Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
During this period the Congress will have an opportunity to make similar
permanent provisions and regulations with regard to all goods destined for
interstate commerce and to exclude them from interstate shipment, if the
requirements of the law are not compiled with. Some such regulation is
imperatively necessary. The abuses that have grown up in the manipulation
of prices by the withholding of foodstuffs and other necessaries of life
cannot otherwise be effectively prevented. There can be no doubt of either
the necessity of the legitimacy of such measures.
As I pointed out in my last message, publicity can accomplish a great deal
in this campaign. The aims of the Government must be clearly brought to the
attention of the consuming public, civic organizations and state officials,
who are in a position to lend their assistance to our efforts. You have
made available funds with which to carry on this campaign, but there is no
provision in the law authorizing their expenditure for the purpose of
making the public fully informed about the efforts of the Government.
Specific recommendation has been made by the Attorney General in this
regard. I would strongly urge upon you its immediate adoption, as it
constitutes one of the preliminary steps to this campaign.
I also renew my recommendation that the Congress pass a law regulating cold
storage as it is regulated, for example, by the laws of the State of New
Jersey, which limit the time during which goods may be kept in storage,
prescribe the method of disposing of them if kept beyond the permitted
period, and require that goods released from storage shall in all cases
bear the date of their receipt. It would materially add to the
serviceability of the law, for the purpose we now have in view, if it were
also prescribed that all goods released from storage for interstate
shipment should have plainly marked upon each package the selling or market
price at which they went into storage. By this means the purchaser would
always be able to learn what profits stood between him and the producer or
the wholesale dealer.
I would also renew my recommendation that all goods destined for interstate
commerce should in every case, where their form or package makes it
possible, be plainly marked with the price at which they left the hands of
the producer.
We should formulate a law requiring a Federal license of all corporations
engaged in interstate commerce and embodying in the license or in the
conditions under which it is to be issued, specific regulations designed to
secure competitive selling and prevent unconscionable profits in the method
of marketing. Such a law would afford a welcome opportunity to effect other
much needed reforms in the business of interstate shipment and in the
methods of corporations which are engaged in it; but for the moment I
confine my recommendations to the object immediately in hand, which is to
lower the cost of living.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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