A MAJOR VICTORY
A Major Victory THE DECISION of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives to retain the Contract Renegotiation Law is a major victory for the people of America and a crushing and...
...We must decide to weigh our every action not against the question, 'What's in it for me?' but against the question, 'Will it serve the best interests of our country?' " For this—for expressing the sentiment of every sincere American patriot since the beginning of this republic—Maj...
...This is in sharp contrast with the practice in Great Britain, which has a conservative government...
...Hartzell Spence from the editorship of Yank, the Army weekly newspaper, emphasizes again the arrogant conduct of some of our military authorities...
...Experience has shown," Patterson told the House Ways and Means Committee, "that contractors have made exorbitant profits from war contracts...
...Coming so soon after an Army court-martial decreed only the mildest punishment for a drunken colonel who had shot and wounded a Negro private, this action of the War Department in Spence's case can only strengthen public distrust of the minds and methods of some of our professional Army bureaucrats...
...Louis Post-Dispatch explained, the issue was as simple as this: "Is Yank the newspaper of the brass hats only, or is it the newspaper of the whole Armv...
...Retention of the Contract Renegotiation Law does not by any means put an end to record-breaking profiteering, but it does make reasonably certain that the big corporations will he held to that "adequate margin of profit, plus a margin of generosity, plus a margin for good measure" which is currently allowed them by the Roosevelt Administration...
...The law, whose repeal would have removed the last remaining barrier to sky-high profiteering, permits the government to renegotiate war contracts and scale down the extortionate profits granted many a great corporation in t^e original letting of contracts...
...No manufacturer can justly say that the plan is anything but fair...
...Increases from $5,000 to $10,000 are common...
...A Major Victory THE DECISION of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives to retain the Contract Renegotiation Law is a major victory for the people of America and a crushing and well-merited defeat for those twin disciples of unbridled war profiteering—the National Association of Manufacturers and the United States Chamber of Commerce...
...In reaching a conclusion in any renegotiation proceedings," he pointed out, "we allow an adequate margin of profit, plus a margin of generosity, plus a margin for good measure...
...Despite the generous treatment of war contractors, the government has already saved $2,-700,000,000 in direct price reductions in addition to even greater savings in indirect price reductions," Karker said...
...Military Arrogance THE SUMMARY manner in which the War Department recently removed Maj...
...Spence wrote: "Therefore, the veterans of this war must have the courage to apply pressure against the greedy and selfish elements both within and outside the armed forces...
...Karker, a far-sighted business man—he is chairman of the board of the Jewel Tea Company— recognized that the greed and lust of the corporate cliques which rule the NAM and the C of C was reflecting on all business and industry, and he "had no hesitancy in denouncing the "selfish minority of business men, the willful 10 per cent whose excesses in the past have been responsible for the controls imposed on business...
...Karker was equally firm in the face of the NAM's crocodile tears to the effect that corporations had to amass greater profits than ever before in order to enable them to reconvert to peacetime production when the war is over...
...Renegotiation procedure is in accord with the will of the people that there shall be no war millionaires...
...Spence, according to undenied reports, was sacked because his opinion that Yank should print what the men in service want to read collided head-on with the view of the brass-hats that the publication should print only what the Army oligarchy wants them to read...
...Renegotiation of contracts, Karker told the Committee, was definitely no hardship on industry...
...Much of the credit for the decision of the House Ways and Means Committee to retain that safeguard belongs to Maurice H. Karker, chairman of the War Department's Price Adjustment Board...
...Karker testified that contractors and negotiators who have gone through renegotiation have been permitted to retain an average of about 16 per cent on the volume of sales...
...Spence was found unfit to continue in his post of responsibility...
...In other words, as the St...
...Karker's successful fight to keep the Contract Renegotiation Law from being emasculated was aided by Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson, with whom we have often been in disagreement, but whose fight in this case deserves the applause of all fair-minded Americans...
...Spence as editor revolved around an editorial which was mildly and inferentially critical of some of the policies of the American Legion...
...It was hard-boiled evidence of this kind by conservatives who have consciences which prevailed before the responsive membership of the Ways and Means Committee...
...The immediate issue which resulted in the expulsion of Maj...
...After observing that many ex-soldiers had joined the Legion "to apply pressure to get things done politically," and that 10 million men and women will come home from this war "capable of applying pressure," Maj...
...In spite of wartime taxes," he pointed out, "industry has been making adequate profits to provide for post-war reserve...
...If the war continues through 1944, he asserted, contractors will have accumulated out of profits, after renegotiation and after taxes, the staggering sum of $42,000,000,000—or more than the entire cost of this country's participation in the first World War...
...There, war contractors have been held down to a profit of 1Y2 per cent of the capital used in their business...
...In fact, he explained, the government's treatment of the munitions corporations was more than generous...
...Patterson pointed out, moreover, that corporation executives have padded war costs by "tremendously" increasing their salaries...
Vol. 7 • October 1943 • No. 41
