Honolulu Record, August 19, 1948, vol. 1 no. 2, p. 2
The "rebellion" had caught on. In New Orleans an organization representing 150,000 housewives urged its members to stay away from the butcher shop. In Pittsburgh a Housewives Protective League asked a one week ban on meat buying. Seventy-five thousand women in Los Angeles signed a petition demanding lower prices. And here in Hawaii an organization called the Sensible Shoppers, headed by Mrs. Jayne Ellis of Honolulu, asked other civic organizations to join in a meat store boycott beginning Monday. By mid-week the campaign began to show results. Wholesale meat prices began to fall off, although retail prices were still up at the end of the week.
Strike!
An energetic, 71 year old grandmother in Dallas, Texas lit the fuze [sic] to a powder keg last week. As meat prices began to soar to an all-time high, Mrs. R. D. Vaughn reached for her telephone. She began to dial every listing in the Dallas directory to urge a buyer's strike. Explaining that "she hated to be robbed," she suggested that other housewives join her in the boycott and to phone their friends asking them to do the same.
Soon the wires were humming — not only in Dallas, but across the country. However, such huge chainstores as Safeway in San Francisco began to report an "unexplainable" drop in meat purchasing.
Let Down Without
In Washington, D. C., meantime, the fuze [sic] was wet and the powder wouldn't explode. A "beautiful, blonde Soviet spy" turned out to be 40, brown-haired and frowsy. Elisabeth T. Bentley's testimony, though sensational, was just as big a let down as her pictures.
Leveling charges of espionage against men formerly high in "New Deal" government circles, she accused them of giving her vital information which she in turn passed on to Soviet agents. However, high Justice Department officials, having spent three years and $500,000 dollars investigating her charges, said they had failed to turn up any evidence which would justify prosecution of those she accused. She and another ex-communist, Whittaker Chambers, had told their stories to the FBI years before. But congressmen and the press, knowing a "good" thing when they saw it, would not give up.
A special Senate sub-committee listened to angry denials by Commerce Department employee William W. Remington, one of those Miss Bentley had branded. On the other side of Capitol Hill, the House Un-American activities committee was listening, opened mouthed, to the revelations of Chambers, now a senior editor of Time magazine.
Truman Smells Fish
At the White House, President Truman protested strenuously. As the legislation which he had demanded from the special session fell by the wayside, he accused Republican congressmen of stirring up a phony spy scare to hide their failure to curb high prices. Said Truman, "They are using these hearings simply as a red herring to keep from doing what they ought to do."
"Do Nothing " Session
Mr. Truman felt justified in his anger. In an attempt to cut the special session short, Senate Republicans ended the Southern Democrat filibuster by ditching the anti-poll tax bill. By the week's end, Congress had sent the Republican version of an anti-inflation bill to the president.
It was a watered-down bill whose principal feature was the restoring of war time consumer credit controls. This meant that installment buyers would once again be required to pay one-third down and the rest in 15 months on such items as automobiles, refrigerators, and the like — if Mr. Truman signed the bill. None of the president's demands for wage-price controls were included in the bill. And, with the exception of the Senate filibuster on the anti-poll tax bill, none of his civil rights legislation was even considered. A housing bill which was designed to encourage private builders was also passed. Truman's plea for a hill to include public building and slum clearance was firmly rejected.
Trouble in Dayton
While Mr. Truman smoldered in Washington, the management of strikebound Univis Lens Co. smiled in Dayton, Ohio. Using tanks, bayonets, and teargas bombs, the National Guard hit the picket line on orders from Governor Thomas E. Herbert. In a demand for higher wages to meet higher prices, members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (CIO) had been out for 90 days. The National Guard assault was the latest of several maneuvers by the management to break the strike. Simultaneously, the courts, joining with city and state officials in helping to end the strike, began to order key strike leaders away from the picket lines.