[O.P.A. Bulletin for Schools and Colleges, June 1943]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

PRICE CONTROL - RATIONING - RENT CONTROL
FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
ISSUED BY THE EDUCATIONAL SERVICES BRANCH
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION • OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION
Washington, D. C. No. 3
Special Sufnmer Session Issue
June 1943
Price Administrator Urges Teachers to Help Hold Living Costs
“Held the line!’’ This was the April 1943 order of President Roosevelt to the Office of Economic Stabilization, and to other war agencies concerned with holding steady the American cost of living.
Since this order was issued, the Office of Price Administration has intensified its effort to keep all prices from rising further. Toward this over-all objective, I have instructed our OP A staff to put into effect immediately this four-point program:
First, to extend price control across the board to every important commodity.
Second, to roll back those prices which have gotten out of hand._.
Third, to establish specific dollars-and-cents ceiling prices for foods so that all may know—sellers and buyers alike—Lwhat the legal maximum price is.
Fourth, to bring the chiseler, the racketeer, and the black market operator to justice by enforcing ceiling prices and by prosecuting lawbreakers.
In announcing this program, I recognized that its success depends not only upon the actions of OPA but also upon the cooperation of the American people. Their cooperation, in turn, depends upon full understanding of and participation in OPA’s measures at the local level—that is, with and through .their War Price and Rationing Boards.
To hold the local line on prices, OPA has initiated a program of communtiy-wide ceilings on a large num-bet of grocery products. Lists of these ceilings are published in local newspapers and can be clipped by housewives to take along when shopping. Also to hold the line, OPA is taking steps to provide subsidies which will enable retailers to reduce selected food prices that are out of hand.
In order to make this dollars-and-cents program effective locally, furthermore, OPA has directed each Board to set up price panels to collect price information, to verify consumer complaints, to check posted prices, and to perform the other duties required to control prices. OPA has also requested each Board to recruit volunteer price assistants who are intelligent, tactful, alert and who have the capacity to learn and the willingness to work. These assistants should be a representative cross-section of the community.
531S5S0-—4®
Heretofore, teachers in nearly every community have contributed immensely to the rationing work of their local Boards. They have registered civilians for War Ration Books and have assisted the Boards with much of the necessary administrative work. These teachers, furthermore, have taught price regulation, rent control, and' rationing in their classes, schools, and communities.
In the months ahead, school people will have other opportunities to aid in holding price ceilings in their communities. Home economists and business educators, for example, can serve as price assistants to help make the price confrdl program as effective as possible in local stores. They and other teachers can aid in explaining the purpose and methods of the new price control program. Through such action, they can assist in holding thé line on prices, an objective which is essential to the wartime welfare of all citizens and to the victory effort itself.
PRENTISS M. BROWN,
Administrator,
Office of Price Administration,
CONTENTS
Page
Price AdministraforUrges Teachers to Help Hold Living Costs..	1
OPA Sets Community«^Yide Ceiling Prices................. 2
To School and College Administrators.................; . 3
Colleges Summer Schools Emphasize Home Front Economics..,	5
Schools Fight Against Black Markets....................  6
What Teachers of Subject Matter are Doing................	7
Student Volunteers Aid War Price and Rationing Boards......	7
A Picture Story of Wartime Rationing—What You Should Know
and Do..............................................     8
Sight and Sound Dramatize Wartime Economics...........  10
A Picture Story on Wartime Price Control—-What You Should
Know and Do..........................................   12
What Schools Can Teach About the Fight Against Inflation.... 14
Schools Plan Home Front Program for Coming Year........ 15
Chow! Fighting Men Must Have Plenty of Meat—Rationing
Helps Them Get It....................................   16
2
OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
June 1943
OPA Sets Community-Wide Ceiling Prices
Early in May 1943 something new and important was added to OPA’s price-control program. In that month a good share of responsibility for keeping living costs steady was placed directly into the capable hands of American housewives.
Prior to announcement of this new price control program, the President had ordered vigorous enforcement and administration of price measures not only to “hold the line” on all cost-of-living prices but also to “roll back” those prices which were excessively high.
Soon thereafter, Price Administrator Brown responded with an action which, he said, “puts the enforcement of food price ceilings in the hands of the housewife and of the price panels which are rapidly being added to the 5,500 local War Price and Rationing Boards.” Through a succession of moves, he provided for the establishment in more than 130 metropolitan areas of dollars-and-cents ceiling prices which were called “Market Basket Top Prices.” These top prices, set by OPA District Offices and supervised by local Boards, applied to all food stores within the community.
From the housewife’s point of view, the main advantage of this price-control program was that she now had available a list of the top prices which local stores could charge for specific items and brands of food products. Local newspapers usually published
New Roofing Pattern!
Courtesy of Washington Post, Washington, D. C.
these lists of top prices which the housewife could clip and take with her when shopping.
