Inflation Is Already Here

LET'S TRY TO CONTROL IT

By HENRY MORGENTHAU, Secretary of the Treasury

Delivered before the Advertising Club, Boston, Mass., September 9, 1941

Vital Speeches of the Day, Vol. VII, pp. 723-726

ONLY twenty miles from here, at Lexington and Concord, the men of New England first proved that Americans could defend their homes and their freedom. Today, the people of these States are proving that they are still New Englanders.

In Army camps and naval stations, in hundreds of factories and shipyards from Connecticut to Maine, the men and women of New England are responding magnificently to their country's needs. I am glad to be here tonight to pay my tribute to the great work that New England is doing, like all other sections of the country, to arm America. I am glad also that my host tonight is the Advertising

Club of Boston, for the advertising profession is a mighty force in creating public understanding. We cannot make ourselves the arsenal of democracy and the defender of freedom unless our people understand the tremendous issues involved in this Battle for the World.

In the same way, we at the Treasury shall find it more difficult to accomplish our task of financing the defense program unless the public sees clearly the need for greater sacrifice and for greater effort.

Warns of Evils of Inflation

In particular, I think that clear understanding is needed if we are to avoid the economic evils that might otherwise spring from a defense program as great as ours, a program that is making such enormous demands upon our productive resources. The worst of those economic evils has been constantly uppermost in my mind as Secretary of the Treasury. That is the evil of inflation and that is the subject which I should like to discuss with you tonight.

We have been talking about inflation for a long time as if it were a threat remote from our daily lives. It is a distant threat no longer. We are facing it now, and we must deal with it at once.

If we are selfish or shortsighted in facing this issue, the consequences may haunt us and our children for years. But if we look at the problem with clear vision and firm resolve, we can beat this thing. If we keep always in mind the interests of our country as a whole, if we provide promptly the appropriate means and use them vigorously whenever necessary, we can prevent inflation from fastening its grip upon us.

That task calls for alertness and mental toughness on the part of every one in the executive departments of the government, every one in the halls of Congress, every one of us here in this room and every one who may be listening to me tonight.

Inflation of 1916 Is Recalled

The word "inflation" is cold and lifeless, so cold that even you advertising men here tonight might have difficulty in making it real, but the thing it describes is treacherous and cruel.

Memories are so short that I suppose many of us have forgotten what happened the last time a price inflation struck us twenty-five years ago. The effects of that inflation, however, lasted for many years and brought untold heartbreak and misery in their train.

Let us look at the record to see what happened a generation ago. In 1916 the cost of living began to rise sharply but there were few who saw its significance. It was only when prices had risen by 70 per cent that President Wilson recommended any steps to prevent inflation.

In fact, the country was so blind to its dangers that as late as June, 1917, Congress actually hastened the rise in prices by reducing the reserve requirements for member hanks of the Federal Reserve System.

The consequences were so serious for every American that there must be many housewives even today who can remember them. By 1920, a ten-pound bag of sugar cost $2.67, a dozen eggs cost 92 cents, a ten-pound bag of flour cost 88 cents, a pound of butter cost 76 cents and a pound of pork chops cost 50 cents.

By that year prices had skyrocketed to twice the level of five years earlier. The money the housewife paid for one loaf of bread in 1914 bought only half a loaf in 1920. The money she paid for a pound of bacon in 1914 bought only half a pound in 1920.

Analogies to Present Discussed

The money she paid for a yard of cotton cloth was onlyenough to buy only one-third of a yard in 1920. The consumer found that food, fuel, shelter and clothing which cost a dollar in April, 1916, had risen to almost two dollars by 1920. The family with no increase in income found its purchasing power cut in half.

We have now, as we had then in 1916, a moderate rise in the cost of living, a great rise in wholesale prices and a still greater rise in the prices of basic commodities like wheat, hogs, cotton and lumber. It is the rise in the prices of basic commodities that constitutes our red light, our warning signal, today, for such a rise is always the advance guard of an increase in the cost of living.

If we fail to use the controls at our disposal now, if we fail to do the specific things which are in our power to check inflation now, if we allow prices to go on rising, as they did from 1916 to 1920, we may find that food, fuel, shelter and clothing which now cost a dollar will once more cost almost twice as much before the process has ended.

The rise in prices is by no means confined to foodstuffs and clothing. I have before me, for instance, the actual figures on the cost of constructing a standard six-room frame house in one of our typical cities. This home that could have been built a year ago for $6,000 now costs $7,140 to build. Here we have an increase in prices of nearly 20 per cent, and if it goes along the 1916 pattern, we are only at the beginning of the story.

Says Higher Rentals Are on Way

Not only is the cost of building homes rising, but higher rentals are also on the way for the millions who do not own their homes. In scores of areas where industrial expansion has first taken hold, rents have already risen 10, 20, 30 per cent, and even higher.

