Lobbyists Hack at "Grade Labeling" to Wreck OPA
STOUT, JONATHAN
Lobbyists Hack at "Grade Labeling" to Wreck OPA Food Interests Seek To Crack Price Ceilings, Lower Quality By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C—One of the critical battles of the war on the home...
...Thomas Murtha, chairman AFL N. Y. Central Trades and Labor Council...
...Roger Baldwin, American Civil Liberties Union...
...President Woodrow Wilson intervened in behalf of Mooney and Billings with the Governor of California and their sentences were commuted and, they were ultimately vindicated...
...Would La Pond care to explain...
...t Adolph Hold, Chairman of the Jowtto Labor Committee: I knew Erlich and Alter well...
...Observers believe that the Russian's pro-Japanese policy is becoming stronger...
...3. The whole present scheme of economic stabilization to prevent inflation...
...They seem to think it is alright for them to abuse gentiles and stir up race trouble all over the country but when you refer to one of them, they cry "anti-semitism" or accuse you of being pro-Nazi...
...We in^the American labor movement recognize no such compulsion...
...Another fsvored trick Is to give the old product s somewhat different flavor, call It new, enriched soup", and charge new, enriched orices for it...
...Their lives were a leosri* uncompi-omising resistance to the inteDssftW And Physical barbarism which reached its dm»»* find* Hitler All that they stood for was endangered by the Nazi advance...
...The incentive plan would injure collective bargaining for wages by actually placing all industry on a piece work basis and then paying the faster workers at higher rates than the others in the shop...
...And drawing the $500 mark as the dividing line leans on the side of generosity...
...Hitler has said in his instructions on propaganda: "Tell a lie, but tell it big enough and often enough and people will be overwhelmed by the enormity of it, and perhaps even pushed to belief...
...What is "grade labeling...
...The whole idea was neatly summed up in surprisingly frank language last month by the U. 8. News, owned by Big Business spokesman David Lawrence: "Dominating motive in Congress right now* is helping groups that want to get rich out of the war, that want to make a pood thing out of the war...
...It is my considered opinion that the activities of the Communist party in this country, with its savage villification of all who refuse to follow the party line, with its sudden reversals of policy and its ideological twists and turns, with its totalitarian habits of mind and ways oi action, remains a major barrier to true American-Russian understanding...
...We ha|s ftA aware that some of our words will be .pej'W and broadcast by our enemies...
...Picture it against your picture of a Misissippi background...
...Troyanovsky Book, Soviet-Jap Fishing Pact Stir Wide Interest Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C—Ill-concealed irritation with the Russian government was evident here this week in State Department and military circles as a result of the renewal of the Japanese-Soviet fisheries pact which will enable Tokyo to keep its food supplies at peacetime level, permit the use of the Pacific waters for important meteorological observation and allow them to gain time to exploit the succulent territories it conquered last year in its easy sweep southward...
...And under the pressure of the canners and packers lobby, OPA Administrator Prentue Brown appears to be in full retreat...
...An IAM-UAW merger would complicate the political picture inside the auto unkn but would make it the most powerful industrial union iri tbe world—with nearly 1,400,000 dues-paying members...
...They were executed because the Comintern could not afford to permit them to remain alive and return to Poland after the war . . ." "Some day," M. Mendelson...
...Pm still intrigued by one angle of the story on ¦try Pond, mentioned in this space two weeks ago in the story revealing Stalinist penetration into the Red Cross...
...These are the two towers on which the suspension bridge of pries control rests...
...Yet, on the outcome depend several more-than-dramatic issues: - 1. The problem of effective price controls to keep the cost of living within bounds...
...Bypassing Congress, as General Montgomery did the "Mareth Line, anti-union forces have finally succeeded in pushing a law through in Kansas and Texas actually incorporating unions and licensing officials...
...The ttory of the packers and canners monopoly is also told in a story this week by David A. Munro on page 4. And yet, there is nothing quite so phoney as the big canners and packers opposition to grade labeling...
...This will enable the Japs to use those bottoms for transportation of vital raw materials...
...There is no alternative in sight...
...Murder has been committed by the Soviet Government," AFL President William Green insisted...
...As Murray told Green, the AFL unions have autonomy and would not be bound by any committee decision...
...I have read and re-rea4 tiy jW* planation" submitted by Ambassador LrW»W*' and each time the e::_ lanation appears le* convincing...
...in Chicago, Murray has cleared Communists out of the Steel Workers Union...