Here are sample food items and prices appearing on the list published in a Washington, D. C., newspaper on May 24, 1943:
Koori Ttr»m	ClaSS	Class	Class Class
X* OOC1 Xudn	,	2	3	4
Bananas, 1 lb	$0. 13	$0. 13	$0. 10 $0. 10
Bond White Bread, 1 lb_		 .09	. 09	.09	.09
1 lb					. 09	. 09	. 09	. 09
uutLci o• o. vji acie	oi yo Score packed in cartons, 1 lb__ 57	. 57	.54	.54
Cream of Wheat, 14 oz	 . 15	. 15	.13	.13
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes	 . 10	. 10	.08	.08
3), 8 oz	__ 				.08	.08
Kraft American Cheese, 8 oz		. 23	. 23	.20	.19
Crisco (Shortening), 1 lb	 . 26	. 26	.24	.24
Chase and Sanborn Coffee, 1 lb		. 33	. 32	.30	.30
cani 15	. 15	.13	.13
Eggs Grade A in carton, per doz___	 . 53	. 52	.51	.50
Pet Evaporated Milk, 14^4 oz_ _ _	. 11	. 11	.10	.10
Leaf Lard, 1 lb			 . 20	. 20	.19	.18
Krumms Spaghetti, 16 oz	 . 17	. 17	.15	.14
Sun Maid Seedless Raisins, 15 oz_ . 18	. 18	.15	.15
Peaches, Sliced, No. 2}^	 . 32 Sultana Peanut Butter, lb		. 31	.27	.27 .29	.29
		
The full meaning of this price action by OPA is best understood in the light of earlier price programs. Previously, ceiling prices had been ordered for nearly all the items making up the typical family’s cost of living. But in OPA’s effort to be fair to all, these ceiling prices had been fixed in a. way that made it difficult for retailers and consumers to keep a check on the legality of prices. Although this problem was recognized from the beginning, OPA justifiably believed, first, that trade associations and large mercantile establishments would effectively maintain legal prices, and, second, that the force of competition would keep general price levels in line. OPA hoped that this plan would relieve both the consumer and the small retailer of the burden of complying with a complex price structure. Also, that the plan would avoid the hardships and inequities resulting from oversimplification of the price-control program.
In May 1943, OPA completed a year of experience with the General Maximum Price Regulation. The GMPR and other regulations, as is commonly known, had set ceiling prices for most retail sales at the highest prices charged during March 1942. Merchants had been required to file ceiling prices and to post ceiling prices of specified articles.
Considering the newness of Nation-wide price control, the administrative and enforcement resources available, the rapidly changing market conditions, and the burden of keeping price records when help was short and business heavy, observance of GMPR and other price regulations was surprisingly good. This was due to the fact that merchants and consumers in nearly all communities were generally patriotic and cooperative.
June 1943
OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
3
Nevertheless, it was obvious that, to protect the law-abiding majority, stronger measures were necessary to curb the few black market operators who threatened to undermine the whole price control program. In certain places, these criminal sellers forced well-intentioned merchants to raise prices in order to stay in business. That is, black market sellers diverted goods from regular trade channels so that otherwise law-abiding merchants had to buy and sell at black market prices or close their doors.
How Does the New Price Control Program Work?
Under the new price regulations* uniform ceiling prices are applied to each of the four classes of stores in the community. No merchant can charge more than these community-wide top prices, although he is free to charge less.
For the most part, uniform community-wide ceiling prices reduce the prices which prevail in many independent stores. These ceilings also enable the retailer and the consumer to know with certainty whether their transactions are made below, at, or above the legal maximum prices. With these ceilings at hand, furthermore, buyers can easily tell whether they are dealing in a black market. If so, they can report the violation to the price panel of their War Price and Rationing Board.
Already in many areas, OPA has announced lists of uniform top prices which may be charged in a particular district designated by OPA. The first price lists issued applied particularly to Class 1 stores. Since then, stores in other classes have been given community-wide ceiling prices.
Each food store is now required to put up a sign identifying its class: OPA 1, OPA 2, OPA 3, or OPA 4.
Class 1 stores are independents with less than $50,000 gross income in a year.
Class 2 stores are independents with from $50,000 to $250,000 gross income a year.
Class 3 stores are chain stores doing less than $250,000 a year per store. If there are no more than three stores to the chain and their combined gross income is less than $500,000 a year, each store is classed as an independent, in Class 1.
Class 4 stores include any kind of store with a gross income above $250,000 a year.
Additional uniform price lists for other commodities and for other districts, are to be completed this summer. In addition, the prices of certain foods are being reduced by Government order to levels prevailing last year. Foods on the lists already published include most of the items on the weekly grocery list. These lists, along with rent control, now give the consumer a check on more than half of his living expenses. The new price program puts Government price tags on close to 80 percent of the foodstuffs in the family market basket.
The highest top prices are allowed the Class 1 stores because they usually provide special services such as credit and delivery, because they are accessible to out-of-the-way neighborhoods, and because they are open extra hours. Prices allowed other stores are based upon their usual operating conditions, which include
the economies of large-scale buying and selling. If stores of all classes had the same top prices, small but essential stores would be forced out of business. At high uniform prices. Class 1 stores would be unable to obtain merchandise, because they could not offer the wholesaler as much as stores with lower operating costs. At low uniform prices, their margins would be too low to earn enough to pay expenses. For this reason, it is desirable to require stores other than Class 1 to charge less than the small independents. Even as matters stand Class 1 stores will be able to maintain their position only if different ceilings for all classes of stores are held firm in all stores.
Toward making this new price-control program effective, OPA has a staff of competent inspectors to enforce ceiling prices in all stores. It is also counting heavily upon the price panels of War Price and Rationing Boards and upon housewives to do their part in holding the price line in their own communities.
To School and College Administrators:
Holding the cost of living where it is and observing rationing regulations cheerfully and loyally—these are among the major tasks which face the American people in the months immediately ahead. Toward this over-all objective, teachers and administrators can make important contributions during the present summer. To assist them in this wartime service is the purpose of this issue of the OPA Bulletin for Schools and Colleges.
