Stacks of mail were coming to Congressmen, demanding that something be done about rising prices. Like a scared herd, they reacted first in chaos and confusion (TIME, Aug. 14); then almost by stampede, as Administration leaders cracked the whip over them. The House, which had ineffectually tried the week before to ad-lib some sort of law, let Chairman Brent Spence's Banking & Currency Committee write a bill behind committee doors. It passed the House by a lopsided, anticlimactic vote of 383 to 12.*
The House bill gave the President almost all he wanted—power...
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