110 Pressure politics
conducted. Retail price maintenance is the use of legislation to outlaw price-
cutting by retailers, in order to maintain a common minimum price for a
product. The group most interested in the continuation of retail price main-
tenance legislation was the National Association of Retail Druggists (NARD),
who over a long period fought off attempts by the federal administration, the
courts and price-cutting competitors to outlaw price-fixing agreements. The
NARD was successful in getting legislation supporting its position adopted by
Congress and by many state legislatures. In the 1930s, in its effort to obtain
the passage of the Miller–Tydings Amendment, which exempted price-fixing
agreements made under state law from the prohibitions of the anti-trust
laws, the NARD established ‘contact committees’ of local retailers in every
congressional district, choosing acquaintances and friends of congressmen
to staff them. The Amendment was passed despite the opposition of the
president and the FTC. At the state level the Association was extremely suc-
cessful in getting states to pass the necessary legislation, and the model law
that it supported was passed by eleven states before a typographical error in
the draft was noted. The success of the NARD in these years, although resale
price maintenance has succumbed to other forces since, illustrates one very
important aspect of business in politics in the United States. It is not only
the giants of the ‘military-industrial complex’ that can successfully exercise
pressure upon government; one of the most persistently successful interests
in getting help from government has been the small businessman.
The battle over the regulation of the production and distribution of natu-
ral gas during the Eisenhower administration is illustrative of the way in
which different business groups can line up against each other using the dif-
ferent levels of federal and state government to attempt to achieve their
aims. This was a dispute over whether the states or the federal government
should control the output and pricing policy of the natural gas industry. The
producers were fearful of federal control and formed a Natural Gas and Oil
Resources Committee to keep control in the hands of the states. The local gas
distributing companies, however, hoped for lower prices with federal control,
and, allied with labour, municipal and consumer groups, they fought to assert
federal power. A Council of Local Gas Companies allied with a committee of
mayors pleaded for the consumer before Congress. The oil and gas industry
was reported to have spent over $1.5 million to ‘educate’ Senators. The gas
producers scored an initial success by getting the legislation that they wanted
passed by Congress, but allegations of improper lobbying, in particular the
revelation by Senator Case that a large sum of money had been paid into his
campaign fund in connection with the legislation, led President Eisenhower
to veto the Bill.
The business community has adapted itself to the working of pressure
politics in America in two ways. Business corporations have used Political
Action Committees to channel money to those candidates for political of-
fice whom they wish to support. Trade associations and other lobbyist or-
ganisations have formed into coalitions in order to pursue common aims on