' Instructors and students in college summer schools, as the Bulletin points out, can engage in a variety of activities related to developing a better understanding of inflation, price regulation, rent control, and rationing. Likewise, teachers and school heads can devote time during the summer to the preparation of plans, bulletins and other educational materials for use when school opens in the autumn. A major project suggested by the Bulletin is the enrollment of older highschool students as volunteers to aid the War Price and Rationing Boards in their communities.
Looking toward the dramatization of OPA’s wartime measures, the Bulletin not only carries an article on this subject but also includes two picture series which can be posted on the bulletin board or made into a postcard sequence, a film strip, or film slides for projection in the classroom or assembly hall.
What the schools can do in the fight against inflation and black markets are proposed in two articles in the Bulletin. There are, for example, numerous opportunities for both schools and colleges to help stamp out black marketing operations. Educational institutions cannot only explain where and how black marketing occurs. They can also mobilize students, and adults to observe all price control and rationing measures and to take the steps necessary to eradicate all black marketing operations in their own communities.1
WALTER D. COCKING,
Chief, Educational Service Branch, Office of Price Administration.
4	OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES	Junb 1943
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June 1913
OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
College Summer Schools Emphasise Home Front Economics
- It cannot be said too often that we are engaged in total war. Whether civilians yet know it, they ate in this war as much as our military forces. Therefore, it is their job to fortify the home front by giving their full support to such essential wartime measures as price regulation, rent control, and rationing. These measures help guard against the twin dangers of an upward spiral in the cost of living and an inequitable distribution of limited supplies of consumer goods. These measures also help protect the living standards of all civilians and the economic strength of the Nation.
For civilians to do this wartime job and to do it ably and at once, they need the leadership which colleges and universities are especially qualified to provide. Toward this goal, each college can perform a number of strategic services. It can plan and conduct forums where civilians come together to discuss their wartime consumer problems. It can supply information which aids civilians to make the best possible adjustments in their ways of living to wartime measures. It can promote widespread understanding and wholehearted support of wartime economic controls.
Because the Nation’s economic program is so crucial to the welfare of all our people and to the war effort itself, participation in this program should be undertaken by every college and university which is conducting a summer school in 1943.
What College Summer Schools Did Last Year
During the summer of 1942, consultants of the Edu-tational Services Branch of the Office of Price Administration spent a week or more in 19 college workshops, and from 1 tft 5 days in 177 institutions of higher education. In, nearly all the colleges visited, staff members and ^students devoted considerable time to the study of civilian wartime living.
Working through regular college summer sessions, this educational project had as its major goal the enlistment of America’s schools and colleges in the
Nation’s all-out economic stabilization program. Since then, much progress has been made. Schools, school systems, and colleges produced, distributed, and used special bulletins and other curricular materials on consumer’s wartime problems. At all grade levels and in many subject matter fields, teachers presented the facts about price control and rationing to their students. Student organizations launched study-action programs in the area of wartime economics.
What College Summer Schools Can Do Now
Through the contributions of the schools, the Nation has already won many battles against wartime inflation and scarcity. But the war for economic stability is not yet won.
During 1943, according to OP A, estimated consumer purchasing power will reach the huge total of $145,000,000,000. Deducting $40,000,000,000 for savings and taxes, this leaves some $105,000,000,000 in hand for spending. Yet the total value of consumer goods and services available will be only about $85,000,000,000. This means that more than $10 in purchasing power will be bidding for only $8 worth of goods—a strong pressure forcing prices to higher and higher levels.
With this urgent economic situation in view, college summer schools can again join in the fight against inflation and unnecessary shortages. Through a studyaction program in classrooms, in the assembly hall, in extraclass activities, and in the community, these schools can bring the wartime economic message to the attention of their teaching staffs, their students, and other citizens. They can also emphasize this program in those courses where students are preparing to teach or are already teachers in service.
What a given college summer school can do will of course depend upon the decisions of its director and teaching staff and upon the particular needs and resources of the school itself. Such a school, however, may find useful the suggestions which appear in chart form on page 4.
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OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
June 1943
What Materials Will Help Develop a Summer Program
To teach wartime price regulation, rent control, and rationing, a summer school should have at hand certain basic publications which give current economic facts. Already there is a sizable body of authentic publications which are available free or at nominal cost.
In planning the over-all summer program, reference should be made to Understanding the War, prepared by The Federal Education War Council and obtainable free from the Office of War Information, Washington, D. C. This pamphlet is made up of seven sections, of which one is entitled, “Economics on the Home Front.” Each section includes a terse paragraph which presents the problem, an outline of content, and a list of pamphlets, posters, and films.
With particular reference to OPA’s programs are the four booklets, How You Can Help Keep Wartime Prices Down; Rent Control; Rationing—Why and How; and OPA’s Third Quarterly Report. These may be secured free from the OP A, Washington, D. C.
Among recent books dealing with the war economy are Ruth Brindze’s Stretching Your Dollar in Wartime (Vanguard Press, New York); Jessie V. Coles’ Consumers Can Help Win the War (University of California Press, Berkeley); Otto Ehrlich’s Uncle Sam versus Inflation (Harper and Brothers, New York); Leland Gordon’s Consumers in Wartime (Harper and Brothers); Julius Hirsch’s Price Control in the War Economy (Harper and Brothers); Kjell-strom, Gluck, Wright, and Jacobson’s Price Control—The War Against Inflation (Rutgers University Press); Bachman and Stein’s War Economics (Farrar and Rinehart, New York); Alfred C. Neal’s Introduction to War Economics (Richard D. Irwin, Chicago); George Katona’s War without Inflation (Columbia University Press); and T. O. Hardy’s Wartime Price Control (Brookings Institution).
