Show beers aers silent on commodity tren i rend myth of current price dip truman planned that thai way by news analyst and commentator washington it is still stil open season for economists financial experts and market wizards s it took about a week after the first drop anthe on ithe commodity market to send them into their holes up to that time you could get a prognostication anywhere from the chicago stockyards stock yards to broad and wall streets or pennsylvania avenue and street but along about the sixth day of at the dip anybody who would tell ell you whether we were facing a permanent perra anent nose dive or just weathering the blutt flutter er of a few yards of ticker tape was as rare as a vote against tax is red reduction u action that issue insua itself had changed after the sixth dip me is reason no louia win was that all of them had been making wrong credic eions ever since A I 1 cool I 1 adges permanent plateau ol of prosperity of pre depression days or hoovers c corner 0 around which prosperity was always ducking the most silent ma man in washington was secre tar tary y ol of the treas u ury ry snyder he baukhage knew that too many people remembered m e what he and others had said cald two years ago last fall fail snyder at that time director ha had d pred predicted acted that by the spring of the next year 1940 eight million people would be unemployed in fact act so many others believed that that henry wallace already dreaming of a home with white pillars on pennsylvania avenue decided to make sixty million jobs a come hither plank in his platform he wrote a book with that title and it became a best seller his book set a goal of to civilians employed by 1950 but somebody must have stolen the idea or else they W wanted anted to play a mean trick on wallace and on snyder anyhow there were 57 per bons eons employed in this country as hlll of january ali uary 1318 1948 two years early and 10 months before presidential campaign time likewise to in october of 1946 several astute washington inside stuff letter writers were saying privately to their thousands of clients and the monthly survey was saying in public print that by early 1947 prices would come down one could say ay on january ot of 1947 with considerable sid Id accuracy that tha t there was a general agreement on recession beginning soon and followed by more a little later oth other er writers predicted it a little later and some by summer were insisting that deflation already was here but bat what happened in the very year of 0 that doleful prophecy prices started on the up that took them into their all time high many other similar bad guesses might be mentioned all of which contributed toward making the prophets reticent and so when the slide came in february of this year nobody would even whisper fox for fear that not even a kit would appear they knew that nobody would believe them after all the with without out the wolf wolfing that had been going on in any case this dip drop depression or delusion whichever it turns out to be by the time these lines reach print or later will have its garland of myths and legends entwined about abou tit it the best myth of course Is th that a t mr truman planned it th that at way the blueprint Is simple enough if you a are e good at reading a blueprint between the lines prices were ge getting t too high at worst they might bring on a real depression before election at best they would bring a series of strikes and work stopp stoppages age 3 which might seriously hamper the marshall plan on the one hand and add to the discontent of the vote voters rs on the other it would be like any operation not dangerous from the surgeons point of view just a little amputation of credit at least so said doctors who work on the body economic which would let enough blood out of some businesses to cause a little unemployment enough to scare off strikes and make businessmen a little more cautious about tsiun there was some evidence that this may really have been intended because the president did ask in his november 17 message to congress for credit cont control roly and increased bank reserves however when congress said humph to that along with the presidents other recommendations ions he turned around and demoted the man who is said to have written the deflation prescription from the chairmanship of the federal reserve board marriner eccles and put in a man supposed to have more sympathy with an opposite I 1 course however we tnt spoil a good cool g story by facts there are other points which can be intro deuced to give a touch 0 verisimilitude mili tude to an otherwise not too convincing narrative the soothsayers say that several methods were pursued some of them successfully for example the president slam banged at what lie he called the gamblers in commodities who were driving darivin 9 up food prices by speculating in grain and other futures that did open a Pan doras doraa box and some of the plagues released alighted on the very rooftree tree of the white house but it also threw a scare into the marke and the markets then came the day of a white house press and radio conference when the president made a remark credited at the time by some of his friends as an unhappy slip when he said that if the cost of living was not controlled there would be a crash that got headlines frightened a lot of little fellows who pulled out their chips and combining with other evil binns released from the economists jinn bottles did the trick there are many others of these tales which will grow such as the creating of sun spots by the administrations atomic energy experts expert S but one is enough for the moment anyhow it was planned that toft taft hartley issue losing its potency there has been a lot of noise over the taft hartley act lately an and d jon the surface it looks as it the law might become an issue in the presidential campaign if that should happen it certai certainly nl y would help the prestige of senator tail taft but the old timers say it cant happen As you know last autumn right after the act went into effect a 8 lot of people felt its provisions would decide the votes in the bye elections but those elections came and went and it was hard to adduce any statistics to prove that TH T 1 H 1 had figured very much if 11 at all later on animosity against the law died down but now both the CIO and have announced their preliminary plans for campaigning 9 against the men who voted for it taft tad has used it in his campaign speeches in midwest centers where labor is strong philip murray was indicted under its provisions and both murray representing the CIO and the international typographers union have charged it is unconstitutional but the issue still falls fails to command any real drama dramatic tib interest this Is another proof of how bow a controversial issue that calls forth bitter debate and stirs up nationwide interest at the moment can fade into the background as time passes and by election day have little or no BO effect on votes it Is much like a fire that makes page I 1 because it breaks out just as an edition of an afternoon paper is going to press it may get a banner on page I 1 it if the news is light but by the next edition it may have shrunk to a single head on an inside page expands the importance of a all 11 events you may recount excitedly at dinner how you almo almost st got hit by a truck on the way to work but by tomorrow night be telling with much more gusto about a fish you caught last summer the city of washington always quails before a real snowstorm like a R pup with the hose turned on it Y U 1 1 14 1 19 7 I 1 X u V I 1 M fl tp t p Z gi 51 J FOR distinguished SERVICE E mr BIrs Franklin D roosevelt presents the national achievement vard award one ne of 1 I americas Amerl cx highest honors bonon to the tb dowager marchioness of reading readier england En cland rr for her distinguished services erTl ces to her country which have been an alf inspire lipira tion to the ali women of other countries |