The Oakwood Press (Oakwood

KEEP AMERICA INDEPENDENT
By ED. WIMMER
President, Forward American Publishing Guild
Vice-President, National Federation of Independent Business, Inc.

Another magazine has come forth with another defense of A & P's stand against the government's attempt to curb its destructive powers. This time, it is the American Magazine, and the article upholding the virtues of A & P is published under the name of John Hartford, president of the big chain. The nation is being flooded with reprints, as usual, continuing A & P's policy of trying the government's case in the Court of Public Opinion; apparently hoping to force the Department of Justice to accept a compromise--or drop all charges.

The American Magazine article is no different than the rest of A & P's propaganda in that Hartford attempts to mislead the reader into believing that A & P is virtuous, and that the Department of Justice lawyers are attacking A & P because the company is "big, efficient, and sells goods for less." The head man of the company says that the "dreams of 1,000,000 American businessmen may be shattered if A & P loses its case, because a businessman's right to 'grow big' will be challenged in our courts." He even goes so far as to intimate that the Justice Department is threatening "assembly line production," and that if the Justice Department has its way, "Our American way of life will be placed in jeopardy."

Please weigh the following facts:

The A & P Company has nine per cent of the total retail food business of the United States. That means eleven more companies of the same volume could handle 100 per cent of all the retail food business. A & P was convicted of blackjacking millions of dollars out of thousands of manufacturers who were at their mercy. A & P was convicted of withholding millions of dollars given to the company by manufacturers to advertise said manufacturer's products. A & P was convicted of violating the Robinson-Patman Act by devising secret channels through which manufacturers could pour millions of dollars not given to any other buyer. A & P was convicted of setting up false front consumer organizations which disseminated propaganda favoring A & P, and A & P was found guilty of wrecking the price structure of whole farming and fruit growing areas, and of using its ill-gotten gains from its own manufacturing plants and suppliers to entrench itself in thousands of communities.

It was under such practices as this that A & P grew big; not by paying fair wages, charging fair prices or earning fair profits, as claimed. Mr. Hartford stated in his masterpiece of misinformation that when Roosevelt called for 100,000 planes, he did not appeal to the "village smithy." He says that it was our "big business that made America the Arsenal of Democracy." He also states that no company has the right to achieve lower prices and high profits by "overworking or underpaying its employees."

In the first place, no thinking American is opposed to any business because it is big, least of all the government lawyers who are handling the A & P case. So far as the "Arsenal of Democracy" is concerned, how about the 300,000 guys who are buried under white crosses--130,000 who are laying in hospital beds, and how about the boys who are wading in the blood and muck of Korea? Regarding the statement, "overworking or underpaying its employees," I give you one paragraph from a letter written by an A & P official to Division Managers, following the "death" of the NRA:

"Take the better clerks who are now working 48 hours and boost their time to 63. If you have a clerk working 48 hours, who is drawing $15.00 ... when he works 63 increase his pay accordingly. In other words, he would make $19.50. I do not think it is necessary to get into the odd cents on these clerks, so increase their salary to $19.00 a week, instead of $19.50."

That same year, A & P showed a profit of $23,000,000.