There are also a number of pamphlets suitable for student as well as teacher use. Among these are How to Win on the Home Front, How Can We Pay for the War, The Kitchen Goes to War, and Freedom From Want (Public Affairs Committee, New York); Wartime Living for Peacetime Security (Building America, New York); My Part in This War (National Association of Secondary School Principals, Washington, D. C.).
Of particular interest to teachers in training or in service are the following: Consumer Education in Wartime (November 1942 Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, Washington, D. C.); Consumer Education (D. Appleton Century Co., New York); The War on the Home Front (Office of Price Administration, San Francisco); and Consumer Education for Wartime Living (State Council of Defense, Harrisburg, Pa.).
For current as well as past developments in the area of wartime economics, reference whould be made to newspapers, magazines, and radio programs. Also to Consumers’ Guide, published by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
Schools Fight Against Black Markets
American schools are joining with the United States Department of Agriculture, the Office of Price Administration, and other Federal agencies in the campaign to stamp out black markets. In classrooms, through school assemblies, and by other means, teachers are awakening students to the dangers of black markets to America’s war effort. They are helping students to understand how black markets are not only diverting supplies of food, gasoline, tires, and other strategic commodities from legal channels of trade, but also are undermining the strength of America’s military program and threatening the well-being of all civilians on the home front. They are teaching students how to identify black markets and are urging them to refrain from buying goods at prices above legal ceilings and from purchasing rationed goods illegally. They are encouraging students to talk with their parents about the urgency of obeying price and rationing regulations, always and everywhere, as their patriotic wartime obligation.
June 1943
OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
7
Student Volunteers Aid War Price and Rationing Boards
In a growing number of communities throughout America, high-school students are rallying to assist War Price and Rationing Boards. Recognizing that price control and rationing are essential to the war effort on the home front, students under the direction of school administrators are regularly giving hours and days of volunteer time to the Boards in their localities. These students perform a variety of tasks—the typing of letters, the process ng and filing of ration applications, and the filling out and mailing of ration books. Because of the competence of their work, they have been highly commended by the chairmen of local Boards as well as by other citizens of their communities. Students themselves enjoy the work and feel that it is worth while.
Of particular interest to high-school principals and teachers is the plan developed in the South St. Paul (Minnesota) school system by the superintendent of schools, the principal of the local high school, and the chairman of the War Price and Rationing Board. The features of this plan are indicated in the Student’s Application and Qualification Blank, for Volunteer Service. The first section of this blank reads:
I understand that only persons with good school records can be used as volunteer workers in the War Price and Rationing office. Feeling I can reasonably measure up to these standards, I herewith present my qualifications and offer my services, subject to the rules and regulations governing appointment.
I volunteer to donate my services in the War Price and Rationing office, not to exceed 2 days each month as approved by my parents and high-school principal. I promise to be faithful in my work and do my best until properly released. I understand that appointment will extend through the summer.
I understand that if my application is approved, I will be excused from school not to exceed 2 days a month and that I will not be required to make up my attendance, but that I must do my best to make up by myself the work I have missed. If accepted, I understand that I will be given an OPA Service Button to wear and that upon successful completion of work, I will be given an appropriate certificate. Most of all I recognize that this is one way in which I can make a contribution to the war effort.
Date____________________ Pupil’s name___________________
The second section of the application blank provides for this information: Name, address, telephone number, date of birth, year in school, average school record, and any commercial courses taken and grades made. The third section contains a statement which the parent signs, giving consent. The last section calls for the high-school principal’s approval.
The student volunteer program to aid War Price and Rationing Boards has been approved by the Chief State School Officers of seven Midwestern States—Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa. In these States, Board chairmen who are using strident volunteers report that,clerical work is up to date every night for the first time in months, thus effecting greater efficiency in the office and better service to the public.
In a letter to all superintendents of schools, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Illinois pointed out three major purposes of the student volunteer plan. He wrote:
First, it will offer students an opportunity to make a real and vital contribution to their own community’s war program.
Second, it will provide War Price and Rationing Boards with a constant, dependable corps of trained volunteers to assist in handling the increasing responsibilities of the Boards.
Third, while there is no compensation for the work, volunteers who participate will have an experience which will be educational and will secure a training which will help them later in securing positions. * * *
It is my sincere belief that this proposed program has real merit. Aside from the needed assistance it will give a Federal war agency and the opportunity it will offer for the education and training of your youth, it also will enable our schools and students to make still further valuable contributions to their community’s war work. May I commend the plan to you for your consideration.
In carrying out the student volunteer plan, the chairman of the War Price and Rationing Board works with and through the local Defense Council which is responsible for recruiting all volunteers. He conducts a short training course through which student volunteers secure general understanding of the purposes and organization of the Office of Price Administration and specific knowledge of the procedures and policies of the local Board. He also arranges to keep a careful record of attendance of the student volunteers and to grade them on the basis of their performance of office duties. In training students and in checking upon their work, he is usually assisted by the principal and teachers of the local high school.
What has already been done in a number of States and communities to enlist high-school seniors and juniors in the work of War Price and Rationing Boards can also be done in every community where a Board is located.
What Teachers of Subject Matter Are Doing
Teachers of many and varied subjects of study are doing their part to instruct their pupils in the why and how of wartime economic measures.
