| OCR Text |
Show CRITICISM OF O. P. A. INEVITABLE BECAUSE IT RESTRICTS CITIZEN The Office of Price Administration has a thankless task, being charged with the effort to regulate prices which means that it must prevent some individuals from making excessive profits. The OPA is also undertaking the mammoth job of rationing ration-ing commodities and products in the United States. This is necessary but it is inevitable that the decisions of the OPA, expressed ex-pressed by thousands of small boards throughout the country, create dissatisfaction among those who are not permitted to have what they request. The work of the OPA, as outlined above, involves interference with what Americans have long regarded as their "rights." , Its regulations prevent individuals and corporations from making profits through a deal which could be completed except for the OPA. It likewise interferes with the acquisition of scarce items and prevents some Americans from taking advantage of others in the matter of supplies. It is not surprising that a committee of the House of Representatives Represen-tatives has investigated the operations of OPA. Neither is there cause for amazement when the committee assails the OPA for having hav-ing promulgated "illegal, absurd, useless and conflicting" regulations. regula-tions. The same can be said of some legislation passed by both houses of Congress. When the committee goes further, however, and charges that the OPA has "construed its power to authorize it to sentence sen-tence citizens of the United States to starvation," it reveals a bias which will lead many Americans to conclude that its findings find-ings are equally nonsensical. a : , |
