THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW THE hopes of American labor for early wage increases based on relaxation of the "Little Steel Formula" were dealt a crippling blow last week when the War Labor Board voted 8 to 4...
...Four states with 60 votes were said to be so close as to be classified undecided...
...Ickes said that among those "riding comfortable in the Trojan horse are the foes of all progressive thought— Bertie McCormick, publisher of the rabid Chicago Tribune, and his cousins, Eleanor Patterson, publisher of the Washington Times-Herald, and Joseph Medill Patterson, publisher of the New York Daily News...
...Roosevelt "is in good shape," and that "contrary to some reports, he does not even have a cold...
...In a message to the society Shaw said: "Heaven defend me from Shaw societies...
...Henderson said that "to my mind, we're not set in this country for any course that will give us full employment and production after the war...
...And everyone knows that until five months before Pearl Harbor this Administration sent Japan the scrap and oil Japan needed to run the war machine against our natural historical ally in Asia—China...
...Meany asserted that "It's the same thing as if Gen...
...But it is not too late...
...OPA economists refuted the industry's claim that labor costs have increased by pointing out that despite increases in wage rates in the steel industry, the industry's labor costs were lower per unit of production than before the war...
...The effect on employment and the nation's economy generally would be disastrous...
...The four Board members representing industry and the four representing the public voted against approval of general wage increases...
...Asserting it was fallacious to assume that the Democrats had handled foreign affairs well, Dewey contended that there had been the same kind of waste, bungling, inefficiency, and back-biting on the foreign relations front as in domestic affairs...
...I do not in the least intend to retire from politics...
...Norman Thomas, Socialist candidate for President, last week denied a report that quoted him as planning to retire from politics when the current campaign is over...
...A Close Race The Presidential campaign swung into the home stretch this week with the Gallup Poll showing a neck-and-neck race in which President Roosevelt was leading by a tiny margin...
...Gov...
...Robert E: Hannegan, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, charged that "apparently a whispering campaign has been going on about President Roosevelt's health and is being intensified...
...The statement by the majority that the WLB is not sufficiently informed to say what effect a wage rise would have on the nation's stabilization program "is tantamount to an admission by the public members of the Board that they are not competent to perform their duties," the labor group asserted...
...It is not too late for labor, business, and government to act in concert and with speed to assure all of us safe conduct through the treacherous no-man's land of industrial transition which lies ahead...
...Dewey himself jumped into the free-for-all over the Roosevelt regime's conduct of foreign affairs...
...Rights, passed by Congress this year, are attractive enough to have influenced many men over 30 who have draft deferment to volunteer for military service, Col...
...Thomas, president of the United Auto Workers, said that he and his three labor associates on the Board would submit a minority report asking that President Eoosevelt study the labor members' recommendation and render a decision "based on common sense and the best interests of the American workingman...
...I merely told a reporter that I would not run again," Thomas explained...
...Accept my blessing, but for God's sake leave me alone...
...Dewey struck back promptly, repeating his charge on lack of adequate preparations and accusing the President of avoiding the issue by "epithets" and "hiding behind the symbol of the White House...
...It was clear enough to all Washington observers that the Administration will decline to act on the ticklish wage issue at least until after the election...
...No Early Action Seen In failing to make a clear-cut recommendation, the labor spokesmen charged, the remainder of the WLB was running away from its responsibilities...
...George Bernard Shaw, whose eloquent warnings against dismemberment of Germany and a peace settlement based on revenge have made front-page news in Britain recently, broke into the press again last week when he told a newly, formed Bernard Shaw Society of Ireland "for God's sake leave me alone...
...Roosevelt having 51 per cent and Gov...
...Shaw...
...The latter accused Dewey of playing "fast and loose with the American people" and of being "surprisingly dishonest" when he charged at Charleston, W. Va., that the Administration wanted to set up a communist system in the United States...
...Warning...
...The latest Gallup report showed the President leading in 25 states with 243 electoral votes and Gov...
...The study was undertaken after the U. S. Steel Corporation had demanded authority to raise prices as high as 10 per cent...
...Turning back to pre-,war levels would spell disaster...
...The Electoral College has 531 votes and 266 are necessary for election...
...In a war-torn world, with so much yet to be done, no man can seclude himself from life by retreating to an ivory tower...
...My one prayer to them is do what you like among yourselves...
...Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes tore into Dewey as a "machine politician of the common garden variety" in a belligerent speech attacking'what he characterized as "Dewey falsehoods...
...The Roosevelt camp also exhibited irritation with the frequently made Republican charge that the present Administration failed to prepare the nation for war...
...This action by the WLB caused no surprise to Washington insiders...
...The profit position of the industry is extremely favorable, with 1943 profits before taxes equal to 3.7 times the average profits of the base period 1936-1939, and constituting a rate of return equal to 17 per cent of invested capital, 3.5 times the average rate of return in 1936-1939," the OPA reported...
...Even before the WLB was ready to report, Vinson, speaking in behalf of the Administration, remarked that "on my honor" the formula would not be broken...
...Dewey 49 per cent...