In Detroit, mathematics teachers in the seventh and eighth grades have prepared and are using a study supplement which relates arithmetic computation and reasoning to the practical everyday problems of price control, rent control, and rationing. The biology teachers of Omaha are having pupils study a 5-week unit on food shortages, rationing, and point budgeting as related to nutrition.
Social studies teachers in many cities are having pupils study inflationary dangers, price control, and rationing through the use of current newspapers and magazines. Home economics teachers in hundreds of cities are educating their pupils in the use of war ration books to best advantage and in the methods of buying under price ceilings; they stress buying the right food and conservation techniques.
Art teachers are helping in the preparation by pupils of posters, exhibits, strip films, and other visual devices to “bring home” to all pupils the urgency and meaning of rationing and price control. Teachers of English and dramatic arts are having pupils write and present compositions, plays, and radio skits dealing with various aspects of the home front economic program.
A Picture Story on Wartime Rationing
1. In wartime, your Government needs quantities of tanks, planes, guns, food, and other things for men in its armed forces; and for its Allies throughout the world.
THESE THINM ARE NO LON 9 ER MANUFACTURED*
2	. Many American civilians have to get along with less of certain kinds of goods. By sharing limited supplies, we help keep all people on the home front strong.
3. Without rationing, scarce goods are distributed on the basis of ability to pay, of "First come—-first served." Some hoard and profiteer while others get nothing.
4. With rationing, scarce goods are distributed equitably to all. Rationing helps keep up war production and necessary civilian services; helps each get his fair share.
5. The United States Office of Price Administration plans and carries out rationing programs. In your community, it does this through the War Price and Rationing Board.
6. You apply to your War Price and Rationing Board for war ration books and rationing certificates. These give you the right to buy so much of a given rationed article.
8
What You Should Know and Do
7. You can help make rationing work by obeying the rules. Always, everywhere, you can use your ration books and certificates as the law says you should.
8. When you buy, you carry your ration books with you. You tear out stamps in the presence of the seller. You make sure that he collects the right stamps.
9. You refuse io go black marketing—that is, you refuse to buy rationed goods unlawfully from any seller who does not require coupons, stamps, or certificates.
11, You share automobiles and other rationed or scarce goods with others. You organize regular clubs for sharing. You make goods go further, serve more people.
12. You preserve food raised in Victory Gardens. You build up your stock of canned foods for use this winter. You help rationing to work by helping feed America. ♦
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OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES
June 1943
Sight and Sound Dramatize Wartime Economics
Audio-visual devices, as many teachers well know, are effective means of presenting wartime messages to students. These devices can not only serve to convey important facts and generalizations. They can also arouse interest and stimulate the development of opinions, attitudes, habits, and courses of action.
In teaching price regulation, rent control, and rationing, teachers will find it advantageous to employ a variety of audio-visual aids to learning. What teachers select for their purposes will of course depend upon the message to be presented, the level of maturity and ability of students, and the resources at hand. Yet whatever the local school situation, teachers can do much to make wartime economic problems vivid and meaningful through the use of “sight and sound” techniques. Some of these techniques require special equipment, but most of them employ materials which are readily available to the typical classroom teacher.
1.	The Bulletin Board.—In the classroom or in the school hall, the bulletin board can serve as an important means of presenting up-to-date information about price and rent control and rationing to students. On this board, students can mount clippings of articles, cartoons, and charts which appear in current newspapers and magazines, Government publications, and elsewhere. From time to time, the bulletin board can feature such campaigns as “Stamp Out Black Markets,” or “Here’s How To Conserve Your Shoes,” using posters and other materials collected or prepared by students.
2.	Posters.—A school can make effective use of Government-issued posters or can produce its own posters. In the classroom or in the art department, students can design and execute their own posters to portray the main facts about the wartime economy on the hotae front. These posters can show the why and how of rationing, employing such slogans as “Rationing means a fair share for all of us,” or the why and how of price and rent control.
A poster can also inform civilians of how to use War Ration Books correctly, including such suggestions as “Always tear Out stamps in the presence of the seller” and “Always destroy stamps which you do not use— do not give them to anyone else.” Still another poster can tie price control and rationing together by featuring the slogan “Price Control and Rationing Mean a Fair Share at a Fair Price.”
With reference to the fight against inflation, a school system can conduct a successful poster contest in which many students participate. In such a contest in a Southern city, one student submitted a poster showing a civilian dressed in red winter underwear who was scratching vigorously. The slogan on this poster read, “Inflation Is Like the Itch. Easy to Get—Hard to Ditch.” Other posters stressed what young people could do to help make price ceilings work in their community.
3.	Cartoons, Charts, Graphs, and Maps.—Here again students can use their imagination to prepare
large illustrative materials for classroom and assembly use. Cartoons showing the cause and cure of black markets, charts pointing out the steps in using ration books legally, graphs portraying the trends of the cost of living in World Wars I and II, our United §tates and world maps pointing out how the enemy and how allocation of supplies to our military forces are reducing or cutting off supplies of certain goods for civilians—these are examples of the types of materials which highlight the economic problems of the home front.
4.	Library. Collections and Exhibits.-—The school library can serve to call the attention of students to wartime economic measures through arranging a series of collections and exhibits of materials dealing . with price regulation, rent control, and rationing. Thé displays may include booklets, newspaper clippings, and posters secured from governmental and other sources. They may also include materials prepared by the students themselves.
