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    "title": "Perlman, Selig",
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    "ocrText": "25 February 1947\nDear Folks:\nExcuse me for using this device to catch up on my obligations. If I waited\nuntil I had the creative impulse, the energy and concentration to write each of\nyou the long letter to which you are entitled you would never hear from me. I\ncould have written notes or short letters had I answered immediately, but the\npassage of time has accumulated too much \"interest\"\nThe truth is that there is so much I want to write about that I don't know\nwhere to begin. Right now I am at the dispensary with a thermo meter in my mouth,\nwriting this in-pencil on my knee. I'm waiting my turn to see the doctor. I've\nbeen playing tag for nearly two weeks with a cold, and now my voice is about gone.\nA \"quadripartite negotiator\" with no voice is not worth much. Tomorrow I must\nrepresent the U.S. on the Wages and Labor Standards Committee and am due to get\ninto a real fight with the Soviet delegate over the report to the Foreign Ministers\nConference to be held in Moscow next month. The next day also I'll need my voice. I\nrepresent the American Manpower Division on the Bi-Zonal Committee on Wages, Prices\nand Subsidy Policy. There the argument is with the British and American finance\nrepresentatives who want to institute a new policy of letting prices go up while at the\nsame time continuing the existing policy of holding the wage front. As it is, up\nuntil now, hourly wages have gone down 5% and weekly wages 20% while the cost of\nliving has gone up 25%\nThe major difficulty with the Soviet is that they wish to accomplish everything\nby issuing orders and edicts. That doesn't agree with our Western ideas of\ndemocratic procedure which we believe we are trying to establish in Germany. We\nbelieve in offering opportunities and in allowing individuals to make choices.\nWe try to make sure that enough individuals make the right choices by giving\nincentives in the right places, such as wage adjustments, improvements, in working\nconditions, opportunities to buy scarce consumer's goods."
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