...The general WLB agreement that wages should not be advanced at least until victory in Europe has been won brought a sharp dissent from the four babor members of the Board...
...William H. Davis, WLB chairman, said the majority of the Board was convinced that wage earners would derive no benefit from increased wages, if prices were raised in the same proportion...
...Roosevelt did not condemn the doings at Munich to the American people...
...Another warning came from Boris Shishkin, economist for the American Federation of Labor, who estimated that unemployment will reach 11,000,000 after the collapse of Germany and that the fall of Japan may be followed by a depression with 20,000,000 Americans unemployed...
...The White House issued a comprehensive report, without comment, which sought to show that Dewey and other GOP campaigners had torn quotations from their context in an effort to show that high-ranking military officials had deplored America's lack of preparedness...
...Report On Steel Profits While the Little Steel Formula freezing workers' wages was thus given a new lease on life, a secret report prepared by the Office of Price Administration disclosed that the steel industry is making profits almost four times as high as before the war...
...The benefits and advantages offered by the GI Bill of...
...Shishkin attacked the views of "prophets of boom" and asserted that America could "achieve a high level of employment only if we achieve a level of production without precedent in the past...
...Fred M. Vinson, President Roosevelt's Stabilization Director, has bitterly opposed relaxation of the Little Steel Formula, which limits wage increases to 15 per cent above the Jan...
...Disturbed by the impact western capitalist civilization may have on Red Army soldiers as they move into conquered countries, Soviet newspapers are warning the troops against "the tawdry brilliance," "the deceitful phantoms of pseudo civilization," and the "complicated make-up, dark red lips, and sinful mouth" of "pretty, standard-looking wo* men...
...Shishkin, like Henderson, asserted that "no comprehensive program is ready to be put into operation to hold employment at high level and assure stability in transition...
...Claire Boothe Luce, Connecticut Republican, described President Roosevelt as the "world's leading isolationist and appeaser" from 1933 to 1939—"all through the years when Mussolini and Hitler were rising in power...
...Lure...
...Dewey's use of a quotation from A. A. Berle, Jr., assistant secretary of state, in an effort to brand the Administration as communist-minded drew a sizzling retort from Berle last week...
...Republican campaigners hammered vigorously during the past week on the Roosevelt Administration's pre-Pearl Harbor rearmament plans and its foreign policies during the '30s...
...Agents of Soviet Russia are seeking 2,000, 000 artificial legs for soldiers from American manufacturers, it was disclosed last week...
...Whispering Campaign H t Meanwhile, the Democratic Party sent some of its toughest campaigners to the firing line, and the President himself was scheduled to take to the air with a major address on foreign policy, to be followed, it was reported, by a series of addresses in pivotal states...
...I have to be civil to them, but I have more present and future work on hand than I have time for and societies are concerned only with my old work that is for me past and done with...
...Such a price increase would permit U. S. Steel to cut production up to 26 per cent of capacity and still break even, according to OPA computations...
...Denial...
...A series of grim warnings of large-scale unemployment soon after the defeat of Germany came from leading economic analysts during the past week...
...Ickes charged that "an unspeakable rabble of isolationists and reactionaries" have climbed into Dewey's "Trojan horse" and that their influence would be felt if the Republican were elected President...
...Democratic Party strategists planning the Roosevelt campaign were furious at the many rumors about the President's health which have been making the rounds...
...Hold your meetings...
...Stumps...
...Rep...
...Marshall went to the President and said he and his staff were unable to formulate a plan of battle because they didn't know what the Germans were going to do...
...Luce asserted that "in 1938 Mr...
...George Meany and Mathew Woll of the AFL and R. J. Thomas and Emil Rieve of the CIO issued a strongly-worded statement accusing the majority of "inexcusable dereliction of duty—compounded of timidity, contradictions, and double talk...
...The Gallup breakdown of popular votes showed an even closer race, with Mr...
...Names And Notes In The News Warnings...
...Read your papers...
...If the price increase were granted, the report showed, the elimination of overtime pay in peacetime and the return to 1941 prices for materials would permit U. S. Steel to make profits two and a half times as big as before the war by producing at only 50 per cent of capacity...
...THE WEEK IN REVIEW THE hopes of American labor for early wage increases based on relaxation of the "Little Steel Formula" were dealt a crippling blow last week when the War Labor Board voted 8 to 4 against recommending such a course to President Roosevelt...
...1, 1941, wage rate...
...Dewey ahead in 19 states with 228 electoral votes...
...Louis he accused the Administration of incompetence abroad as well as on the home front...
...Discuss my views or what you imagine to be my views...
...Speaking to the Centennial Cooperative Congress in Chicago, Leon Henderson, former chief of OPA, predicted that 6,000,000 Americans will lose their jobs within 90 days after the fall of the Nazis because of the "lack of pronounced cohesive national economic policy...
...In a hard-hitting speech at St...
...Vice Admiral Ross T. Mclntire, the President's physician, found it necessary to issue a new statement announcing that Mr...
...A. V. McDermott, director of Selective Service in New York, asserted last week...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 43
