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Show I WALL STREET VIEWS By Jimw McMultin, financial Observer . NEW YORK The federal trade commission baa managed to get itself la wrong with both new dealera and business circles which ia quite an achievement by IU report en the steel industry. indus-try. This agency, after a long and expensive study, advised the anti-monopoly anti-monopoly committee that the baaing baa-ing point price system in vogue in the industry was all wrong, 'this aystem means that the price of ateel made anywoere in the country includes an amount equivalent equiv-alent to the freight coarge irons Pittsburgh (the center ot the industry; in-dustry; u ta point ot deuveiy. The ' T C thinks it la unethical or something to tigure in freig at marges not actually paid. tU4 people lawiuar with the ateel businena know that, if U( easing point system were abof lined, toe big companies would soon squeese the small independents indepen-dents out oc existence, titans use U. a Steel and Bethlehem have mills scattered through a number num-ber of statu. If freight charges were a variable factor, they could aave their customers money by delivering from toe plants nearest to them, and no small company with a single factory further away could poaaioly hope to compete with them on a price basis. That would freeze the little fellows out of everything except purely local videia. Ho the trade commission's recommendations,. rec-ommendations,. If acted upon, would go a long way toward promoting pro-moting monopoly, informed ad-minlstratlonlies ad-minlstratlonlies share the view of business coiet that the agency ia pretty silly about the matter and ooth the conservative and new deal, members of the temporary national economic committee have tacitly agreed to ignore its thun-derings. thun-derings. New York political insiders report re-port that Senator Bennett Cnsmp Clark (Mo.) takes his liMO Wnite House aspirations seriouaiy. ne end his backers are quietly busy lining up support fo, him and have made considerable headway with various organizations especially espe-cially in veterans' circles. The American Legion's twentieth twen-tieth anniversary is a break for Clark. His contact men stress the pert he played in founding the Legion and his services as its first national commander. The Missouri senator is also an active member of several other veterans' groups. Insiders understand thst Clark Is making substantial inroads on the following which ex-Governor Paul V. McNutt of Indiana had t counted as la the bag foe himself. him-self. McNutt who baa frankly been aiming tor the presidency tor years, has always made a point of cultivating support in veterans' circles He is alse an ex-Legion commander. If he cant hold this support In line, he will have mighty little left to build en for next year. We recently reported a petition to congress by the New Mexico legislature asking the federal government gov-ernment to put up a building of Its own in Santa Fe to stop federal Job holders from crowding state officials out of their quarters. Informed In-formed New Yorker advise that other state legislatures have also memorialised oongresa to give them a break In one way or another. an-other. Arkansas, for Instance, thinks It would be just dsndy If the federal fed-eral government could see its way clear to Invest social security funds In bonds of thst state as well as In U. S. securities. The legislature naively observes that this undoubtedly would Improve ' market conditions for Arkansaa bonds. In South Dakota the federal government has bought up a lot of submarginal land to benefit the farmers. Now the state legislature legis-lature is asking Uncle Sam to reimburse re-imburse its county and municipal governments from the national treasury for revenues lost when then properties ware liken off the tax rolls. The gem of the collection comes from Arizona. The securities act of 1833 made it Impossible at leant in theory to sell stock In undeveloped holes In the ground on the premise they were gold mines. Arizona politlcos seemed to feel that was a handicap to their mining min-ing Industry and protested to congress. con-gress. To help them out a law was passed authorizing the RFC to make loans up to a total of $10,000,000 to develop mining properties prop-erties upon presentation of adequate ade-quate proof that the metallurgical metallur-gical content of the proposed mines was as claimed. Very little of this money has ever been loaned, presumably be- cause the required proof was lacking. The Arizona legislature Isn't at all pleased about this and wants Jesse Jones to quit acting like a fishy-eyed banker. So it has asked congress to amend the law by relaxing the requirements require-ments as to evidence of metallurgical metallur-gical value and thus make it easier for shoestring prospectors to get financial aid from Uncle , Sam. Copyright, 1938, McClure Syndicate |