The collection or exhibit can center around one _ theme, such as the following: Do Your Part in the Battle Against Wartime Inflation; What You Can Do To Help Make Price Control Work; What You Should Know and Do About Food Rationing; How You Can Help Conserve Your Clothing; How You Can Live Economically and Patriotically in Wartime (cutting down on excess spending, etc.); How You Can Get Good Nutrition With Rationed and Non-Rationed Foods (planning of a week’s menus and recipes); and How You Can Spot Black Markets.
The collection or exhibit can be changed from week to week in order to hold the interest of students. Before each change, students can invite their parents to visit the display and to discuss its content.
5.	Classroom and Assembly Dramatizations.— There are many opportunities for the teacher to employ dramatic presentations of wartime economics. In a classroom, for example, students can write and “stage” a play which is written in outline, which employs simple properties, and which is given ex-'temporaneously before the class. If the play is worth while, it can later be presented before all students of the school during an assembly program.
Such a play can compare shopping before and after rationing, as was done by a ninth grade social studies class, which entitled its skit “Prunes for Victory.” » It can show what methods are used in operating black markets and what steps patriotic civilians can take to stamp out these illegal markets. It can demonstrate how shoppers look for price ceilings, check up on these ceilings when purchasing, make complaints to War Price and Rationing Boards, and take other steps to see that price-control regulations are enforced. • It can illustrate how a local Board handles price problems and rationing applications. It can contrast the sacrifices made by men in the military services with those required of civilians, with particular emphasis upon, the appropriate attitudes of the latter. It can point out the wastes in food, clothing, materials, and equipment which occur at school and
June 1943	OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES	11
at home and the methods of eliminating these wastes.
Another popular form of dramatizing home-front problems is through “Information, Please” or “Quiz” programs which are presented in the classroom or assembly hall. Still another is through panel discussions in which a group of students discusses the main facts about an economic problem and answers questions from the audience.
6.	Series of Still Pictures.—An effective means of transmitting wartime economic messages to students is through the projections of series of still pictures. This may, be done through film strips, film or glass slides, or cards displayed with an opaque projector. The pictures to be used may be those secured from governmental or nongovernmental sources, or may be those prepared by students themselves and traced onto slides or cards.
In preparing a film strip, film, or glass, slides, or cards for a particular type of projector, the teacher can use' as-is or adapt the picture series on price control and rationing which appear on pages 8 and 9, and 12 and 13 of this issue of the Bulletin, and on pages 8 and 9 of the March issue of this Bulletin. These pages include a total of 35 pictures which together make up a comprehensive story of what civilians should know and do about price control and rationing and of what youth can do to help make these wartime measures successful in their neighborhoods and communities.
If the school has a record-making device, the teacher can prepare a special disc. When played back, this disc gives the story of price control, rationing, and youth service while the film strip, slides, or opaque cards are shown on a large screen to the class. In making the disc, tjie teacher can use the legends accompanying the pictures in the Bulletin as the basis for preparing the running story.
It may be that the school does not have a still picture projector of any type. In this case, the teacher can mount the picture spreads in the Bulletin on the classroom bulletin board, or students can cut out the pictures and place them on a paper strip to be shown in a “little theatre” box to a small group of classmates.
7.	Radio scripts and transcriptions.—The teacher can secure a list of radio scripts on price and rent control and rationing by ordering the Educational Script Exchange, United States Office of Education, Washington, D. C. (Price, 10 cents.) These scripts which are obtainable on loan can be used by the teacher for classroom or all-school dramatizations.
Transcriptions (discs) of OP A “Neighborhood Call” programs can be secured through the nearest OPA District Office which has distributed these disks to local radio stations. These disks, it should be noted, can be used only on a play-back machine which handles large platters and which operates at a speed of about 33 revolutions per minute—that is, much more slowly than the ordinary phonograph.
The school may have a special loud-speaker system^ with a transmitter in the principal’s office and loud
speakers in a number of classrooms or the assembly hall. If so, this system can be used by students to “broadcast” short speeches or dramatizations dealing with inflation, price control, rationing, conservation, and related topics.
Furthermore, if the school has its own record-making equipment, perhaps as a feature of a combination phonograph-radio, students of the class can write their own playlet, can put this on a disk, and can play the disk before the class as a whole and before other classes.
Also if equipment is available, the loud-speaker attachment of a phonograph can be used by students to put on a “Question and Answer” program on wartime economics before the rest of the class.
8.	Classroom Demonstrations, Projects and Field Trips.—The teacher can devise a variety of demonstrations and projects which help make price and rent control and rationing realistic and dynamic to students. In a blackboard discussion, the teacher can compare the prices of selected items at present and in August 1939. This can be followed by a discussion of why price control is necessary and how price control is helping hold the cost of living where it is and is aiding in holding down the cost of the war.
With reference to shoe rationing, an elementary school class can carry on a project such as the following: One student is selected as storekeeper. To him all students deliver their shoes. Other students then make up play money—$10 bills, $5 bills, bills marked $2.50. They each draw one bill from a box. Using this play money, they go to the “shoe store” where shoes are on sale at $2.50 a pair. The student with the $10 bill purchases four pairs; the student with a $5 bill buys two pairs, etc. In this way students learn that without rationing, shoes are distributed on the basis of ability to pay, or first come first served. The class then sets up its War Price and Rationing Board which issues play sheets from a make-believe war ration book. Using play bills as before, each student can buy only one pair with his ration coupon no matter how much money he has. This shows what happens after rationing. A similar project can be carried on with reference to tire or gasoline rationing.
