<--PREV Doc #134  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #136 Document #135; April 6, 1953 To Gabriel Hauge Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series, Stassen Corr. ; Category: Memorandum The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953 Chapter 2: "A number of misunderstandings": Party and International Struggles   Even though we may have all the statistics on price changes that we can possibly use, the thought that we agreed upon was that it would be well to let industry know, so far as possible, that we were aware of the facts.1 It occurs to me that we might, therefore, ask the headquarters of the NAM2 or the Chamber of Commerce to keep us informed on these matters, saying that we should like to have these reports to us circulated also to all their own members.3 What do you think? 1 Eisenhower had probably discussed with Hauge, his personal economic adviser, a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics marking an 0.4 decline in the consumer price index between mid-January and mid-February 1953. Food prices in that period had fallen by 1.4 percent, leaving the food index at its lowest point since January 1951. According to the report, the drop in food prices was the chief reason for the decline, although the transportation index and the reading and recreation index had also dropped. The housing index, however, had advanced by 0.2 percent, and the apparel index had not changed. The new figures represented the largest price drop in a year and the third consecutive month in which a decline had been reported (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Prices and Cost of Living," Monthly Labor Review 76, no. 4 [April 1953], 461-68; and New York Times, Mar. 27, Apr. 12, 1953). 2 The National Association of Manufacturers. 3 This was the type of executive action that political scientist Fred I. Greenstein would later identify as Eisenhower's "hidden-hand" strategy (The Hidden Hand Presidency [New York, 1982]; see, e.g., pp. 80-92). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Memorandum To Gabriel Hauge, 6 April 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 135. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/135.cfm <--PREV Doc #134  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #136

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