I have brought with me tonight a pictorial chart which I wish the radio audience could see because it shows so plainly the road we traveled once and the road which we must not travel again. The chart shows how the buying power of your dollar shrank from 1914 to 1920, how your dollar bought less food, less clothing, less shelter, less heat and light because prices were allowed to run away.

It shows how your dollar is already buying less in 1941 than in 1939, and it leaves a big question mark for the space showing what your dollar may buy in 1942. The answer to that question is in our keeping as Americans, whether we are officials of the government or private citizens.

And I have written on the chart, alongside the question mark, the words: "Answer depends on us." We must decide now, this year, we in Washington and you in the country at large, whether we shall have the common sense and determination to avoid what we went through twenty-five years ago.

Let it not be said of us, as David Lloyd George said of his people in 1915, that we were "too late in coming to this decision, too late in starting with enterprises, too late in preparing."

Awareness of Peril Is Stressed

There is no excuse for us to be too late in meeting this threat of inflation that faces us. We now know, or ought to know, what is going on; that is perhaps the greatest difference between conditions today and in 1916.

This time our eyes are open to the dangers that lie ahead of us. We now know that the time to do something about inflation is before it occurs, not after it has gathered momentum. We should profit by our greater knowledge and take prompt and effective action now.

There is no need for me to remind this audience in detail of the reasons why prices have already risen. The reasons are plain for every one to see. Our economy today resembles

an overloaded steam boiler. The fire under the boiler is being fed by billions o  additional purchasing power in the hands of the public.

The fire is growing hotter and is generating more steam than the boiler can safely hold. If we are to prevent the boiler from bursting, we must damp down the fires by diverting spending away from those articles or commodities in which there is a shortage, actual or potential. We must damp down the fires also by increasing the flow of supplies of goods available to the consumer.

We can, as I have said before, defeat this threat of inflation, just as we can defeat and destroy the forces of evil that have been let loose upon this earth. But we need to understand the issues and we need to see clearly the consequences of inaction or delay. I should like, therefore, to point out, first, what we have done and then, what we need to do, in order to stop prices from rising further.

Remedies Are Considered

In the first place, Congress is on the point of passing a huge tax bill designed to raise almost $4,000,000,000 in additional revenue, thus withdrawing a great amount of purchasing power that competes with the defense effort.

Secondly, the Treasury in its borrowing program is trying to obtain as large a portion of its funds as possible from current consumers' income.

Through a new form of note, the tax anticipation note, it is seeking to increase the effectiveness of the income tax as a check on current purchasing power, and I am happy to report to you that more than $1,000,000,000 worth of these notes were sold in the month of August.

The Treasury has also begun a program of selling Defense Savings Bonds and Stamps to people of moderate and low incomes. The people have responded to a tune of $1,250,000,000 in four months, without coercion of any kind; and in making that response possible the advertising profession has been of truly invaluable help.

The President has recently issued an order authorizing the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to control consumers' installment credit.

The Congress is considering, and I hope will pass without undue delay, a bill to limit price rises and to supplement the efforts of the Office of Price Administration to limit those rises by voluntary cooperation.

All these are useful steps to a necessary end, but they are not enough.

Heavier Taxes Next Year Likely

We shall have to tax ourselves much more heavily next year than this year, great and far-reaching as the present tax bill will be.

We shall have to invest much more widely and systematically in Defense Savings Bonds and Stamps. In particular, the rising payrolls of the past year have been a clear call to the wage-earners of America to set aside a portion of their earnings each week for their own good and their country's good.

We may have to extend general controls over bank credit and create controls over selected capital expenditures.

I hope that we may extend the social security program so as to increase the flow of funds to the Treasury from current income during the emergency and increase the outflow of funds when needed in the post-defense period.

In addition, I have already suggested the creation of what I have called "a separation wage," that is, an entirely new form of contribution out of which a worker may draw a regular wage for a stated period in case he loses his job.

These measures would be good and desirable in themselves, but they are especially necessary at this time, for theyshould help us to decrease certain forms of purchasing now and increase them in the future when they may be needed.

We must, as I have said many times, reduce nonessential Federal expenditures. We must also appeal for economy in State and local government expenditure and a curtailment of their borrowing for non-defense purposes.

Veto of Highway Bill Is Cited

The President pointed the way a month ago when he vetoed a bill calling for $320,000,000 worth of highway construction. By this action he demonstrated that there is a clear distinction nowadays between the spending that is necessary for defense and the spending that can be postponed until a later day.

The country should congratulate itself on the President's veto of this measure, and also upon the Senate's action only last week in approving the creation of a joint committee of the taxing and the appropriating agencies of Congress to study the possibilities of economy all along the line in non-defense activities.

I have several times suggested the creation of such a committee and I am very happy that my suggestion has been adopted by the Senate at last. I hope now that the House will also approve the idea, because it seems to me that such joint action is the only sensible way to proceed if we are to cut the costs of government and clear the decks for defense spending.

