N.A.M. Spent $4,000,000 Yearly far Nation-Wide Anti-Labor Propaganda
HARRIS, HERBERT
N.A.M. Spent $4,000,000 Yearly far Nation-Wide Anti-Labor Propaganda Press, Ad Agencies, 270 Radio Stations Donated "Services" By HERBERT HARRIS THE very fact that the old red-baiting slogans...
...Other items given specific approval by the 800 were eor\ pensation for loss of wages resulting from illness, and serious consideration of a compulsory hearth insurance Phin.- Provision must be made, the progressive doctors' group pointed out, for "the middle and lower income groups, who are unable to rrieet doctors' bills...
...or if it exists, it has been so microscopic as to evade the diligent researches of many competent and interested investigators...
...t .. acco.pa.,i.g art,c...
...incorporation of unions and their compulsory registration, and other legislation by which the government would strictly regulate their conduct...
...A roll of these numbers was sent to the cotton owners, and became a handy blacklist for excluding all workingmea who had ever joined with other laborers in demands for decent working conditions...
...Of the N.A.M.'s sincerity in pursuing such objectives there can be no doubt...
...The committee's' report declared that "health of the people is a direct concern of the government...
...and Help Build a Soviet America," a forgery so blatant that its distributors must be disappointed in it...
...Other thoesaads, with no interest in racing, found plenty of lurid, so-called inside information on the workings of the city hall gang...
...publicity was indicated by the fact that Outdoor Advertising, Inc., in 1937 donated 60,000 billboards, or about $1,250,000 worth of space, to the N.A.M.'s "The American Way" campaign...
...Under their present status, indeed, they have far more liability than if they were compelled to incorporate...
...mJBM following fall, Paul G. Jeans, the trusted axe man for the I organization and a former managing editor of the New York gorging Telegraph, went down to Miami to run the show...
...In the third place, despite the stories of anti-union columnists about the fabulous tribute exacted by leaders from their rank and file, high union officials are paid from three to seven thousand dollars a year, on the average, depending usually upon the size of their union, while the heads of locals average from $40 to $75 per week...
...circulation soared until the Tribune ess outselling the Herald and News by two-to-one...
...To this observer of Latin-American affairs, over a period of a good many years, it appears as though the only move that might save the day would be a forthright statement by the President of the United States to the effect that henceforth we abandon the right to intervene in Hispanic-America on behalf of private investors...
...In recent years, indeed, the most celebrated case of a union official who absconded with the treasury turned out to be a Pinkerton agent hired by the Fruehauf Trailer Company to act as a stool-pigeon among its workers...
...It is no secret any longer, even to the newspaper men who never heard before of the Argentine corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that unless something drastic is done in this country within the next week or two, we are due for a diplomatic setback in South America, which may lead to a breakdown of North American hegemony over the Western Hemisphere...
...The mendacious medicoes of the American Medical Association were punctured with a syringe of resounding attack this week by 800 of the country's most prominent physicians, including many members of the A.M.A...
...Since in the act of incorporation one goes to the state and asks for the right to be legally born, the granting and revoking of charters to unions might well become a political football, with an opposed administration restricting and a friendly administration expanding the scope and kind of activity allowed...
...Those were the good hands in which the city was left...
...Most vicious of all such schemes was the one recently tried oat Hi San Joaquin Valley to smash a cotton pickers' strike...
...It had long been s> ambition of his to own the Herald, as that paper wields considerable political influence In Florida, and, in addition, is a tag* money-maker...
...Faced with the decree, Detroit's Works Project officials backed down and agreed to give up the plan...
...NEVERTHELESS, "the works" *^ of the State Department are gravely concerned over the course of the Lima Conference...
...This is the answer that American labor is giving a movement which the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Legion, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Bankers Association, and the Hearst dynasty, plus a host of groups which openly preach fascism, are trying to spread across the nation...
...fi * • • THK nunors say that he holds a mortgage on the Herald and that Frank Knight, who purchased the paper from Frank Skats*, wffl be forced out when he cannot meet the gigantic notes * the property...
...Hull actually felt the way he spoke...
...Under the Roche program...
