European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 11, 1947, Darmstadt, Hesse S r j Newburyport housewives respond to local merchants voluntary Price slash by increasing purchases in fights to flatten the Price spiral 0 a weekend report the Newburyport plan has become a nationwide formula As american communities move to meet the current inflation crisis and Check the threat of a new depression like Many other businessmen throughout the United John a Mas hardware was Dis Turbed at the Way prices had been edging their Way stubbornly upward in the last year or the Price tags in the old fashioned plat Glass window of his own store reflected this persistent Swanson As Long As the Cost of butter and neck ties and Fountain pens kept climbing in the other shops around Market How could you bring Down the Price of nails and Garden tools this the inflation spiral in action and there was nothing you could do about or was there one Day last Swanson took an idea to the advertising manager of Newburyport Little daily he wanted to run an and calling on the towns merchants to slash prices Roll pm was the Way Swanson said within three Days Newburyport had taken the Price situation into its own hands and had started to Roll pm the Northeast Essex county Ozment the regional chamber of picked up Swansea plea and turned it into a merchants lined up behind the Council and agreed on a ten Day Experiment in lowering prices 10 per cent All along the at the risk of incurring losses which might prove ruinous if the movement stores All along Newburyport Elm lined staid polished Wood front of Browns jewellers As As the Brick fronted exterior of Kennedy with signs announcing their support of the Price cutting the effects of the program we rent Long in in a matter of Days Newburyport merchants were congratulating each other As they reported joyfully that sales had jumped 50 to 200 per newspapers spread the Story of the Massachusetts Experiment to their own communities even while the Yankee merchants were gloating Over their first groups of storekeepers from neighbor ing to Culver had joined in similar efforts to beat Down prices in their own proudly calculating the size of the snowball it had Strung a Banner across pleasant in front of the City where names the towns dead of seven wars Are recorded Newburyport leading the lowering the nationwide attention which the Newburyport plan has received almost from the moment of its Points up the sense of impending economic crisis which continued inflation has cast Over the United it started when High prices came Riding in on americas big postwar spending but since the Christmas Peak of merchants had been aware of a steady falling off in turnover of their retailers All Over the country reported that customer resistance to soaring prices has been with the result that goods which have been pouring out of production sources in anticipation of continued heavy de Mand Are starting to pile up in the warehouses and slow Down the whole Cycle of the nations housewives have watched Hope fully for signs of a definite Down Ward trend in the prices of As Small local drops have from time to in the prices of some items like butter and for the there has been some encouragement in the gradual appearance on the Market of the once nearly extinct fort Dollar and of White shirts at prices ranging upward from about three but when the Householder compares the prices of such items with their prewar Levels and considers that the current costs represent what is now the Low Price he is inclined to scratch his head and wonder if he of Ghent Lay in a fresh Supply of red Ink for the family a recent series of articles in the Wall Street journal finds that it now costs sixty four dollars to buy what fifty dollars bought a year Here Are some of the vital statistics which the journal uses to illustrate the rising Cost of living Over the last few years food has increased in Price 145 per cent since 1937 70 per cent in the last it now takes to buy clothes that would have Cost in compared with what a Dollar bought in the value of a Dollar is now just sixty three a reporter from the great financial daily interviewed the family of a die and consisting of a a wife and three their weekly food Bill came to around thirty two dollars weekly it used to be Twenty dollars four years they budget on four dollars weekly for and they figure that their Overall have risen 50 per As against it might be noted that almost half of the families in the country have less than thirty eight dollars a week to live a business Man with a son and a daughter inlaw overseas commented a Little wryly on this situation one Good thing about prices it gives me some thing to write about in letters to the whenever Ive run out of news to Tell them i just list the prices that have gone up since my last that always Good for a Page or foods have registered momentary drops in Price from time to the housewife but this is deceptive since the Long Range trend continues to be which skyrocketed to about a Dollar a Pound in last october Price Jubilee and then levelled has edged its Way Back again to Levels Between sixty five and eighty cents a bread has taken off for the wide open prices and has hit Levels ranging from seventeen As much As Twenty three cents a loaf in towns across the i suppose i mind it so said a housewife in where bread has lately gone up to Twenty except that i cant help remembering continued on Page 22
