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Show Price Controls May Result From Special Congressional Session By RICHARD LA COSTE WASHINGTON, D. C. The gaunt, gray ghost that stalked Philadelphia's Convention Hall, July 13, as the disorganized Democrats Dem-ocrats nominated Harry S. Truman Tru-man for President may yet return, re-turn, July 26, at the special session ses-sion of Congress called for by the President. The ghost, as everyone knows, was that of an ideological FDR whom the Democrats Dem-ocrats dialectically were running for a fifth term. The ghostlike glamor which will haunt the special session in our nation's capitol is the twirt threat of inflation in-flation and price controls. Though Truman has been both voluble and vituperative in his denunciations against the GOP-controlled GOP-controlled Congress regarding inflation and the high cost of living, actually it' was. a- Democratic-controlled Congress which lifted price controls late in 1946. Politicians predict that Truman Tru-man now will demand a return to price control for basic foodstuffs, food-stuffs, meat leading the list. As meat supplies are hitting an all-time all-time low and income-per-family an all-time high, political pressure pres-sure for controls on' meats may be greater than Republican resistance. re-sistance. Especially might this be true in an election year. Despite optimistic though fluctuating fluc-tuating figures for the corn crop I and other feed grains, indica-I indica-I tions continue to reflect steadily spiraling meat prices for the next nine months, Farmers throughout through-out the nation have been unable to resist sending their slocker and feeder cattle to slaughter at some of the fanciest prices paid in U. S. history, thus increasing future shortages. In addition, although al-though normally pork becomes the secondary choice of meat-hungry meat-hungry Americans when' beef is high", there will be less pork this year. Fewer hogs will go to market mar-ket this fall and next spring, and with a 3-billion bushel corn crop predicted, feeders will hold more stock for fattening. All of this boils down to' the basic and elementary fact that demand will far exceed the supply sup-ply at all times within the foreseeable fore-seeable future. Flanked on one side by ever-increasing consumer consum-er criticism and on the other by political pressure from press and public. Congress will do well to hold the line against the clamping clamp-ing down of price controls. With war over, it is less likely that price controls will work, farmers point out. Lastly, overseas commitments, an' increasing defense program, recent meat strikes throughout the land, proposed shipments abroad of grains and speculations specula-tions in the commodity markets all these amount to the ir-restible ir-restible force against which lower low-er prices for more meat is the immovable object. Standing against all this public pub-lic pressure is the farmer and the grower and the stockman whose margin of profit is slowly slow-ly reaching the law of diminish ing returns. Can these men as a group survive restrictive controls con-trols in this decreasing meat market? mar-ket? No one has or will give you an answer to that $64 .question. |