One Commodity at a Time: Wartime Attempts to Restrain Prices and Profiteering

During 1917 and 1918 the money supply expanded rapidly, while economic production grew little. Given worldwide inflation and fear of crimping the American economy or taxing ordinary consumers heavily, the Wilson administration tacitly accepted a measure of price inflation. Yet that did not mean it regarded rising prices with indifference. Wilson believed they resulted from malign collusion and willful overcharging. His 1917 State of the Union address sermonized: “The law of supply and demand, I am sorry to say, has been replaced by the law of unrestrained selfishness. While we have eliminated profiteering in several branches of industry it still runs impudently rampant in others.”