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Show ffGENERAL HUGH S. JOHNSON mJaar: Washington, I). C. DANGER OF 'INFLATION The greatest danger before us now is "inflation." In barnyard American Ameri-can all that means is high prices. Since they are not as spectacular as the bombing of workers' homes, they usually don't get attention before be-fore it is too late. War inflation is about the deadliest deadli-est bearing of war upon the poor. Wages in war never have advanced as fast as the cost of living. The price of anything is mostly the cost of labor to produce It The higher they go, the higher the cost of living. War inflation (high prices) is the worst bearing of war upon the helpless. help-less. Germany is bombing the homes of England's poor non-combatants and seeking to cut off the supply of milk to babies and food to adults. England is hell-bent on 'the same process to blockade Europe and starve into submission even her most gallant defenders: France, Finland, Poland. I do not counsel otherwise. We, ourselves, Invented war frightful-ncss frightful-ncss In our blockade of Southern ports and our destruction of food j , supplies in Georgia and the Shenan- doah.. It must make the wounds of Christ bleed again, but so It Is and we must accept it. Tint lnt'a nttt h Klin1 in A flimilnr war of starvation against our own people high prices. If they go too high they will destroy the practical living value of every insurance policy, pol-icy, social security benefit wage, salary or pension in the United States. This is not because they will reduce those payments. They won't But those payments will buy so little in a high price structure that they will become chaff. I hear that Wall Street pundits say that It will be only a "mild Inflation." Infla-tion." I honor the sincerity of their opinions but I suspect their knowledge. knowl-edge. Once you start this deadly process it is like a snowball rolling down hill. You can no more suffer it "gradually" than you can fire a gun gradually. It is a progress that feeds upon itself. With much actual experience In war Inflation, I have made a study of this thing for years from the beginning of history. War price inflation in-flation always grinds the face of the poor, not only during hostilities, but for years thereafter. It lowers the buying power of their wages. It also doubles or multiplies the cost of war, not merely while it is going on, but for years thereafter in the toil, sweat and taxes in which work- ers and their children must pay for the vastly Increased cost. So far, we have only the symptoms symp-toms of war inflation. But the germs are so plain that it takes ne microscope to see them terrific governmental spending and increased in-creased debt and deficit capacity production, a sellers market and a desperate disposition for counter-bidding counter-bidding in a congested market with expense no object It has been said that high taxes will stop it. I shall write another column on that. It is crazy nonsense. non-sense. Do high taxes of as much as 10 cents a gallon prevent the price of gasoline from going up as high as 18 cents in some states when It should be 6 cents? High taxes, are not the answer. Mad as it snay seem, I am for deficit financing of this war and not for higher taxes. This may come strangely from me. who hates personalized power, but I am also for giving the President Presi-dent a complete power of priorities to stop competitive bidding and to ration production not to the longest purse, but to the most necessitous use. The latter can only mean skyrocketing sky-rocketing prices. If necessary, I am for giving him complete authority authori-ty over the price structure to prevent pre-vent its rising above reasonable levels. lev-els. Everybody knows it is high enough now for reasonable profit TWO PARTY SYSTEM It is suggested that Mr. Willkie should be appointed to Mr. Roosevelt's Roose-velt's cabinet and accept I think not. We must stand united in preparing pre-paring this country for defense, but that doesn't mean that we should give up the principal Instrument of our democracy which we are pre- paring to defend our two-party system. sys-tem. We are not at war and even If we were, we would commit suicide for Americanism if we abandon the institution in-stitution of political debate by responsible re-sponsible leaders of opposing schools of thought. For the present Mr. Willkie is the titular leader of the party of almost half of the American Amer-ican people. That half is In opposition opposi-tion to many of the policies of this administration. He now acts as their anointed spokesman and advocate. If he abandons that part he would certainly be derelict in the duty he owes to them for their trust Mr. Willkie so far gave away at the outset the greatest asset of his party the strong opposition of mil-i mil-i lions to any Involvement in Europe's quarrels that I sometimes wonder at his decision to run and his Philadelphia Phila-delphia acceptance. There were preconvention candidates candi-dates who did represent that opinion. opin-ion. He didn't challenge them on that vital point then. If his beliefs on that question were those of so many people in opposition to this administration's, he should have fought for them more openly. |