...In the second place, existing state and Federal statutes, namely, criminal laws and the Federal anti-trust acts when racketeering has an effect upon interstate commerce, are more than adequate to safeguard the employer, the public and labor unions against this evil—as the convictions obtained by Thomas E. Dewey against labor racketeers in New York restaurants amply attest...
...The same with Chile...
...And they were right wr .the blow fell within a year...
...In a recent letter sent to members, its headquarters staff declared: "Now, more than ever before, strikes are being won or lost in the newspapers and over the radio...
...Jose Cantilo, stated at the beginning of the conference that "we do not need any formal pacts...
...the more aprticularly since the basic purpose of incorporation is to escape or to limit the liability of the individuals involved in any enterprise...
...HILUONS SPENT TO SMASH LABOR DURING 1937 alone the National Association of Manufacturers raised and spent $793,043.06 on its "public information" program which, according to Alfred Hirsch, in a recent issue of the Forum, "depicts industry as the knight in shining armor, imbued with the idea of chivalry, entering any and all tournaments on behalf of the oppressed, with Closed Shop, Racketeering Labor Organizations, and even New Deal government as the black villains who threaten all Americans, rich and poor, employer and employed...
...With courts constantly crowded with suits between business firms arising from breach of contract, this record of American unionism's 99% per cent fidelity to its pledges is perhaps a point to be pondered...
...foi some years now, various people have toyed with the idea j running a tabloid newspaper in Miami...
...Argentina, where the British influence is suspected, is refusing to take positive action against the attempt of the authoritarian nations to gain a foothold in Latin America...
...Moreover, union funds — to an overwhelming extent — are audited regularly by certified public accountants, and receipts and expenditures reported to the membership, usually through publication in the union's paper...
...the demand was rebuffed by a powerful and well-organised labor drive...
...Remember, the Argentine foreign minister, Sr...
...IN addition to all this constant and more or less subtle defamation of-unionism and all it stands for, the NAM...
...t.e uperl •• ces nflered ., Its I.d.stria' coll.ag •• s i. fa.ci.t CHafries, ca...
...Those who refused the invitation were put off their job*— until the United Automobil Workers, the Wayne County Federation of Labor, the United Office and Professional Workers, and the Civil Rights Federation launched a fight which finally obtained a "show cause" order against the WPA administration...
...He tends to be equally mistrustful of the radio's handling of labor news and comments...
...Should them m approved, the total ef such ships to be constructed neat year will be brought to eight, as the V. S. seeks to build a super-colossal navy em its entry in an iiifli nWnil super-colossal arms race...
...At least, in theory, he was through with Miami, °at there is gossip in Miami that Annenberg is not out of Miami...
...Then, just as national advertising (the backbone of any newspaper or magazine) began to roll in, the paper was sold to the BaaM for a reported price of $2,500,000...
...The WPA in North Dakota recently granted $11,945 for a project which will make a permanent record of fingerprints for everyone in the state who is willing to see-mi t to the procedure...
...He did nothing with the paper that year, letting jgjjjeation lapse through the summer...
...The front page was given over to the announcement, whicl |n part, that "having accomplished so much towards giving Wsmi a clean government, I feel my work is done...
...The alleged "voUintary" character of the whole business does not tell the whole story, for it is clear that anti-labor . employers will easily be able to demand that all prospective workers submit records of their fingerprints,as a prerequisite to getting a job...
...As indicated in the Danbury Hatters case, individual union members may be sued for injury or damages inflicted by their organization, a precedent which is still on the statute books and which would seem to punctuate the widely fostered illusion that unions have no legal liability...
...However, in spite of the idiosyncrasies of the Annenbergs, the ]™*ee prospered and undoubtedly would have been one of the ¦t papers of the South had it been continued...
...ft was this racing news, which was spread over eight to ten pages at its peak, which attracted thousands of readers...
...a • ALL employees in Detroit's WPA Housing Survey Project were told that a "voluntary'* fingerprinting was to be instituted, to which they were "invited* to subit...
...The Draeo Doctrine is Labor Raps Fingerprint Fad in U. 5. THUMBS down...
...Moe Annenberg, at a minor stockholder who stood in danger of losing money, Mjoed control of the fledgling sheet after some mental and finan-acrobatics...
...as t.e fore' •••• ' of a •• w era ,. ..,' o""".,'oy" ",'atlo...