...The fishing waters are the best locations available for the weather reading required by the Nipponese air force activities in the -Alaskan area...
...Last week Communist Milton Kaufman and fellow-traveler Ed Smith, late of the NLRB, were fired from their jobs in the Oil Workers Organizing Committee...
...Though Joe Curran threatened to throw a picket line around the memorial meeting, even shouted over the long-distance telephone that he would "push in" Carey's "face," the CIO secretary spoke...
...Lewis has taken a long step towards the rehabilitation of his national prestige...
...In recent weeks Alexander Troyanovsky, former Soviet Ambassador to the United States, has been receiving increased prominence in the Moscow press...
...and Britain...
...big advertising man, who has become the actual head of OPA, is under the fire of leading OPA officials...
...What seems politically expedient is simply done...
...Max Eastman, noted author...
...U.S...
...Between them they would have virtually the entire aircraft industry covered...
...When we are confronted with an act which we consider unjust, we cannot atop our ears, blind our eyes or silence our protests...
...These are strictly and accurately defined and have been accepted by tbe court* in caw* involving the false labeling of cans Grade labeling on cans, therefore, will give the Food and Drug Administration and the OPA a legal interest in claims made on tbe label...
...And, to top it all, the canning industry itself is on record, at its last convention and elsewhere, as approving this policy...
...Japan's most important satisfaction derived from the pact is the purchase of time from Russia to develop its island possessions...
...As long as the Soviet government lives in the delusion that the Communist party represents American workers, it cannot conceivably appreciate the problems that divide the workers of our countries...
...We have welcomed such demonstrations— in the case of Mooney and Billings and of Sacco and Van-zetti...
...Stone got hot under the collar about H and is circulating a petition, which requires S lignatures, to force a meeting of the Press dob to take a stand on the issue...
...In America, now and forever-more, we can and we will speak out against injustice anywhere...
...There are no ordinary judicial processes of justice" in Russia which guarantee a fair trial...
...Because then the public or an inspector trying to check on price violations has to check each brand on the dealer's shelves against his invoice (if, as and when he lets them be inspected) to discover the grade of the brand in order to discover what the ceiling price is...
...I see that a certain element of the communist [sic!] press is now ringing with denunciations of Russia's action in the matter...
...Certainly John Green, head of the CIO Shipbuilding and Marine Workers, has as much intention of adhering to any new pact as has John P. Frey, head of the AFL metal trades...
...And it is precisely at these twin tewejftjgf strength that the big canners and packers MW hacking: away—with every prospect of success...
...Read the accompanying story snd the article on Page 4 for full details...
...We have spoken out the continued enslavement ot the p»OW"*» India...
...It is the catch-a9 curative against all labor relations ills, the industrialists believe...
...When Red Cross officials asked La Bond whether it's true she has had Communist affiliations, she hotly denied it...
...They had been outspoken figures in anti-Hitler politics since 1931 when Erlich asked 'for bold action against fascism at the Vienna Congress of the Socialist International...
...Carey's speech is known to be the climax in an undercover battle between Murray and Bridges...
...The murder of Erlich and Alter, we declare, is an act which cheapens life, degrades the very ideals for which we are figTfHng in this battle to preserve civilization, and, in the long run...
...And let me remind those who raise the point that this is no time to protest against the act of an ally...
...or whether it should merely be placed on the invoice where only the wholesaler and retailer can see it...
...The Jewish labor'movement knew them well...
...There's no such thing as ''forgiving^ taxes," Winstead said...
...The announcement of the execution of Erlich and Alter was made in a letter of Maxim Litvinoff, Soviet Ambassador to the U. S., to William Green, dated February 23...
...In a speech before the House of Representatives last Friday attacking the Sedition indictments...
...But Hartford declined to testify...
...The scandalous evasion of price ceilings by profiteering Fifth Columnists has been so widespread that food costs have increased from U% to over 100% above pre-war levels...
...has employed Negro women as porters...
...We do not believe it is wise or healthy to suppress freedom of thought or freedom of expression even in the midst of & war...
...Healthy criticism of this sort is just as much part of our democratic freedoms as the right to level criticism at home if we are dissatisfied with any phase of the war effort...
...Hon...
...Wonder why PM has not yet printed the story ? * » » Donald Montgomery, consumers counsel for the United Automobile Workers, asked John A. Hartford, head of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, to come to Washington to testify in jtyor of grade labeling before the House Agriculture Committee...
...The fact is that grades are used as the basis of all government purchasing, both military and civilian...
