Fighting for the return of the $2 shirt and the 98¢ cotton housedress, Chester Bowles last week led his Office of Price Administration into another skirmish. He ordered some 309,000 retailers' mark-up of clothing and some household furnishings prices frozen at March 19 levels.
The order had merit, and no fair-minded merchant sniped at its objective. Bowles wanted to be sure that the strong-armed rollback of textile manufacturers' prices (TIME, Dec. 4, March 5) is passed on to consumers instead of swelling retailers' profits.
But, to be fair, OPA may still have to admit that it had moved in too abruptly on...
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