...The procedure is recommended to (a) rid them of racketeers and (b) make them more "responsible...
...UNIONS FULFILL ALL CONTRACTS AS far as responsibility is concerned, unions which have been able to exist over a few years' time observe their contracts...
...Thus, the real powers of South America are getting together in a sort of polite opposition to Washington...
...This drive is the new fad for fingerprinting every individual in the country...
...The Pan-American Conference was not progressing according to the usual pattern...
...But Moe lost ¦terse* in the paper when Paul Jeans was killed in an auto accident...
...w.'c., .ater t.1s .. 0...
...guns may soon be on the waves if the administration approves plans for a 45,000 ton super-dreadnaught, emoting $100,000,000 and dwarfing the present record-holder, the 32,600 tow V.S.S...
...The National Association of Manufacturers, and its 31,000 manufacturers who are banded together under the National Industrial Council, cannot be charged with the same apathy toward the good will of the phantom public...
...Spent $4,000,000 Yearly far Nation-Wide Anti-Labor Propaganda Press, Ad Agencies, 270 Radio Stations Donated "Services" By HERBERT HARRIS THE very fact that the old red-baiting slogans still are effective in the hands of unionism's foes may in large measure be assigned to the neglect of both the A. F. of L and the C.I.O...
...Prevention of sex crimes", is the excuse recently given for the New Yorw City WPA's order to fingerprint 10,000 workers, accompanied by a stern warning that "An employee who refuses to his fingerprints taken will be subject to disciplinary action...
...In the following" municipal elections, the entire Tribune slate was elected on a "good government" plat-firm, and Moe Annenberg's star burned brightly in the Southern ressftillstinn With the rise of the paper from an out-and-out scandal sheet into 'a political factor of utmost importance, the policy was changed...
...The swing of public opinion has always been a major factor in labor disputes, but with the settlement of strikes being thrown more and more into the laps of public officials, the question of public opinion becomes of greater importance...
...to develop press and publicity services which would tell their side of the story and interpret the aspirations of the labor movement not only to the general public but also to their own followers...
...be gleaHd fro...
...South American Powers Jolt U. S. Plans At Lima Want Promise of No Armed Interventior At Any Time For Debt Collection By BRYCE OLIVER News Commentator at WEVD, New York ANYBODY 'who heard our Secretary of State, Mr...
...publication, in 1937...
...is quite generally credited with starting all the present clamor for the...
...lilt I.st tow .. cit Labor co...
...The committee of experts at Lima now have under consideration a resolution to enlarge and expand the Drago Doctrine...
...He showed up in the office less and less, leaving the actual waning of the paper to the hired hands...
...Gifted with a shrewd sense of what sells, Jeans turned the tribune news pages into a three-ring circus by lambasting the aty administration for permitting horse bookmaking joints to syenite while the sports department covered racing more fully taae any other paper in the United States...
...advertising picked up...
...A-.r'ca...
...The paper actually was sold and "•Pended publication on December 1, 1937...
...It was only a matter of time until the Tribune J*eU be sold or folded, the staff felt...
...THE staff knew the Tribune was doomed when the paper announced that Moe had purchased the Philadelphia Inquire) »r $15,000,000...
...in the fall of 1933 the Miami Beach Tribune came into Ijgjjf, Woefully undermanned and lacking any semblance of clear 35gj the paper failed to arouse much interest...
...And that doesn't exclude the late and tm-r~^*-< New York Graphic...
...That this expenditure does not begin to represent the extent of N.A.M...
...For it is public opinion—what the voters think—that moves those elected to action along one course or another...
...late in 1937 and throughout 1938 has been distributing two electrically transcribed radio broadcasts, the one called "American Family Robinson," which exalts "rugged individualism" and has been used by 268 stations...
...It is interesting to observe that employers who urge incorporation as just what the unions need have failed to urge that their own associations be subjected to the same sort of government supervision...
...A certain parochialism among labor's leadership, a tendency to think only in terms of labor wants, has underscored this disregard of the advantages, even the necessity, of molding a public opinion which, if not favorable, at, least would be more neutral and informed in its attitude toward unionism in many a strike situation...
...He has seen too many headlines doctored and distorted to lay the blame for strike or violence upon the union when it really belonged to the employers...