...To illustrate the point, several weeks age ova of Administrator Prentiss Brown's chief fades, a representative of one of the large food psAera, who has been extremely active this week in the campaign against grade labeling, was very much upset when the Food and Drug Administration seised 200 cases of his firm's products btajanas there were worms in it...
...And, of paramount importance to the war effort right now, grade labeling eoapled with dollars-and-cents ceilings Is the only practical system by which chiseling war profiteers can be prevented from evading price ceilings...
...Among them were Emil Rieve, CIO national vice-president...
...These mBn were leaders of They were anti-Fascists...
...He was even more Upset when the American Medical Association' joked the Food and Drag Administration for a {fport on the case for the purpose of reviewing the AMA's endorsement of the firm's product...
...Vito Marcan-tonio (that darling of the Daily Worker), signer of a protest in behalf of Earl Browder, member of the executive committee of the CP...
...I don't get it...
...There is little doubt in any military circles that many of the fishing boats are well equipped with meteorological instruments and radios to transmit the information to the Japanese to Kiska and other bases off the Aleutions in Alaskan waters...
...Congressional Record, Monday, March 29, 1943, appendix, page 1583...
...If'that constitutes a crime in the eyes of the Soviet leaders, then pfthsfc Erlich and Alter were also guilty...
...We meet to honor the memory of two fallen leaders, two of the noblest souls in the ranks of worldwide labor—Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter...
...La Pond, signer of the call for tbe organization of the American People's Mobilisation, CP...
...The issue of whether or not there shall be grading, therefore, is settled...
...To us in the labor movement, this war is not merely a negative against the evils of Fascism...
...Excerpts from the Carey speech appear on Page 2.] It was believed that his words would start the most bitter public fight in CIO which the organization has yet seen...
...Victor Chernov, 1st president of the Russian Democratic Congress, and U. S. Private Alexander Barmine, former Soviet general and diplomat...
...These real anti-Fascists would mown their friends...
...sought only to sit down with labor chiefs who had owed allegiance to Moscow during the past years...
...They had been condemned to death on charges of having been responsible for the explosion of a bomb in San Francisco during the Preparedness Day parade in 1916...
...William Collins, Eastern representative, AFL...
...This year, with the military reserving so huge a portion of all canned goods, no canning can be done economically by any packer without grading everything he turns out...
...Is now the time to protest against the act of an ally, be it ever so ugly and brutal...
...Last week the newspapers there reported that he had just written a book in English, part of which develops the thesis that the Japs were fooled by Germany into attacking the U.S...
...Anybody who has to pay $500 or more in taxes earned an income which puts him beyond the need of tax forgiveness...
...It merely means transferring the tax load from this year to some post-war year when poorer business might make tax payments a greater burden on the people than at present...
...and for want of a horse the rider was lost...
...What Tokyo wants now is a chance to cash in on the occupied territories, to build up stockpiles of oil and rubber and manufactured munitions, while at the same time pressing the "Asia for Asiatics" propaganda throughout the areas where the natives may be beginning to doubt the wisdom of long resistance to the conqueror...
...We have a right and a great moral duty to voice our protest, to shout out against a crime even if committed by an ally...
...This was considered by observers as one of tbe most serious threats against the labor movement ever to develop...
...David Dubinsky, ILGWU president, organized and presided at the meeting...
...They were sincerely and enthusiastically devoted to the welfare and honor of the Jewish masses whose guides and champions they were in the course of many years...
...I know of no man of independent thoegbt who ha* been persuaded that Alter and E#** were guilty...
...When Administrator Prentiss Brown went up to Capitol Hill this Week to testify before the House Agriculture Committee on grade labeling, he took with him not a single one of the friends of grade labeling in OPA...
...In cases of food and clothing sold under at levels obtaining in various stores in Marsh, well-known and long-established brand lsbels, H frequently has been possible for the public to remember prices of a year ago and to knot* when it was being gypped, to know when prigs' ceilings were being violated...
...Dovid Dubinsky, President, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union: Six years ago Henryk Erlich spoke from this platform, in Mecca Temple, at a meeting at which I was the chairman...
...What ever the Russians are doing, it bodes ill for the Allied offensive in the Orient to end the war there soon...
...We deplore this incident," said New York City's Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, in the opening address to the 3,000 persons who jammed every seat in the hall, "for this is Russia's Sacco-and-Vanzetti case...
...It's like Poor Richard's wise saying that "for want of a nail the shoe was lost...
