Report Outline
Administration's Concern Over Rising Prices
Price Changes in Depression and Recovery
Experiments in Direct Control of Prices
Curbing of High Prices by Indirect Means
Special Focus
Administration's Concern Over Rising Prices
Administration fears that sound recovery was being threatened by rapidly rising prices were given forcible expression April 2, when President Roosevelt declared that prices of steel, copper, and other basic commodities had gone too high, and that the government would seek to check the movement by curtailing its purchases of durable goods. Similar warnings against inflationary price increases in general had been uttered a fortnight earlier by three other prominent administration members. Marriner S. Eccles, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, in a statement March 15 urged “vigorous government intervention with all the powers at its command to deal directly with the causes that might endanger the progress of a stable and enduring recovery.” On March 17 Secretary of Agriculture Wallace conceded that “all of us are afraid of a repetition of the 1929 boom.” He implied that the administration might seek new powers to avert such a development. Secretary of Commerce Roper on the same day spoke of “danger signals,” including unjustified price increases, and cautioned against “unguarded business booms.”
On April 26 the President supplemented his price statement with a warning to government employees to refrain from speculation in stocks, bonds, or commodities. The next day, in a letter to Vice President Garner, he asked that Congress postpone action on the Tydings-Miller resale price-maintenance bill, saying:
The present hazard of undue advances in prices, with a resultant rise in the cost of living, makes it most untimely to legalize any competitive or marketing practice calculated to facilitate increases in the cost of numerous and important articles which American householders, and consumers generally, buy. |
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New Deal, Great Depression, and Economic Recovery |
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Feb. 20, 2009 |
Public-Works Projects |
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Jul. 25, 1986 |
New Deal for the Family |
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Apr. 04, 1973 |
Future of Social Programs |
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Nov. 18, 1944 |
Postwar Public Works |
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Apr. 12, 1941 |
Public Works in the Post-Emergency Period |
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Mar. 08, 1940 |
Integration of Utility Systems |
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Feb. 26, 1938 |
The Permanent Problem of Relief |
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Jun. 08, 1937 |
Experiments in Price Control |
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Jan. 05, 1937 |
Credit Policy and Control of Recovery |
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Nov. 27, 1936 |
New Deal Aims and the Constitution |
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Oct. 16, 1936 |
Father Coughlin vs. the Federal Reserve System |
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Sep. 25, 1936 |
Roosevelt Policies in Practice |
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Feb. 11, 1936 |
Conditional Grants to the States |
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Dec. 11, 1935 |
Capital Goods Industries and Recovery |
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Sep. 25, 1935 |
Unemployment Relief Under Roosevelt |
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Jul. 17, 1935 |
The R.F.C. Under Hoover and Roosevelt |
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Jul. 03, 1935 |
Six Months of the Second New Deal Congress |
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Jun. 04, 1935 |
The Supreme Court and the New Deal |
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Mar. 05, 1935 |
Public Works and Work Relief |
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Feb. 16, 1935 |
Organized Labor and the New Deal |
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Dec. 04, 1934 |
Rural Electrification and Power Rates |
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Oct. 26, 1934 |
Federal Relief Programs and Policies |
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Jul. 25, 1934 |
Distribution of Federal Emergency Expenditures |
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Jul. 17, 1934 |
Debt, Credit, and Recovery |
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May 25, 1934 |
The New Deal in the Courts |
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Mar. 27, 1934 |
Construction and Economic Recovery |
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Mar. 19, 1934 |
Price Controls Under N.R.A. |
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Feb. 15, 1934 |
Federal Promotion of State Unemployment Insurance |
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Jan. 10, 1934 |
Government and Business After the Depression |
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Jan. 02, 1934 |
The Adjustment of Municipal Debts |
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Dec. 12, 1933 |
The Machine and the Recovery Program |
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Dec. 05, 1933 |
Winter Relief, 1933–1934 |
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Nov. 11, 1933 |
Power Policies of the Roosevelt Administration |
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Oct. 28, 1933 |
Buying Power under the Recovery Program |
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Oct. 19, 1933 |
Land Settlement for the Unemployed |
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Sep. 20, 1933 |
The Capital Market and the Securities Act |
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Jul. 18, 1933 |
Public Works and National Recovery |
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Jul. 01, 1933 |
The Plan for National Industrial Control |
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May 03, 1933 |
Economic Readjustments Essential to Prosperity |
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Apr. 26, 1933 |
Government Subsidies to Private Industry |
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Mar. 25, 1933 |
Rehabilitation of the Unemployed |
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Feb. 17, 1933 |
Federal Cooperation in Unemployment Relief |
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Nov. 16, 1932 |
Systems of Unemployment Compensation |
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Nov. 09, 1932 |
Policies of the New Administration |
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Aug. 18, 1932 |
Emergency Relief Construction and Self-Liquidating Projects |
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Dec. 28, 1931 |
Relief of Unemployment |
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Aug. 01, 1931 |
National Economic Planning |
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Jul. 20, 1931 |
Dividends and Wages in Periods of Depression |
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Feb. 19, 1931 |
Insurance Against Unemployment |
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Jan. 19, 1931 |
Business Failures and Bankruptcy Administration |
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Jan. 01, 1931 |
Federal Subsidies to the States |
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Dec. 08, 1930 |
Federal Relief of Economic Distress |
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Sep. 25, 1930 |
The Extent of Unemployment |
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May 16, 1930 |
Politics and Depressions |
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Dec. 20, 1929 |
The Federal Public Works Program |
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Jun. 08, 1929 |
The Federal Reserve System and Stock Speculation |
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Apr. 14, 1928 |
The Federal Reserve System and Price Stabilization |
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Feb. 25, 1928 |
The Federal Reserve System and Brokers' Loans |
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