...California...
...In fact, less than one-half of one per cent of the contracts between American unions and their employers have been violated over a period of thirty-seven years...
...Here a demand for compulsory fingerprint* ing wag raised by plantation owners...
...test, is reality, he is the owner of the Herald...
...When the Tribune candidates were defeated in the first test of strength bet ween the Tribune and its most virulent rival, the Mismi Herald, gloom was spread three feet thick in the Tribune office...
...850,000,000 a year would be spent on a nationwide drive to care for the ill poor...
...propagandists, and that newspapers in varying localities similarly donated 2,000 full pages, which at current advertising rates would have cost another million to buy outright...
...Likewise, in proposing various legal curbs upon the right of unions to contribute to the campaign funds of a political party, employers have neglected to request that the owners of vast fortunes and the officers of great corporations and the members of such trade societies as the National Association of Manufac-, turers be prevented from doing the same thing...
...Worse than that, there is a growing suspicion that the British Government is quietly but effectively working, through Argentina, where the British have their greatest influence, on behalf of Germany...
...On that question the A.M.A...
...Brazil, which has important commercial and financial ties with Germany, is hanging* back and drifting toward what might be called an "Argentine orbit...
...Some 325 men and women were cut adrift in Miami, many st siiss were from New York or Chicago, without regard to firsts employment or sufficient money to take them from Miami to another city where there might be a job...
...Through good luck and al-BMtt miraculously fine reporting, the Tribune staff of six men "best" the world on the unnecessarily tragic death of 1,200 World War veterans on the Florida Keys...
...Bat a group of Broad way itea, including Larry Schwab, SjlHari producer, thought they could succeed where Vander-liBVfiriled...
...Despite the glowing, though dull, words of Hull—American capital was under desperate attack in the Andean capital even as he spoke...
...But the optimistic commentators, most of whom hsd no real understanding of the underlying motives of Latin-American Governments, now find that it is not so easy for the United States to shut out the danger that has been made all too clear for us...
...U.d t .. Nat'o.a' Assoclatlo...
...t .. H.A.M., wt'ctltas 'earnd IIff •• fro...
...Nor is the A. F. of L. excluded from the N-A.M.'s list of the unredeemed...
...has nothing to offer...
...No one in the office knew the paper was being sold and suspended until they read of it at the ¦saw time as did the subscribers...
...The American Federation of Labor brand of unionism, however, is un-American, illegal and indecent...
...Tfeos...
...it is the purity of its motives which is in question...
...Two weeks after the Tribune folded, the Herald printed ar •fcuaation by the head of the Florida Power and Light Company •*» powerfal public utility, that the Mayor and two of his Council had attempted to shake down his company for a cool quart© •f a million...
...In the rare instances in which unions fail to live up to their pacts, employers may readily resort to court action...
...ol tee moment, the sale of the Tribune was more brutal tkss saything that preceded it...
...s u p E R S H I P WASHINGTON—The big-gest battleship ever to carry t7-S...
...And grave anxiety probably was being felt in some of the plush-carpeted offices of banking houses in Wall Street...
...Cor-dell Hull, speak over the radio from Lima, Peru, last Tuesday night might have gathered the impression that the Pan-American Conference was a delightful soiree, in the western world's most "old-Spain" city, at which dear friends were renewing mellow friendships with old friends and wallowing in sweet sentiment...
...A tremendously energetic man va© thought all the world was dishonest, he started a campaign jgiinst the local city government, which, for sheer bad taste and deliberate distortion of facts, had never been seen before or since...
...It is believed that Roosevelt has determined to ask Congress for sufficient funds to build two new battleships, apart from the super-dreadnaught...
...Hearty approval of the Roosevelt health program was voiced at the same time by the 800, who make up the Committee of Physicians for the Improvement of Medical Care, under the leadership of Dr...
...Then came the hurricane of 1936...
...book will be pllb" ded by"" Yale U.iy.rsity 'ress...
...Annenberg Rises* "The Foulest Paper Ever to Be Printed" - By VICTOR L4NGHORN fttnOB's Note: This is the second of four articles on Moses Asewnber*- piobable successor to William Randolph Hearst Americas most powerful publisher...