...Suddenly, as a result of an exchange of bittersweet repartee between Green and MJurray at a Truirfan Committee hearing last week, the old AFL-CIO peace committee reconvened to discuss the end of jurisdictional disputes...
...is injuring the prestige of Soviet Russia, who is our ally in the struggle against Hitler...
...For want of such enforcement war profiteering remains uncontrolled and the cost of living keeps rising beyond reach...
...The right kind of criticism is animated by a desire for unity—not disunity...
...The struggle revclves about the, perhaps, deceptively undramabic subject of "grade labeling...
...Under the pressure of that protest...
...of concern for the future of world labor organization...
...They never got their lunch be-etsse.tHs Press Club refuses to serve Negroes, wen when they are guests of> club members, as fa this case...
...The rate this year will be only between four and five per cent higher than last year...
...gam Eubanks, executive vice-president, American Newspaper Guild, CIO...
...But that probably would make things too tough on war profiteers...
...John L. Lewis has virtually won his fight forJ a wage increase without permitting the WLB to intervene...
...But when the grade is put on the invoice instead of the label, price control becomes as full of holes as those new rayon mesh stockings...
...and I suppose some of them will now be denouncing me as pro-Russian...
...Those seek to defend these executions are redoes* • the grim self-deception practiced recently "?/ one columnist fin the Daily Worker who "These men were guilty or they would »•» have been executed...
...We ask them to see our protest tonight in a similar light—as a gesture, not of hostility to Soviet labor, but of concern for the future of world...
...The fishing smacks will bring this food in thereby saving Tokyo the job of running the British and American submarine lanes from Malaya, the Dutch Indies and other islands...
...They were Sods**-They were Jews...
...The execution of Erlich and Alter, two heroic champions of democratic Socialism in the great Jewish trade union movement of Poland, is a proof of the fact that Russia has not established anything like democratic justice...
...Well, in 1918 several big protest demonstrations were held in the city of Leningrad in favor of Mooney and Billings, and that was at a time when we were in the midst of a war and Russia, though it was forced into the Brest-Litovsk treaty, was in fact our ally...
...But Washington's Capital Transit Company still hasn't employed any Negro motormen or bus drivers despite the order of the Fair Employment Practices Committee under tbe President's Executive Order 8802, which bans, racial discrimination in defense industries...
...Prentiss Brown must stand or fall as OPA Administrator on the issue of grade labeling and dollars-end-cents ceilings...
...When the grade is on the label, the public or an OPA inspector needs only to look at the label and simpry check the posted price against the ceiling price...
...We have raised our voices^ against th» humiliating and continuing persecution » Negroes in our own country...
...The A & P is one of the two 4Tge national chains which are voluntarily using P*de labeling...
...Reinhold Niebuhr, Union Theological Society: Russia as a nation is an indispensable factor in a post-war world order...
...Litvinoff explained to Green, who had led international protests and appeals for their release since 1941, that they had been put to death in December, 1942, for "active subversive work against the Soviet Union" and "hostile activities" including peace appeals to the Soviet troops resisting the advancing Hitler army...
...The CAA is led by Klsnsmen and outright pro-Fascists who are anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish...
...These fundamental rights must be preserved at any cost...
...They were executed in defiance of appeals for their release from President William Green of the AFL, President Philip Murray of the CIO, Mrs...
...Some may be inclined to say—why, the killing of Erlich and Alter is but the loss of two more lives among millions of otljers, why get excited abou$ it...
...but we "faTj9 remained silent We spoke because wesjtff that the ultimate strength of our cause f*«» be increased, not lessened, by our ope* mination to face and wipe out injustice P*WJ* our own lines, as well as in the landf'jp Nazism has conquered...
...i P. Stone, who covers the State Department for PM, invited Judge William Hastie, former Negro Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War, to have lu^eh with him at the National Press 61ttbyrecently...
...Now the Soviet government would have us believe that these well-beloved leaders have betrayed their followers, cooperating with the mah who made it the ideal of his life to slaughter every Jewish man, woman, and child in Europe to begin with, an imputation which so far* as Erlich and Alter were concerned, is as absurd and scandalous as it is hypocritical...
...For, unless prices and the cost of Irving are successfully kept on a level with Wages, organized labor will have no alternative but to withdraw its representatives from such organizations as OPA...
...then, assuredly, all of us in this, hall ere guilty...
...These corporations put money aside to pay their taxes...
...Rankin said: , "Mr...
