yugoslavian Communists were collaborating with the Nazis up to the day the latter invaded the Soviet Union...
...The right of the small nations of Europe ts self-determination and democracy is at stake ta Moscow...
...who sought to nominate Aurelio on the American Labor ticket, as part of a deal with Mike Kennedy and Tammany Hall, is still seeking to sabotage the Levy campaign...
...At the same time the Russians started putting pressure On the British with threats at Iran in which British interests are heavily Invested...
...No fairy tale* are offered as to who is really running things.' "Victor Emanuel is King, bat the power behind his throne is the Allied Mission, and as things now are (•Continued ea Page Seven) ALP Starts Final Drive to Elect Haskell, Levy, New Deal Slate National political attention will be centered on New, York next Tuesday, November 2nd, when state voters go to the polls to elect a Lieutenant-Governor, while citizens in the first Judicial District, voting for Supreme Court Judges, will decide the fate of Magistrate Thomas-A...
...And it is this -daft that has brought about a changed attitude in the AFL towards CIO...
...over 70% named John L. Lewis...
...investigators would look into condition* at Henry Ford's Bomber Plant— which the union had described an "one of the outstanding production failures of this war...
...So OPA permitted the manufacturers to increase the "adequacy" of their profits by 29% on 60-gauge stockings and 19.5% on 54-gauge and 67-gauge stockings...
...Ts offset this, the Russians sent twenty Communist military commanders into Jugoslavia to miss a Communist-dominated army and to mate a full-fledged Balkan Front...
...On the other hand, the Communists do recognise the fact that in the years after the war, if CIO declines, they may be isolated in the labor movement...
...The biggest item on the program, however, will be the report of Sidney Hillman...
...Certainly one thing is clear: the theory of some leading Allied diplomats that "war is war" (Cc, military affairs now, and politics after it's all over) is childish...
...In Brooklyn: write No...
...A perfect example in point is what is no* going on in the Balkans...
...Mihailovieh to keep his forces intact for the big moment of the Anglo-American invasion of Jugoslavia, the Russian idea was for those forces to spend themselves in drawing Nasi femes from the Russian front...
...Laterza was promised freedom if he would seveal the names of the publishers of the paper, and the print'shop...
...These facts supplement the sensations...
...In ante and aircraft, in steel and in the electrical, radio and machine, the CIO faces a considerable shrinkage...
...Judge Levy, the choice of the American Labor Party, has won the support of leading members of the bar as well as high civic officials, including Judge Samuel Seabury and Mayor LaGuardia Vito Marcantonio...
...Of more spectacular interest is the AurelioLevy contest for Supreme Court...
Vol. 26 • October 1943 • No. 44
