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Show Personal Mail Exerts Big Influence on Congressman Dy BAUKIIAGE Neum Analyst and Commentator. WNU Service, 1616 Eye Street, N.W., Washington, D. C. There is great mail mystery In Washington which public reaction sleuths are try- lug to solve. Re- p!"'"58',r3 cent reactions of ' f" ; . ; 1 congress pre- 'V j sents a paradox. , V J In fact, a pair of r vJ paradoxes. 'tf ' j i Gradually, one " I jfI by one. like a I R.t maiden pluck- .NllM ing daisy petals !y f l to learn her fate rf " and fortune, con- I .JjCiJu gress has been flf' stripping the t'J " poor office of LHJ price administration adminis-tration of its powers, until said agency has little more control over prices than man over a skidding car on an icy pavement. And yet, according to recent polls, 82 per cent of the public is in favor of "holding the line." The March survey by that reliable poller, NORC (National Opinion Research Center of Denver university) among other similar groups, points this out. When the house virtually stripped OPA of its powers late in April, letters let-ters poured in supporting the agency, agen-cy, since then its head, Paul Porter, Por-ter, using the publicity machine built up by his predecessor, Stabilization Stabili-zation Director Bowles, has omitted omit-ted no word or act to keep his side of the arguments against ceiling-smashing ceiling-smashing before the consumer. Although Al-though congress la not now being needled as heavily as it was at the peak of the house debate, plenty of people are still asking for OPA continuation. con-tinuation. At the same time, of course, anti-control anti-control forces are keeping up their pressure both through lobbyists of the interested groups, and through the paid advertising of the Nntinnnl Manufacturers' association, and other Industrial organizations. But as far as any one can gauge, the people themselves still wnnt price control. Nevertheless, con-Cress con-Cress has managed to whittle it down, and many observers, at this writing, consider it as among the dead already. That is one mystery. Another was provided In the recent move on the part of the President, with his emergency emer-gency strike bill, and on the part of congress, with the reinforced Cose bill. Up until the unions threatened to tie up the railroads and Ignored government gov-ernment orders, there was no chance to get any labor-control measure through congress. But the people wanted something, and when the President offered it, he received response in the way of letters and telegrams such as the White House has not known in the memory of its present staff, some of whom have served there since the days of Wood-row Wood-row Wilson. Now I know that some of my readers, like many of my listeners, will see nothing strange in this apparent ap-parent Indifference to the popular will on the part of congress. A lot of letters I receive Indicate that a great many people think congress con-gress pays no attention to the voter. This Is laughably inaccurate. The voice of the voter is the one thing a congressman obeys. In spite of this fact, 81 per cent of the people, If our old friend, NORC, is right, as it has proved to be on many occasions, oc-casions, believe that congress depends de-pends more on its own Judgment than on public opinion. Of course, the reason for this Impression Im-pression Is that the organized voters, the ones which some organization organ-ization controls, form the congressman's congress-man's Judgment because they are the most vocal. They make them-selves them-selves heard in person, through their membership, and the people whom they influence. In the two recent questions I have mentioned: labor control and price control, you have two powerful power-ful lobbies at work the unions and the industrial organizations, but pulling in opposite directions. I am not saying that either is right or wrong in the views they express and the causes they advocate. advo-cate. I am soylng that they are active and powerful And also that they naturally promulgate ideas In their own interest. If these Interests Inter-ests happen to be the public's, as well, fine. If not. . . . Mont of the congressional sec-retaries sec-retaries I know well enough to talk with frankly support this view. Ex-cept, Ex-cept, of course, when some strange political deal is Involved, whereby the congressman feels It safer to displease some of his constituency because of Its indifference, than to disregard the pressure brought upon him by other forces in or out of congress. This particular Inquiry by the Quarterly showed legislators rated the various Influences on them, as follows: (1) personal mall; (2) visits TO the public; (3) newspapers; (4) visits vis-its FROM the public; and (5) public pub-lic opinion polls. The bearing which these figures have on the importance of writing your congressman, in my opinion, is this: they show that mall IS important, im-portant, and that when letters at one end of the spectrum of importance impor-tance jibe with the poll (at the other end), It certainly puts a burr under the legislator's vote. Afore People in Buying Market Recently, I said over the air that America was eating better, and eating more than It had ever eaten before. Immediately I received a squall of stormy letters, vehemently vehement-ly denying my statement. All of the writers regaled me with the same tale which my wife brings home each day that the grocer's and the butcher's shelves are almost bare. Nevertheless, America is eating better and more food. Americans who ate a yearly average of 127 pounds of meat before the war are now gobbling It at the rate of ISO pounds apiece. This statement is from Fortune magazine, a periodical periodi-cal not noted for making false statements. state-ments. You and I cannot get everything we want, but we aren't all of America Amer-ica by a long way. You and I have always had meat virtually every day in the week. But millions of people in this country never had meat more than once or twice a week. These mil- PUBLIC'S SPENDABLE INCOME 1 X 1939 ( ''til J 1946 1 4i3a-f Est.maU based lfcV?? alstqoarUr. II BILLION vi Ftgimi fna Drputouri d CsramNt, " Hons of people have more money today than they have ever had, but you, if you are one of the people who wrote me, probably never were conscious of that fact The little graph shows the facts. These figures on which it is based are compiled by the department of commerce, and the most anti-admtn-lstratlon banker you know won't doubt them. They show, as you see, that in 1039, the public's spendable income was 68 billion dollars. The estimate for 1M6 Is 139 billion. Now your common sense will tell you that the people who ate meat every day didn't get all of that 71 billion dollar increase in their spending money. The low-Income groups got a large part of It In other words. America (as whole) Is eating more meat (and other things) than it ever did before, and because so many MORE people are eating so much MORE meat, there isn't as much left for the people who ate all they wanted before. The discussion of how much America is eating arose In connection connec-tion with the question as to our ability abil-ity to help feed starving Europe and Aula. Some people believed that because be-cause they couldn't buy as many things at the store as they were accustomed to buying, America didn't have enough to spare. But the people (you and I) who can't get all of what we want are in no danger of starving. We can get things we may not like, but which will be Just as good for us. And also, we can be assured that the people, who, In America's past, have been near the danger lines, are getting a lot mora than they ever had before. And they weren't starving then, either. So don't think that we haven't enough to spare tor the invisible guest. |