...Carey Stand Brings CIO Fight Into Open Murray Ousts CPers, Reuther—Addes Split In Auto Workers For the first time in the history of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, one of its highest officials publicly and directly attacked the Communist Party by name, charging that it was responsible for the blocking of true American-Russian understanding...
...4. And poasibjg *JpH tinuance of organised labor's coilaboratiem W governmental war agencies...
...Dan Gerber of the Gerber'S Baby Foods Company and representative of the big camera interests in OPA...
...These were the major political developments of tbe week...
...And with living costs climbing an ever dizzier spiral wage ceilings simply cannot be made to hold without an explosion . . . and the whole scheme of economic stabilization to prevent inflation is shot to hell...
...In March 1942 Moscow got a 20 per cent increase in price and a Japanese agreement not to bid on five out of the 12 fishing grounds in the Okhotsk Sea...
...Arthur Winstead of Mississippi, yearling Congressman who arrived in Washington only last January...
...Are we to believe that they urged the Russian armies* cease fighting against Hitlerisw...
...We worked together in aiding the.hungry people of Poland and in spurring the fight on Hitlerism...
...The fight Within auto for control of this union, largest in the world, will receive little publicity until the UAWs fall convention...
...Raphael Abramowitsch...
...Italian-American Labor Council...
...The fact is that merchandise is bought and sold by grade, statistics of the pack are reported by grade, shipments are reported by grade and bankers ordinarily base their loans on grades...
...Most of these laws were patterned after legislation introduced into a score of states by-anonymous -representatives of the Christian American Association...
...In the absence ot direct and irrefutable evidence, we can no more believe in the troth of the charges against Erlich and Alter than we can believe the insults and the tirades that will be heaped upon each of us gathered in this hall by Communist publications in this country...
...Interestingly enough, the Addes forces in the UAW and the Communist Party have backed the incentive system as a wage-increase method, thus avoiding a fight on the Little Steel formula which labor dislikes...
...Litvinoff is strongly anti-Japanese and strong for collective security...
...We, who reserve the right to criticize- the leaders of our own Government when our views differ, will not relinquish that right with respect to the leaders of other Governments...
...Furthermore, OPA has decided that dollars-and-cents ceilings must be placed on canned foods and that these ceilings must be based on grades...
...The IAM is voting on withdrawing its 650,000 members from the AFL because of Bill Hutcheson's Carpenters Union raids on its jurisdiction...
...military men say that Russia's agreement with the Japanese goes far beyond face paving and diplomacy required to avoid the opening of a war front in the Far East...
...and have been for many years, the basis of all wholesale trading in canned foods...
...The Russians were not tough bargainers this year...
...Rankin Hails Eriich-Alter Murder John E, Rankin, Mississippi's poll-tax, Negro-baiting, anti-labor Congressman, added his voice this week to the witches' chorus villifying the names of Erlich and Alter...
...Erlich spoke about the great menace of Nazism and called upon us in America to help combaj that menace...
...The UAW is roughly split three ways, with the two big important factions, with one ted by left-winger George Addes, treasurer, the other by Walter Reuther...
...Instead, he took one of its principal foes...
...which must inevitably influence sfabilar withdrawals from the War Labor Board and wPB...
...isolationist group that picketed the White House during the Hitler-Stalin Pact days, threatened a libel suit against The New-Leader, retaining as her attorney Boudin of the firm of Boudin, Conn and Glickstein...
...As we go to press, our Washington correspondent informs us by wire that Lou R. Maxon...
...Both had denounced the Munich appeasement, and Alter, after a vigorous campaign against Polish landlord friends of Franco/' visited Spain and aided the Loyalist struggle...
...Besides, there is no reason to forgive the taxes jsJhhl...
...The only equitable plan I can see would be to forgive 50Cc of the first $500 of each individual's tax indebtedness...
...One of them is Rep...
...The vilest Indignity is not the murder of these two men...
...Eleanor Roosevelt, Wendell Wilkie, Dr...
...i v...
...In 1918, we had, in California, the famous' case of Tom Mooney and "Warren Brings...
...Their stature in the Polish workingclass movement has been compared to that of Leon Blum and Leon Jouhaux in France or Herbert Morrison and Ernest Bevin in Britain...
...Other speakers included Senator James Mead, Congressman Jerry Voorhis, Rev...
...Speaker, I hesitate to use the word 'Jew,' in any speech in this House, for whenever I do a little group of communistic Jews howl to high heaven...