All the measures I have so far suggested for combating inflation would attack the problem of reducing the demand for goods now and by helping to build up a backlog of purchasing power for the post-war world.

Increase of Goods Is Suggested

But we should also attack the problem from the opposite direction. We must make every effort to increase the supply of goods available to the consumer wherever this can be done without encroaching upon the defense program. Above all, we must make full use of those supplies that are available, not only in defense production, but in the provision of civilian goods which do not compete with defense output.

This is a time when we must flatten the peaks and fill up the valleys in our economic picture. If we reduce undesirable purchasing now and keep prices down now, we shall be helping to provide for the day when these vast defense expenditures will end and when our defense workers will take up the work of peace again.

The most effective way to prevent a damaging rise in prices is, quite simply, to release surpluses from storage.

I wonder if the housewife knows, when she pays 15 per cent more than she did a year ago for a bag of flour, that our supply of wheat is the largest on record, and that 498,000,000 bushels of several years' crops are available in our neighbor democracy of Canada.

It is true that only three months ago a rigid quota was applied to the importation of wheat from Canada with the ultimate objective of keeping up the price of wheat in this country. But it is also true that only the other day the quota on sugar from Cuba was enlarged so substantially as to absorb most of the reserve stocks in that country.

It seems to me desirable and necessary that we now follow the example set in the case of Cuban sugar and permit the entry of Canadian wheat in larger volume.

Release of Reserves Is Urged

Here in this country we have large reserve stocks of farm products of many kinds which should be released for consumption as fast as necessary to prevent unreasonable price rises.

The government now holds or controls 7,000,000 bales ofcotton in reserve, and cotton prices have risen from cents a pound on August 1, 1939, to over 17 cents a pound at the present time.

In spite of this rise of not far from 100 per cent in two years, Congress recently sent to the President a bill to freeze government stocks of cotton and wheat for the duration of the war, and thus to prevent the government from disposing of any of the surplus wheat and cotton it had acquired.

The President promptly vetoed the bill because this measure would have aggravated the danger of inflation and might have frustrated our efforts to fight it.

We ought not to withhold cotton surpluses, or any surpluses, from the market in times like these. The housewife ought not to be made to pay a tribute to profiteers and speculators when she buys a cotton sheet for her home or a shirt for her husband or a suit for her child.

Millions of people still go without the milk, butter and eggs which, according to the testimony of food experts and the dictates of plain common sense, are necessary to good health and good morale. Yet the reserve stocks of butter, cheese, beef and pork now held in this country are far higher than they were a year ago and far higher than the average of the past five years.

Artificial Scarcities Scored

This has been historically a land of milk and honey. There is still plenty of milk and honey, but too much of it is in the warehouses. Let's make it flow. If we were to let it flow to the public we would not only help in keeping prices stable but we would be doing something even more important: we would be helping to make our people healthier and happier.

It is sheer folly from the farmer's point of view to push prices up by creating scarcities in times like these. The farmers suffered cruelly for twelve long years after the collapse of the inflation of 1920 and 1921; they should not be made to suffer again.

It is sheer folly in the same way for labor leaders to seek new increases in wages every few months, new increases which in turn produce higher manufacturing costs, higher prices and a higher cost of living.

It is shortsighted for a landlord to charge all that thetraffic will bear in defense centers where housing space is at a premium.

It is poor business, in the long run, for any business man to seek exorbitant profits in this period of defense spending.

It is bad banking, in the long run, for any banker to exploit the present demand for funds by seeking to charge unreasonable interest rates.

There are always selfish groups in any country which think they can profit from inflation. They are wrong.

Inflation does more than merely to rob the wage-earner of a portion of his earnings. It does more than saddle the farmer with a load of debt which he cannot repay. It is more destructive of morale than any other single force.

Disruption of Inflation Pictured

Inflation divides the country. It sets up producers against consumers, workers against employers, the people who owe money against the people to whom the money is owed.

No group in a community profits from inflation in the long run except the Three Horsemen, the Speculator, the Profiteer and the Hoarder.

These are truths that should be self-evident. They should be especially so now, in view of the fact that rising prices will only add to the cost of our defense program and making the arming of our country steadily more difficult. They should be self-evident now in the light of the experience that we suffered only twenty-five years ago.

We Americans have more than 150 years of self-government behind us. We are a mature nation and we should be able to face up to our responsibilities as mature men and women. My plea to you tonight is that we should learn from bitter experience. My hope and my belief is that no group among us, whether farmers, working men or businessmen, shall be tempted by the illusion of selfish gain into allowing prices to rise unchecked.

The cost of inflation is too ruinous to producer and consumer alike for any one in authority to tolerate it now. I can give you only this pledge, that this Administration will do everything humanely possible to prevent inflation. But in this fight the Administration must have the firm support and the clear understanding of 130,000,000 behind it. If we have that support and that understanding, I know that we shall not fail.