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Show theory as though they were masters and their employers, the people, were their servants, and mind its own business which is that of administration. As the public's servants that's what they were hired to do. "DELlRlOUS"'CAPRlClOUS""FANTASTIC" The American people in wartime more or less philosophically philoso-phically accepted certain governmental controls and restrictions restric-tions that transformed the operation of the Nation's economic system and way of life. It was difficult to establish that some of these controls and restrictions were necessary to the winning win-ning of the war. But most people took them in their stride and looked forward hopefully to saner, more sensible days. Now although the war is over, there remains in Washington Wash-ington a Federal agency whose policies and methods have been described by Associate Justice Jackson of the United States Supreme Court as "delirious," "capricious;' and "fantastic. "fan-tastic. If this agency were one that operated in a kind of vacuum, vac-uum, so insulated as to protect the outside world against their effects, then its deliriums, its caprices and its fantasies would remain matters of merely academic interest. This agency, the Federal Power Commission, however, can and does exert public harm. It is the one which was singled out for Justice Jackson's judicial characterization. The FPC is concerned with one of the Nation's most valuable valua-ble natural resources, natural gas. Natural gas, of which there is an abundance under ground, is a fuel that many Americans use in their factories and in their homes-and many more, because of its cheapness, cleanliness, and convenience, con-venience, would like to use. But huge quantities of natural gas remain in the ground and many consumers do without it because the Federal Fed-eral Power Commission has imposed upon the natural-gas industry a network of policies and rulings which, according to the late Chief Justice Stone "were unauthorized by the i applicable statue." It based its illegal rulings on the ridiculous ridicu-lous assumption that America s economy is shrinking. Fantastic? Commenting upon one of the Commission's typical actions, Justice Jackson said: "Any method of rate-making rate-making by which an identical product from a single well, ' going to the same consumers, has three prices depending on who owns it does not make sense to me." Nor does it make sense to a bewildered industry, eager to serve the public better. Nor does it make sense to a large segment of the consuming public which would like to ' be supplied with natural gas. I Sanity suggests that the Federal statute establishing : the I PC be so amended that the Commission will be com- pelled to forego excursions into the fantasma of economic i i |