Rising Clamor for Tougher Price Controls

A NEW Majority formed in the U.S. last week, and it was hardly silent.

Its platform: bring down food prices. From one end of the country to the other, consumers joined a boycott against meat, and both retailers and middlemen began to take a roasting. Some packing houses shut down, 20,000 meat-industry workers were laid off, and beef, pork and lamb sales dropped by as much as 50% in supermarkets.

The New Majority was further aroused by the announcement that overall wholesale prices had jumped in March by 2.2%, which would be 26.4% on an annual basis--the biggest increase since the Korean War. Racing ahead of other commodities, wholesale farm and food prices rose at an annual rate of 56%. Raw farm products soared 72%. Said one top Government economic analyst: "The numbers are absolutely, incredibly bad."

Besieged by consumers, Congress was stirred to action. In a price-fixing frenzy, the House Banking Committee voted to roll back retail food prices to May 1, 1972, an economically senseless measure that would be vetoed by the President because it would bankrupt farmers and middlemen. At the urging of the House leadership, the committee reconsidered next day and settled for a rollback of prices, rents and interest rates to Jan. 10, the last day of Phase II. The measure may still be too extreme to win a majority in the House, but public pressures are rising on Congressmen to pass some form of controls. Then the President will be put to the test: to veto or not to veto.

Nixon is ideologically committed to the freer markets of Phase III, but politically he is under intense fire. His economic chief, George Shultz, still defends a policy of casual controls and promises that price relief is just around the corner. He expects food prices to peak in early summer and ease downward for the rest of the year. But another Nixon adviser, Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, is urging tighter controls. Nixon may be tempted to impose a freeze before Congress forces him to do so.

Fryers. The consumer majority proved beyond doubt that it had muscle. Housewives resorted to all kinds of meat substitutes and stuck to them--at least for the week. Many stocked up on poultry. Said the sales manager of a major West Coast food chain: "It looks like Christmas in our warehouses--turkeys and fryers are really moving out." A Los Angeles shopper, Jane Burnham, pledged: "I'll boycott until I grow feathers from eating so much chicken." Others seemed to be willing to sprout scales. Fish sales rose sharply, driving up the price of filet of sole to $2.90 a Ib. in many places, exceeding the cost of porterhouse steak.

People were not buying as much meat in restaurants, some of which offered meatless menus. There were occasional unrepentant carnivores. At La Goulue, a new Manhattan restaurant where the chic meet to eat, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Ultra Violet and Candy Darling feasted on lamb chops one afternoon last week. But at a nearby table Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco observed the boycott by lunching on salad.

To beat the food prices, some consumers have become part-time farmers. In suburban Hanover, Mass., several families are raising calves, sheep, pigs and chickens in their backyards; in Middlesex County, Mass., Agricultural Agent Ronald Athenas received 275 calls in a 24-hour period on his "hot line," which supplies gardening tips. On request, Seventh-day Adventists have recently mailed 7,000 booklets of meatless recipes to recent converts to vegetarianism. The Adventists have also sold 1,700 copies of their meatless cookbook ($2.95) at regional headquarters in Glendale, Calif.

When they could, farmers fought back. Their wives swooped on meat stores and plucked them clean. A group led by Mrs. Crayton Guhlke, wife of a wheat and cattle farmer, held a buy-in in Spokane, Wash., while LAMP (Ladies Against Meat Prices) was picketing on the streets. Mrs. Kenny Williams, a LAMP leading light, said she welcomed such an expedition. "That shows the public where the money is--on the farm." Trying a more conciliatory tactic, a group of 21 farmers in Columbia, Mo., bought most of a store's meat supply and handed it out free to customers.

The boycott had made its mark. Prices, which held steady early in the week, began to slip in some places, though it is still too soon to tell if the housewives will ultimately succeed. In Chicago, wholesale beef and hog prices dropped a few cents per Ib.; Grand Union Co., the tenth-largest food chain in the U.S., cut the price of beef, pork, lamb and veal by 100 per Ib., and a few other chains also made reductions. Some 200 leaders of the New Majority --housewives, labor-union officials and consumer-group representatives--prepared to go to Washington this week to lay plans for a continued boycott or some other strategy--like urging abstinence from meat on certain days--that would bring food prices down and keep them there.

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