To make both price control and rationing meaningful, the class can set up its own play store where students learn to buy and sell goods according to wartime rules. If possible, furthermore, the teacher can arrange to take the class to a local food store at a time when this store is not busy. These students can see price control and rationing in actual operation. Also, if possible, the class can visit the nearest War Price and Rationing Board to see at first hand the kinds of wartime jobs that this Board carries on.
The foregoing includes a few suggestions which the teacher or principal may find worth while in presenting the wartime economics of the home front to pupils. In most schools, the teaching staff will devise other audio-visual means by which to make price regulation, rent control, and rationing interesting and understandable to all students in all classes.
A Picture Story on Wartime Price Control
AVERAGE PRICES IN TWO WARS
2, Prices rise because you and others have more money to spend. With more money, you are willing to pay higher and higher prices for things; You bid prices up.
1. In wartime, prices usually go up. If prices skyrocket, you find it hard to buy the things you need to keep your family well and strong.
3. Prices rise also because there are smaller supplies of certain goods. You and others are willing to pay more money for these scarce goods than in peacetime.
4. Stable prices save yea money when you buy food, housing, clothing, and other things. They also save your Government money when it buys tanks, planes, guns.
5. The United States Office of Price Administration has set community-wide top prices on most foods in many cities. These price lists appear in local newspapers and stores.
6. You can help make wartime price control work by trading with law-abiding storekeepers. You can talk with merchants about observing all price regulations.
12
What You Should Know and Do
8. You can compare the price asked by the storekeeper with his ceiling price. You can refuse to pay more. You can buy in a store which always obeys the law.
7. Community-wide top prices are set for each of four different classes of food stores. Each food store must post its class where the shopper can see it.
9. You can always refuse to buy from a person who sells above his legal ceiling price. He is a black marketer who robs you and your Nation when he breaks the law.
10. If you believe you are being charged more than the ceiling price, get a receipt from your storekeeper. Report the facts to your War Price and Rationing Board.
11. By caring for the things you have, by wasting nothing, by buying only what you need, you cut down your spending. This helps make price control succeed.
12. By always obeying rationing rules, you and others get only your fair share. This also helps hold doivn prices, your cost of living, and the cost of the war.
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14
OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS ANp COLLEGES
June 1943
What Schools Can Teach About the Fight Against Inflation
. Joining in the Nation’s wartime program to stabilize the cost of living, America’s schools and colleges have requested brief and pointed outlines which can be used in various courses, assemblies, discussion groups, and elsewhere. A suggested study-guide follows:
I.	The causes of wartime inflation.
A.	Increased war expenditures.—Over $70,000,-000,000 were spent in the fiscal year between July 1, 1942, and June 30, 1943; in the neighborhood of $100,-000,000,000 will be spent in the fiscal year 1943—44.
B.	Increased production for war—In 1918 not more than 25 percent of total national production was allocated to military purposes; by the end of 1943 about 67 percent of total production will be for war purposes.
C.	Increased consumer incomes.—OPA estimates total will reach $145,000,000,000 in 1943 compared to $117,000,000,000 in 1942.
D.	Limited civilian supplies.—OPA estimates that the value of civilian goods and services will total about $85,000,000,000 in 1943, which is much less than total consumer income. Civilian purchases of consumer supplies are expected to drop 10 to 15 percent below 1942 level.
E.	Balancing spending and supplies.—The difference of about $60,000,000,000 between total consumer income and total civilian supply must be
drained off through taxation, war bonds, and other savings. If this is done, it will greatly ease upward pressure on prices.
II.	The role of wartime price control.
A.	Price trends in World Wars I and II.
1.	World War I and after.—Between 1914 and 1920, the cost of living nearly doubled; wages, salaries, fixed incomes lagged behind. This was followed by post-war depression marked by crash of prices, unemployment, business failures, farm and home foreclosures.
2.	World War II.—According to United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, between August 1939 and March 1943, the cost of living increased 24.5 percent; food prices were up 47 percent; clothing, 27.2 percent; rent, 3.5 percent; fuel, electricity, and ice, up 10.2 percent; house furnishings, up 23.8 percent; miscellaneous, up 14 percent.
B.	Price control during World War II.
1.	Emergency Price Control Act of January 1942 authorized Office of Price Administration to regulate prices and rents.
2.	General Maximum Price Regulation (in effect in May 1942) put ceilings on most prices at highest prices charged by merchants during March 1942.
3.	Rents now controlled in some 350 defense rental areas—maximum rent dates set, usually as of March 1, 1942.
4.	Additional food prices brought under control after October second Amendment to Price Control Act and President’s Executive Order based on it.
5.	Community-wide top prices on food products set in more than 130 metropolitan areas during May, 1943.
C.	Results of OPA price control.
1.	Upward trend of prices considerably slowed down as result of General Maximum and other price regulations since May 1942. „
2.	Steady prices help hold down cost of living and cost of the war.
a.	Estimated savings through price control to consumers during 1942 totaled $6,000,000,000 or about $140 per family. If prices are held steady, estimated savings to consumers during 1943 will total $23,000,-000,000, or about $500 per family.
b.	Estimated savings through price control to the Federal Government were $26,000,000,000 for 1942, and will be $78,000,000,000 in 1943, if prices are held steady.
D.	How consumers can help make price control successful.
1.	Always look for ceiling prices—don’t pay more.
2.	Report price violations to nearest War Price and Rationing Board.
3.	Shop for foods with list of community-wide market basket top prices in hand.
4.	Do not buy in the black market—that is, at prices above legal ceilings.
5.	Remember, if charged more than legal ceiling
June 1943	OPA BULLETIN FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES	15
prices, you may sue for $50 or triple damages, whichever is more.
