Mr. Jefferis—“Did the War Industries Board fix the price of labor?”
Mr. Baruch—“If you can call it that way, but I would not say so; no, sir.”
Mr. Jefferis—“I am trying to get at what you did.” Mr. Baruch—“No, sir; we did not fix the price of wages.”
Mr. Jefferis—“What did you do?” Mr. Baruch—“Just what I told you.” Mr. Jefferis—“Probably I am a little dense, but I did not catch it if you told me.”
Mr. Baruch—“When the price-fixing committee fixed the price of steel, we will say, they said, ‘This price is agreed upon, and you shall keep wages where they are’—and those were the wages that were pre¬ vailing at the price we fixed. At the time prices were fixed at first they were very much higher than the prices that we fixed.”
Mr. Jefferis—“When you got the price of any of these low materials you would fix the price of labor that was to be employed in producing them?”
Mr. Baruch—“To the extent that it should remain at the maximum of what it was when we fixed the price.”
Considering the weight of Mr. Baruch’s authority, and the stipulations he made, this was to all intents and purposes a fixing of the rate of wages.
THE SCOPE OF JEWISH DICTATORSHIP IN THE U. S. 75 Now, as to the fixing of prices, Mr. Baruch is much more positive. In answer to a question by Mr. Garrett, Mr. Baruch said:
“We fixed the prices in co-operation with the indus¬ tries, but when we fixed a price we fixed it for the total production, not alone for the army and the navy, but for the Allies and the civilian population”