notes to pages 163‒169 395
the initial war orders provided a welcome economic stimulus as prices
recovered to their 1929 levels. By spring 1941, however, infl ation worries
spread. As with the fi rst measures to coordinate production, the initial
administration moves to stem infl ation were insuffi cient. In 1942, the
Offi ce of Price Administration (OPA) received authority to set maximum
prices based on 1941 levels, but important exclusions—it had limited
power over agricultural prices because key political leaders realized
the war could boost farm incomes—reduced its eff ectiveness. Price
regulations were extended, fi rst to consumer products in April 1942,
later that year to wages and all commodities. Popular frustrations with
OPA regulations contributed to large Republican gains in the 1942
congressional elections. Only when the president issued a directive in
1943 to all agencies to hold the line on prices was infl ation fi nally
checked. Eisner, State in the American Political Economy , 204–6;
Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 782.
- Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 641–42.
- Eisner, State in the American Political Economy , 209–10.
- Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 782.
- Eisner, State in the American Political Economy , 220–21.
- Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 782–87.
- Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 783.
- Eisner, State in the American Political Economy , 210.
- In this vein, the administration agreed before the 1940 presidential
election to promote the fi rst African American to general offi cer rank and
appoint a senior black advisor to the War Department. Philip A. Klinkner
with Rogers Smith, Th e Unsteady March: Th e Rise and Decline of Racial
Equality in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 153–54.
- Klinkner with Smith, Unsteady March , 154–60; Kennedy, Freedom from
Fear , 765–68.
- Klinkner with Smith, Unsteady March , 168–70, 176–77.
- Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 769–71.
- Klinkner with Smith, Unsteady March , 178–79, 191.
- Klinkner with Smith, Unsteady March , 191.
- Klinkner with Smith, Unsteady March , 186–90.
- Klinkner with Smith, Unsteady March , 197–99; Kennedy, Freedom from
Fear , 774.
- Kennedy, Freedom from Fear , 784, 787–88.
- Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 5–6.
- Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 20–21.
- Larrabee, Commander in Chief , chap. 2.
- On King as a strategist and his commitment to defeating Germany fi rst, see
Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 153–54, 183. Admiral Harold Stark served for
a time as another naval representative on the Joint Chiefs but soon resigned
to avoid confusion and duplication. Larrabee, Commander in Chief , 20–21.
