Letter in Response to a Proclamation on Living Costs by Mayors of Hudson County, New Jersey, Municipalities.

Dear Mayor Eggers:

I appreciate having your letter of August 11 and the copy of the proclamation of the Mayors of the municipalities of Hudson County, New Jersey, concerning present high living costs. Their action puts the blame for the heavy burden placed on the housewives of the nation exactly where it belongs--on the Republican dominated Eightieth Congress. The wives and mothers of America also know where the blame belongs.

The average housewife finds it almost impossible today to purchase the food needed by her family because of runaway prices. These were kept at a fairly reasonable level during the war years and it would be just as easy now to halt the rise if we had the necessary curbs. But the Republican dominated Eightieth Congress would not pass a price control law, although I recommended time and time again that this be done. American women will agree with the Hudson County Mayors in condemning that Congress for its failure to relieve this critical situation.

You and your fellow Mayors ask me to call Congress back into special session to get needed food price relief. That would be useless, for we would only have a repetition of the "do nothing" performance.

The remedy lies in electing a Democratic Congress in November. Then we can relieve housewives from exorbitant living costs, provide sufficient low cost housing, adequate minimum wages, and wider social security coverage. Such a Congress will support me in a forward looking program in the interest of the average family and against any reactionary program with its threat to bring back the conditions growing out of the 1930 Republican panic. Americans do not want a repetition of that, and I believe they will make sure that such a situation will not be allowed to develop.

Very sincerely yours,

HARRY S. TRUMAN

[Honorable Frank H. Eggers, Mayor, Jersey City, New Jersey]