Biggest challenge to OPA's new get-tough enforcement program is neither the tire bootlegger nor the gas-coupon clipper but the widespread evasion of controls on rent. OPA last week swung one of its hardest punches, ordered rents reduced and stabilized on Oct. 1 in 54 more defense-rental areas scattered across the whole country, bringing under federal rent control areas where a total of 50,000,000 people live. In 53 of these areas rents are cut back to March i levels; in the 54th (Chateau, Okla.) the ceiling is based on the preceding October.
Black rent might some day be the "sick chicken"* threatening the...