...It Is a stntWl* to aftrm those principles of justice, ant*t» dignity of individual human nfc, whie*J*»* been symbols of the labor movement 'Js •* times in the past...
...This led to a large number of prosecutions...
...We learn that OPA administrators Richard V. Gilbert, J. K. Gailbraith, Paul A. Porter and Paul O'Leary have submitted their resignations to Prentiss Brown if M axon's power continues...
...platform and audience were studded with ' spokesmen and representatives of American liberal, labor and Socialist circles...
...To these we say: Our appreciation of the valiant struggle of the Russian armed forces to drive the Hitler hordes from the Russian homeland will not, should not, lead us to condone acts of brutal injustice committed by the Communist "dictators such' as the execution of trusted leaders ' of democratic labor organizations...
...I'm passing along his analysis of the Ruml Tax Plan and his reasons for voting against it...
...Sponsored by General Motors Corporation as an antidote to alleged absenteeism and workers' . slowdowns, an incentive wage plan was rapidly-gaining favor in raWraitrialist circles...
...On new brands old ceilings don't spply, so the new brands get new ceilings and "up goes the price of shod-dy...
...Her cynical defiance of the labor movements of the Western world which plead for the lives of these two labor men, her refusal to give any plausible reason for their execution all remind us of the Moscow trials years ago...
...War is brutal, and war demands a terrific price in- lives and sacrifices...
...Tf getting on a pay-as-you-go tax plan is sound financing, and forgiving a certain amount of taxes is necessary In order to achieve this, let's forgive the taxes of those least able to bear the burden...
...Marguerite de Silver T.resca, 'widow of the murdered Italian anti-Fascist, whose death on the streets of New York three months ago remains 'a police mystery, said that "if Carlo were alive today he would have been here with the rest of us protesting as he did all the years of life the brutal cynicism of totalitarianism . . ." Highlights of the speeches follow: • .» . * . Or...
...Late this week OPA persons had been told that all orders must clear through Maxon...
...There is other evidence of Russia's friendliness to the Eastern enemy of the U.S., dawn attacker of Pearl Harbor and Manila...
...They've got the money Mm^The Ruml Plan merely has the effect of Pffif ftr* money as a gift to Big Business— which has plenty—and will wind up with the people paying for this gift in the post-war years...
...But that's not all that makes grade' labeling a critical issue on the home front...
...It was believed that this plan would be the next weapon to be used by those sponsoring the Rickenbacker drive to break labor now...
...Lewis' next moves will follow swiftly to take advantage of the prestige he has gained in the eyes of the millions of new defense workers who want bigger pay envelops and smaller WPB pep posters...
...They were murdered, Reinhold Niebuhr explained, "because Stalin wanted to serve notice on Poland that he will not tolerate anti-communist labor opinion in Poland...
...And therefore what it says on the label will jolly well have to be so...
...The fact is that grades are...
...It wiM disrupt union activity by setting the frstei workers aside as a caste superior to the average group...
...The Washington conferees knew that they could do little about the problem...
...Lt is the foul attempt to link them with the^Nazis...
...It was first the President and then Lewis' friend, Dr...
...The pro-labor and anti-fascist records of Erlich and Alter were well-known throughout the world...
...At a crowded, overflow rally in New York City's Mecca Temple, Tuesday night, AFL and CIO leaders, liberal and Congressional spokesmen denounced the executions as a bitter blow against the forces of labor and freedom, and paid tribute to the memory of the martyred Poles...
...James I. Carey, Secretary-Treaseref el tee CIO: Atf of us assembled here tonight regjst ^* necessity for this meeting: All Of us fff'tjfff that we could devote (far foil trad "tRC energies to the war against Hitletjlg§ jfj " allies, and all of us wis* that the two wefWjJ* memory We are honoring might etilf be VjB us, serving in the legiongLof interr»atio«aTI|o*»-At this moment, when 'so much of man's ^op rests upon the incomparable heroism of ** Russian people, one can only feel a »*OSJ » tragedy about the words we are called -opot to speak...
...It was those protests that saved their lives...
...Though Lewis will not be awarded his full $2-a-day wage increase demand, the miners will get a substanial part of it Lewis will have delivered to his people again while the others, like Murray, R. J. Thomas and Harvey Brown, leaders of the powerful defense unions, failed because of their loyalty to the President's anti-inflation program...
...Meanwhile, there were reports that the UAW was negotiating with the AFL's International Association of Machinists for a merger of the two organization—within the CIO...