...WtTAL DISREGARD fOR EMPLOYEES /VJ0TED throughout the English-speaking world, the Tribune staged'a comeback...
...The better to promote such views, the N.A.M...
...Last week's article told ** faanbcrg rose from a comer newsboy to the ownership of I'jjgeihtad*-•/ radio periodicals...
...of Ma .. facf.rers' boH'e-strew...
...There was no word or thanks for the* staff who had workec for small wages and under impossible physical conditions...
...The N.A.M.'s Industrial Press Service reported that its "canned" news stories, features, and editorial analysis have been printed in 6,252 weekly and daily papers in the United States, mainly in the smaller communities...
...Yoong Neil Vanderbilt gill it during the "boom days" of 1926 and gave it up as a bad iah...
...OUT that's only part of the complication...
...And that was his primary object in owning a paper in «s»»i in the first place...
...A health plan formulated by the National Health Conference, which is under the direction of Josephine Roche, earned the enthusiastic endorsement of the 800...
...long noted in the publication world for folding papers on the spts...
...In fact, there is no reason to believe that the handsome old gentleman from Tennessee was insincere in his remarkable effusions upon the kindness and friendliness of his diplomatic conf erers at the Lima conference...
...Such a pact would virtually commit 21 governments to resist all temptations to grant special privileges to the governments of Germany, Italy and Japan...
...Perhaps Mr...
...The National Association of Manufacturers devotes most of its anti-union zeal to the C.I.O., helping to distribute a pamphlet entitled, "Join the CJ.O...
...The paper seemed definitely headed nowhere...
...publicity in 1937 was closer to $4,000,000 than to the $793,043.06 collected from its subsidiaries...
...Streamlined Bosses I AST wHIr...
...In the first place, with the exception of the trucking and building trades, cleaning and dyeing services, and wholesale and retail food supply, all of which by their peculiar marketing methods and competitive conditions lend themselves to racketeering, virtually none exists among American unions...
...Jeans started the fireworks...
...Witt the .sale of the Tribune, Annenberg was through with Miami except for the Racing Form, which he runs during the Florida season...
...117HEN the conference opened, ™ some of the more optimistic newspaper commentators predicted that President Roosevelt would get just about what he wanted at Lima—that is, a consultative pact under which each nation would agree to consult all others when endangered by authoritarian aggressor nations...
...wUI appear I. II A •• rlca .. Labor," by H.rbert Harrl...
...A movie in similar vein, called "Let's Go, America," was shown, free of charge to the exhibitor, in 2,812 theatres...
...We are not opposed to good unionism," affirmed American Industries, an N.A.M...
...and the other consisting of talks by George Sokolsky, New York Herald-Tribune commentator, and used by 260 stations...
...In regard to the usual methods of publicity, releases, special features, and the like, the union leader is inclined to believe that the general press, owned by people who must cater to the preferences of advertisers, would rarely give his cause a decent break in any case...
...There was a distinct toning down of libelous statements...
...If the rumors are correct (and Annenberg has repeatedly de-B*d them), Moe will be able to run his race wire service wide Jjoa...
...Finally, the financial integrity and business sense of the union officials may be favorably compared with their counterparts among business executives...
...Stymied in their first plan, the . cotton planters put through e scheme for the registry of workers' auto licenses, so that a means of identification of "undesirable" workers was possible through the the numbers in the hand of the police officials...
...Machinery should be set up in every community to cope with the issue of unscrupulous unionism and radicalism, both in its immediate aspects and long-range possibilities...
...tabloid Miami Tribune, by and large, probably was the Toiost foul publication ever to be printed under the guise of a ^ aewcpaper...
...that 270 radio stations "donated a million dollars' worth of time for N.A.M...
...xp.ct fro...
...I leave Miam ">» teed hands...
...The proposed colossus was recommended to the President by the White House's unofficial national defense committee...
...whole sordid tale of the Tribune, from the time Annen-wrr disposed of his partners until he sold the paper at a handle profit to John Knight, is a story of what a ruthless, tremendously wealthy mind can accomplish if that mind has only one *tsA sad sticks to it...
...John P. Peters of the Yale University Faculty...
...Thus the actual cash value of N.A.M...
Vol. 21 • December 1938 • No. 51
