Word: leon
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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There was no vacation in prospect for Leon. He left the committee room with the same powers over prices he had when he entered: none at all except those he could exercise through OPM's priorities section. But prices were still shooting up and it was still his job to keep them down. He was supposed to slay the dragon of inflation with a rubber sword...
...committee's recess meant at least a full month's delay before any action would be taken on the price bill. Moreover, the committee's two-week needling of Leon & bill made clear that there were further delays ahead. Members would return with enough questions to last till Christmas. Only thing likely to hasten them: a price rise so steep that the entire nation yelled in pain. Then a law might be too late...
...bill permitted farm prices to go to 110% of parity, farm-bloc Congressmen wanted the figure raised to 120%. Because it provided for no wage controls, right-wing Congressmen thought they saw a New Deal plot to squeeze manufacturers. Republicans and conservative Democrats alike objected to putting control in Leon's New Dealish hands, wanted to create instead a five-man board...
Comic-Opera Finish. One day red-hunting Martin Dies charged on the floor of the House that Henderson had sponsored Communist-controlled organizations. At the next committee hearing Leon jumped to his feet, blurted that Dies was "not a responsible member of Congress." When Georgia's Edward Eugene Cox described him as "a man operating under the alias Leon Henderson," Leon angrily cited his family tree back to 1800 to prove that he was no alien with an Anglicized name. Winding up like a badly written comic opera, the hearings proved only that politics and economics cannot speak...
...Leon Henderson, all he could do was go back to his office, announce more price ceilings, hope that by some miracle they would be obeyed. Last week he put ceilings on raw sugar, burlap, copper, pig tin, pine lumber. But bootlegging has put holes in Leon's previous ceilings and doubtless will continue to riddle his new ones...