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Show f$g? I Waiting Contest o p. By GEORGE S.BENSON i 11 W: Pl-asiden of Harding Collego - fly J j V KX' Searcy. Arkansas Jllfi(lCl j r A t l E3 1 1 ; WINTER is coming. One of these day3 a school bell will ring, e boy will come down the street bouncing a football and after that it won't be long. Which is better bet-ter for keeping a boy's feet off the frosty ground, a 1942 price ceiling or a pair of heavy brogues with wool socks? This illustrates illus-trates a national problem, as the opa bungles with getting into production on civilian good3. , The opa's war job was to keep prices of needful things from skyrocketing a noble work requiring re-quiring some stiff rules. But today, to-day, with war half won and war business slack, the opa is still making rules. One of them says: i Manufacturers may make things j for civilians provided they sell at j 1942 prices. There's the hurdle, : for factory owners ready to re-' re-' convert and create new jobs. Holding NOTHING stops them Prices but the 1942 price rule Workers want their jobs to last. Most civilians have saved some money and want to buy new things. Industry is anxious to serve them but very few factories can operate at 1942 prices. Materials cost more now and labor costs more also There is only one thing to do beg opa for special permission to price up and go to work. The opa, if you remember, is famous for leaving no stone un turned, and all that sort of thing It is rumored that some men in the bureau have their own private opinions about business people i i anyhow. Before they grant any firm special leave to change a price, they investigate. That's all right, but applications to reconvert recon-vert have been coming in fast, more than 500 a day. Keep on THE BUREAU will Working never wind up its red tape in time. The only possible way out of trouble is to make a reasonable rule for all industry in-dustry to follow, let whistles blow at 6:00 a.m. and ask questions ques-tions later. Will they do it ? Who knows? Employees and customers custom-ers would probably cheer loudly for any employer who kept his payroll alive and said "Ph-f-v-v-ut" to the opa, but it's dangerous Most business men are conservative. conser-vative. They are likely to wait exactly as long as the pa says wait. Unable to do business on 1942 prices, they may pull fires from under their boilers and lay off the crew Then the waiting contest starts Bureaus will wait on investigations, employers will wait on bureaus, workers will . , wait on employers and you and I will wait. Workers in the soup-line while crops rot in the field; an ugly picture. Why not let industry convert, sell its products to people peo-ple with money and pay the men who work? Inflation can be prevented pre-vented without starting a panic, if opa will adopt a workable rule soon enough. A bureau is often more interested in rules than in reasons; a wart on the nose of progress and a bunion on the toe of time. |