Dec 12,1948 Sept. 1949 ROGGE GIVES TALK HELD UP IN MEXICO FINANCIAL mes. Mildly Criticizes Soviet but BUSINESS OPPORTUNITI DenouncesU.S.-Mrs.Robeson Reaches 'Peace' Congress , By WILLIAM P. CARNEY THE FINANCIAL WEEK Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES. MEXICO CITY, Sept. 9-After having been bypassed for three days on various pretexts, O. John Rogge, former Assistant United Congressional Hearing on Profits Brings Conflicting States Attorney General, finally was allowed to speak today to the Opinions-Stocks in Narrow Range Continental Congress for Peace. His criticisms of Soviet Russia in the advance copy of the speech By JOHN G. FORREST distributed Tuesday remained in the rewritten version he delivered, Financial Editor but they were buried in a much Cross currents of opinion on ception to this stand and aver that greater volume of denunciation of economic conditions held the atten- if labor would "do an honest day the United States Government for tion of financial observers last work" and step up production il "suppression of civil liberty." week. The principal target was keeping with technological im Mr. Rogge observed that "today business profits, although the re- provements and new equipment those who are unorthodox are adjustment in industry to post-war prices would not necestarily ris labeled subversives." He continued: realities through cut-backs in em- but, in fact, could be lowered. "I have thought that one element ployment also contributed to the That management is not anxiou of our strength lay in our right to confusion. to keep prices up is indicated b be radical-to be heretics. I for More generous disbursements to the increasing number of lay-offs one am going to insist on my right stockholders in the form of divi- now extending into the heart to be a heretic. If enough of us dends failed to stimulate the stock the industrial Midwest. While not in the United States will do that market. Trading in the New York of alarming proportions at the maybe we shall stay a free coun- Stock Exchange remained slightly moment, nevertheless the mo try." above the million-share mark daily, ment is a straw in the wind that Mrs. Paul Robeson, wife of the with the turnover in low-price buyers are resisting upstairs Negro baritone and who will speak shares helping to bolster the vol- prices and doing business in the to the Congress in his place Sun- ume. Price changes were for the basement. Department-store sales day, arrived at the airport here too most part held within a narrow are lagging. behind a year ago. Al late to reach the meeting place range. Toward the end of the though the decline has been at and hear Mr. Rogge declare week a somewhat firmer market tributed to a number of reasons, What is happening in the United lifted prices slightly. including warm weather, one offi- States is that we have been going At a hearing before a joint Sen- cial frankly stated that the "gap down the road to fascism and how ate-House subcommittee, which is between the Christmas shopping far we have already gone was just seeking information on the subject list and the shoppers' budget is shown by the frightful attempts of profits for the guidance of Con- the main reason why business is of rioting mobs in Peekskill, N.Y. gress on taxation, money controls, off. to break up meetings at which rationing and wages, it was Meanwhile, the subject of the Paul Robeson was to speak and brought out that the so-called Government's bond-pegging prac- sing. "huge" profits were unreal. This tice came in for further attention. "Making second-class citizens resulted from accounting methods Aubrey G. Lanston, executive vice out of Negroes has become a pol- which failed to reflect accurately president of the First Boston Cor- icy of the Government t of the "new conditions and new prob- poration, stated that it is "both United States. Some of our prej- lems." However, with more weeks too late and too early" to abandon udices are so deeply ingrained that of hearings, many other facts will supporting prices for Treasury we often practice them without be- be shown by labor leaders, indus- bonds. The Investment Bankers ing aware of it. How many whites trialists and interested citizens. Association at its convention in in the United States have ever in- One of the first to appear was Florida was told that some bank- vited a Negro into their homes? Prof. Sumner H. Slichter of Har- ing opinion favored price pegging, The Federal loyalty check has been vard, who decried the idea that but J. Stewart Baker, chairman of used to discriminate against Jews profits were excessive. He later the Bank of the Mahattan Com- and Negroes. was supported in his view by Prof. pany, criticized the practice. On "Those in control of our country W. A. Paton of the University of top of this, the Committee for Eco- have devised new ways of destroy- Michigan, who added that business nomic Development urged, among ing our freedom. is deducting costs, particularly de- other things, a modification of the "Whenever I came into contact preciation, in terms of a dollar policy. with any of the Russians I told worth two or three times what it As the steel industry continued them ironically enough, that they is now," resulting in an overstate- operations at 100 per cent of the- did not have sufficient freedom ment of earnings. George D. oretical capacity last week, the for political minorities in their Bailey, member of a large Detroit loose thinking of some Government country. Then my country tries accounting firm, concurred. officials regarding the industry's to bring about the same condition Representatives of organized la- problems was indicated in a state- for which criticized the Russians. bor heard by the committee took a ment made by Assistant Secretary The solution to our troubles-an different view. Smaller profits and of Interior C. Girard Davidson. He I believe they stem from causes lower prices, they say, will solve advocated that "Government itself which are more economic than the present inflation dilemma. Nel- must build the steel plants as it political-will have to be found by son H. Cruikshank of the Ameri- did during the war" if the steel our own citizens. For my part I can Federation of Labor warned industry objected to expanding. am helping to buil: in my country that labor "cannot refrain from More than a million gross tons a new progressive party under the asking maximum wage increases" capacity have been cut-in this leadership of Henry A. Wallace." f business does not cooperate to year, and a similar amount will be Mr. Rogge then advanced his keep prices in check. Another added in 1949. Mr. Davidson evi- labor official said "the practice of dently is unaware that it would be suggestion of a Chinese Recon- struction Finance Corporation and Industry to raise prices and thus physically impossible to create added some milder criticism of the its profits will do more to bring further additional capacity in less Soviet Union as being as guilty as on depression and reduce pro- than two or three years And it the United States of playing "pow- duction than any other single de- would take presently needed steel for construction. Thus to para- er politics" in China. cision." This would seem to indicate that phrase the comment of Peter Fin- The capital's leading newspapers ley Durine's famous character. Mr. are treating the Congress as a considers business entirely Dooley: "It may make headlines. completley Communist project di- ponsible for current high prices. rected from Moscow and have Various industrial leaders take ex- but it don't make sense. given prominence to an interview with the leader of President Miguel Aleman's party of Revolutionary Institutions declaring war on com- munism in Mexico as being defined by the President himself as "an alien ideology that brings only misery.