First on the Carpet

Both OPM and OPA showed their teeth last week, for the first time got noncompliant businessmen up on charges.

OPM’s bad boy was a violator of priorities, a Chicagoan of undisclosed identity. Charge: he had obtained a “considerable quantity” of aluminum for defense use through preference ratings, had instead supplied it to old & good customers for non-defense purposes. After his day in court, behind closed doors, OPMites retired to weigh his degree of willfulness.

On their decision depended a precedent-making penalty. The alternatives: 1) publication of his name and the facts (which appeared most likely); 2) institution of criminal proceedings (perjury); 3) refusal of further priorities, which would force him out of business.

OPA’s bad boy, a ceiling-price violator, was one of the largest U.S. iron & steel-scrap dealers. He too remained anonymous because he agreed to make full restitution of sums collected above OPA’s ceiling, not to discriminate in scrap sales to customers, hereafter to observe strictly the price schedule.