...For want of grade labeling price ceilings cannot be enforced...
...We ask them to see our protest in a similar light...
...But the war profiteers found an easy way around that by simply adding anywhere from one to a dozen new brand names under which they sold the same old products...
...chairman, Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party...
...Capital Comment By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C.-^Capitol Hill has its aorprises...
...Carey charged that there could be no international labor unity so long as the U.S.S.R...
...Those below the $500 mark not only should have their taxes forgiven, but should be allowed until-1945 to pay the remainder...
...group that tried to capture the American Labor Party, and a signer of a statement in behalf of the Communist Party...
...That would cost the Treasury about three billion dollars...
...Troya novsky's new prominence has been paralleled by rumors that Maxim Litvinoff is about to be recalled...
...For were it not for the treacherous anti-labor hand of Joseph Stalin, the heroic fighters of the Red Army would twelcomed and fraternized with their comrades...
...This hrssh down in price regulations is principally responsible for labor's demands for wage Increases to catch up with price increases...
...Then, at that meeting, the country will see the knock-down intra-union fight of many a year between the pro-Communist groups behind Addes and the right-wing and middle-of-the-road blocs controlled by Reuther...
...Coupled with "grade labeling" is "dollars-and-cents" price ceilings...
...The Baltimore & Ohio R.R...
...Bot the tragedy would be even greater if ** remained silent...
...Amazing coincidence in La Pond's choice of attorneys...
...or else...
...Reinhold Niebuhr, Abraham Cahan, Adolph Held, and M. Mendel-son, representing the Labor Union of Poland...
...In a forthright and blanket repudiation of Stalinist totalitarianism, CIO Secretary James B. Carey expressed friendship for the heroic Russian people but struck sharply at "the apologists for tyranny...
...The Soviet Government can disss* the crodocile tears spilled by the Hearst BSfSf and other traditional foes of labor over execution of tbese two men- But it cutaf&jf miss the questions and the fears stirring in the minds of millions of workers all over the world who know the record of Alter and Erlich...
...Matthew Woll, AFL national vice-president...
...Retail price ceilings are supposed to be fixed 1942...
...Observers learned this week of a bitter feud within the United Automobile Workers, which has 800,000 members and' is still growing rapidly...
...A pay-as-you-go tax pl»n may be worth- that much, but it isn't worth •ay more...
...in history in 1942...
...Thousands Hear Labor, Liberal Leaders Rap Erlich-Alter Murders By MATTHEW LOW The American Labor movement has gone on record condemning Joseph Stalin's judicial murder in the Soviet Union of Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter, leading Polish socialists and trade-unionists...
...Carey brought into the open the internal CIO fight which has ranged CIO President Murray, UAW leader Reuther and other right-wing industrial unionists against the Harry-Bridges-Joe Curran-Michael Quill bloc...
...John R. Steelman, who settled the wage dispute between 600,000 miners and the operators, one section of which was led by exSenator Burke, a man who praised Adolf Hitler's administration of Germany some years ago...
...an intimate associate of Erlich and Alter, prophesied, "monuments to the memory of these' two great freedom-loving socialists will be erected in Dublin [site of the Nazi massacre of the Jews] in Warsaw and in Moscow...
...Both -the State Department and the British Foreign Office, as well as the Polish Governmeht-m-Exile have taken a deep interest in the case...
...The Russian workers in the past," Carey pointed out, "have often joined with us in protesting injustices and persecutions in our own country...
...Boudin who was an instructor on the staff of the Communist Party Worker's School in New York, attorney for the Communist Fur Workers Union, a frequent contributor to the Communist New Masses, a member of the committee to re-elect Rep...
...Abraham Cohan, Editor-in-Chief ef the Jewish potty Forward: t knew Erlich and Alter well...
...In 1939, they organized independent guerilla resistance in Poland against the invading Nazi machine...
...Messages from abroad "sharing sorrow and indignation" were received from 'George Dallas, president of the Foreign Committee of the British Labor Party, and from a number of leading European labor figures including Louis Levy .of France, Joseph Belina of Czechoslovakia, Caniille Huysmans and Louis de Brouckeres of Belgium...
...then he has got to check the posted prices against these .ceilings...
...There is simply no way of accurately relating identically labeled cans to a particular invoice...
...John Q. Public or the OPA investigator has no way of knowing whether the shelf merchandise is correctly priced...
...But the fun really begins when an examination of the invoices shows that various grades of the same brand were received, in which case Mr...
