Word: leone
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Failure No. 3, in some ways more important than any, was the failure to control the sinister inflation already resulting from the defense boom. Even OPACS Boss Leon Henderson, seldom a pessimist, now gloomily admitted the U.S. was probably on the edge of credit inflation, although he could not foresee such extremes as the printing of greenbacks...
...just getting oiled this week. It began to open offices throughout the country, train a field staff, hold meetings to explain itself to businessmen. It announced three weapons to enforce compliance with its orders: publicity, restriction of supplies, lawsuits. Manufacturers of peacetime goods did well to contemplate the growth. Leon Henderson, waiting for new legislation on the price front, turned his attention to civilian supply. First move: obtaining (from OPM, which administers all priorities) priority status for such essential civilian industries as transportation, communication, utilities, food processing, farm equipment, mining. That means that orders of a bus line, for example...
Cotton crossed 15? a Ib. for the first time since 1930. It was a week in which Leon needed to have all his wits about him. Instead, he got into a tiff with Chrysler Corp., infuriated cotton Congressmen, got a very bad press, and wound up with a draft of a price-fixing law, which Congress promptly tore to pieces...
...faster prices have risen, the faster has Leon brandished his only effective weapon over them-his jawbone. By last week he reminded even his friends of Hugh Johnson at the climax of NRA. Chrysler, Ford, Hudson, Nash, Studebaker had all announced price increases ranging from $10 to $53 a car. Henderson wired them a request to rescind the increase; Chrysler refused. So Leon let Chrysler have it. If everybody were as uncooperative as Chrysler, he said, the whole country's price stability would be undermined...
...press was quick to detect the new menace in such a rule. Said the New York Times: "In effect OPACS has been attempting to control prices by asking for voluntary reductions in profits." Said the Wall Street Journal: "Profits ... are not the business of Mr. Henderson." Leon remained philosophical. "The honeymoon is over," he told a Congressional committee. He prepared to set price ceilings for the whole auto industry when the new model year begins. His present powers (which, apart from his jawbone, depend on the vague and drastic commandeering powers of the President) may by then be supplemented...