E. How consumers can help make rent control successful.
1.	Find out whether rent on your dwelling is controlled by getting in touch with nearest OPA Area Rent Office.
2.	Do not pay a rent higher than that ordered by the Director of the Area Rent Office.
3.	Take good care of your dwelling and make all the minor repairs you can.
III.	The role of wartime rationing.
A.	Shortages of civilian goods due to requirements of America’s military forces and Allies, and due to enemy conquests, submarine attacks, and diversion of shipping to war purposes.
B.	Rationing scarce essentials necessary to—
1.	Assure military forces get what they need;
2.	Maintain essential civilian services (fire and police protection, medical care, etc.);
3.	Distribute limited supplies on a fair, democratic, equitable basis, thus protecting civilian strength and morale.
C.	Items now rationed:
1.	Foods—sugar, coffee, nearly all processed (canned, etc.) foods, meats, fats, oil, and cheese;
2.	Clothing—shoes; workmen’s rubber boots and work shoes;
3.	Heat—fuel oil and kerosene; new stoves;
4.	Transportation—tires and tubes; automobiles; bicycles; gasoline;
5.	Miscellaneous—typewriters;; farm implements and pressure cookers (administered by U. S. Department of Agriculture)
D.	How rationing works.
1.	Civilians apply to War Price and Rationing Board for war ration books and for rationing certificates.
2.	Board grants or refuses applications according to basic needs of applicant, supplies available, and rules of eligibility.
E.	How consumers can help make rationing successful.
1.	Always use war ration books and certificates correctly—that is, according to the rules.
2.	Refrain from buying rationed goods from black market operators—for example, gasoline with someone else’s coupons; meat without ration stamps, etc.
3.	Report violators of rationing rules to nearest War Price and Rationing Board.
4.	Reduce use of rationed and other scarce goods by proper care and repair, by avoiding all waste, and by sharing automobiles and household equipment.
Schools Plan Home Front
Authorities agree that fighting the war at home, like fighting the war abroad, will require even greater effort and even more drastic living adjustments on the part of all civilians. This in turn will require even further adaptations of the school program to the wartime needs of civilians.
With this situation in mind, schools and school systems throughout America are now making plans for the school year, 1943-44. Many of these plans include a consideration of the economic problems which children, youth, and adults face on the home front. Although progress in this area of education has been made, there is still a great deal to be done if schools are to continue to make their wartime contribution to the ways of living of alt citizens in their communities.
Schools Are Already “On the Move”
OPA’s Educational Services Branch now has at hand numerous examples of how school systems are adapting their programs to war-imposed conditions.
In February 1943, staff members of the Branch visited every State Department of Education in the Nation and secured the whole-hearted cooperation of Chief State School Officers in the educational campaign on point rationing. Since then, these Departments and their officers have held meetings, issued bulletins, written articles, and enlisted the schools in their States in various rationing programs.
During March, April, and May of 1943, the Educational Services Branch sent its staff members upon invitation to work for one week each with local school systems in 28 of the largest American cities. These cities, together, have more than 25,000,000 residents,
Program for Cdming Year
4,300,000 pupils in elementary and secondary schools, and nearly 122,000 teachers and administrators.
In nearly all these city systems, the schools had undertaken or had under way educational programs related to price regulation, rent control, and rationing. Each city and each school within a system, it is important to note, had its own educational program through which to inform pupils of the why and how of these wartime economic measures.
Some of the cities, such as Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, and Denver, were issuing regular wartime leaflets or bulletins on the consumer economy in general or on price control and rationing in particular. In Atlanta, South St. Paul, and many other localities, high-school pupils were regularly serving as volunteers in the offices of War Price and Rationing Boards and in Area Rent Offices.
In working out plans, a number of State departments of education, local school systems, and individual schools have found it highly desirable to set up overall Wartime Education Committees.
One member of the Wartime Education Committee may be designated as Consumer Education Coordinator. The activities of this coordinator are indicated in a program already under way in the State of North Carolina. There the District Office of Price Administration wrote all city and county superintendents of schools asking them to nominate one person in each school to serve as the Consumer Relations Coordinator for the entire teaching staff. Nearly all superintendents did so. In their capacity as coordinators, teachers took responsibility for receiving wartime consumer materials from the OPA.
flGHTING MSN MUST HATS PUNTT Of .
•RATIONING NOIRS THfM GOT IT
i> Six million fighters are in training right now in the U. S. Each one gets at least 7 pounds of meat a week.
2« Meat must be shipped to the men on our fighting fronts. Hawaii^ Alaska, England, Ireland, North Africa —
3» To North Africa go shiploads of British and American troops and supplies, in the biggest over» seas invasion in history.
Nazi they kill is one less for our soldiers to face— We stand united against the' Axis horde.
WHILE ON THE HOME FRONT
5.	We must send food to our British allies. The RAF is bombing German sub bases and that means less danger to our troops on the high seas.
6.	lots of people have more money to spend. They have been demanding so much meat that before rationing, some war workers could not get any at all.
7.	Without rationing, it was first come, first served. Some got more than their fair share, especially those who paid an illegal price.
8* Our Government is rationing meat so that even though a targe part of it is going to our fighters every one at home is assured a fair share.
9.	Now, everyone can have enough to keep strong. Healthy workers produce weapons needed by our soldiers and allies to smash the Axis. OWI
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•. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: Ii>4S