...Some 15,000 copies of the book were distributed by the official Russian printing trust...
...Tonight we meet in Mecca Temple again...
...James M. Mead, Member United States Senate: We raise our voices in indignation at the apparent lack of respect for the dignity of the individual, and the inherent rights of every human being to freedom of expression, by the shocking anouncement to the world that these two Poles, long Jcnown as commanding figures in the liberal laWor movement, were tried and executed in secrecy . . . An" acknowledgment of the part Russia is playing as our ally, does not mean however, that we must close our eyes to these terroristic methods...
...Speaking in the name of CIO at the Erlich and Alter memorial meeting along with AFL chief Green, Mayor LaGuardia and others recognized as the leaders of anti-totalitarian liberal and labor political and industrial circles, James B. Carey, CIO secretary, openly defied the - physical and.moral threats of the organization's Communist union leaders...
...But Russia is a dictatorship...
...With' respect to price control, grade labeling on the can or product makes the problem simple and effective...
...But I am going to take the risk...
...Albert Einstein and many other outstanding representatives of democratic and labor opinion here and in England, including the British Labor Party and Sir Stafford Cripps...
...So I've looked up her attorney and wonder if it is the same Mr...
...It's simply the system of indicating on the label of food, clothing, etc, whether the public is getting first, second, third er fourth grade quality in exchange for first class money...
...Many observers believe Reuther to be of sufficient calibre to succeed Murray eventually...
...Luigi A n ton in i, president...
...Months have gone by since the original issuance of the order, but Capital Transit defies ail legal authority while advertising daily for motormen and bus drivers, and has ejajr bir«4 some women...
...One of these publications already has -dared to condemn my friend and fellow-American, David Dubinsky, as a pro-Hitlerite because be had the courage (to protest against what he considered injustice...
...ven the Great A & P respects the power of the euiners and packers lobby...
...A leaf of that text is used by the Communists here...
...A short time ago, Stalin caught a couple of these troublemakers named Erlich and Alter, tried and convicted them of treason and executed both of them...
...Hence, without an actual test of the contents of each can, there is no way of knowing whether the retailer has violated the law To get the real drift of their opposition it should be understood that the accepted standards of grades used are the government grades established by the U. S. Department of Agriculture...
...corporation* ^sfcq had their beat-year...
...No apologist for any tyranny ever spake me« frankly...
...Stone also lent PM a story of the occurrence...
...Their questions, their fears, must be answered if world labor unity is to be won . . . The Russian workers in the past have often joined with us in protesting injustices and persecutions in our .own country...
...And if it means giving that much Boney as a gift to, someone, let's give it to the Basil farmers, industrial workers, small business men and poorly-paid professional workers, instead of the Big Business corporations...
...We cannot stop our ears, blind our eyes, or silence our protests...
...2. The fate of Prentiss Brown as OPA Administrator...
...Lobbyists Hack at "Grade Labeling" to Wreck OPA Food Interests Seek To Crack Price Ceilings, Lower Quality By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C—One of the critical battles of the war on the home front is raging in the Washington trenches as this is written...
...And New York's full of 'em...
...Then what's the hollering for...
...They point out that the huge catch of fish in the Okhtosk Sea will save thousands of shipping tons for the Nipponese...
...To stave off trouble with Russia even a Russia weakened by the protracted war with Germany, Japan was willing to deal with the Soviets...
...Victor Ehren-preis, Polish Labor Group...
...for want of a shoe the horse was lost...
...This fight began months ago when Murray slowly began cleaning Communists out oi important CIO posts, leaving only pro-Communist Lee Pressman, CIO counsel, and Len De Caux, CIO publicist, in consequential national CIO jobs...
...Or, they love ta put "sunshine" vitamins in it, and charge moonshine prices for it...
...We have welcomed such demonstrations—in the case of Mooney and Billings, and of Sacco and Van-zetti...
...Actually, it's over whether the grade should be indicated on the label of tbe can where the public can see it...
...I mean attorneys...
...They were executed," David Dubinsky added, "because they were democratic socialists, champions of free trade unionism, and opponents of all dictatorship, including communist dictatorship...
...William Green, President, American Federation ot Labor: Because of our dependence upon Russia's aid in this war and because of our natural reluctance to arouse division and friction among the United Nations, there is a disposition in some quarters to accept all the acts of the Soviet Government as sacred and beyond the sphere of debate...
...labor organization...
Vol. 26 • April 1943 • No. 14
