Steel Trust Grip on East's Production Upsets West Coast War Output
EVERETT, MURRAY
Steel Trust Grip on East's Production Upsets West Coast War Output 'Buried' Reports Explain Troubles of Pacific Shipyards By MURRAY EVERETT WASHINGTON, D. C.—American shipyards will hare to...
...And while tt^^Preaident.waa...
...Weaver^ of the Transport Service Employees, vent through over the opposition of Harry Bridges, Reid Robinson and Ferdinand Smith...
...Eddie Rickenbacker has already sounded this note...
...Vive Franco...
...Steel Trust Grip on East's Production Upsets West Coast War Output 'Buried' Reports Explain Troubles of Pacific Shipyards By MURRAY EVERETT WASHINGTON, D. C.—American shipyards will hare to limp along this year with ^Mm fcw and steel to make ships—because a fight started several months ago by a group of Congressmen representing small mining and steel interests apparently has been lost...
...The Boykin Committee, in a limited way, sought to popularize the use of sponge-iron through a process developed by a chemist named H. A. Brassert...
...The Labor yWKlgainst wage-freezing has already begun...
...freezing order, for they don't want wage increases so much as effective controls over the cost of living...
...Food Administrator Chester Davis has just iihad the com ceiling five cents—which violates ¦^President's "freeze" order...
...nounci|(g~ the "new" ^IfeeftiBg" order, Congress passed a repeal of the $25,0GW salary "limitation...
...Figures show them to be 7% above current and 17% above' chains...
...The tribute to Carlo" Tresca could not be accompanied by any precise accusations, but the Erlich-Alter ease aroused the most indignant accusations against the totalitarianism which murdered them, together with so many other defenders ef freedom of thought...
...Stone was unable to get 25 signatures...
...As regards restrictions for used clothing, you will understand that they are necessitated by reasons of hygiene and public health...
...All the speakers emphasized their admiration for the Bed Army and the Russian people whom the crimes af the Stalin dictatorship stabbed in the back...
...He is a Carey candidate, which means that things here are looking up...
...Chanhys reply, which was published widely "weNew York Times, World-Telegram, the mw Y°*k Post and other newspapers through-¦Wthecountry, pointed out that "it was indeed "pnic that Earl Browder...
...Armed with clubs and bits of broken furniture as well as knives and guns (several pistol shots were fired through the windows) they formed a strong-arm squad, evidently recruited eff the streets, probably hired, and led by some Communist Party leaders who kept shouting, "They are Germans, enemies of Mexico...
...But the Steel Trust will not permit extended capacity in the West that can threaten its monopoly, and price structure...
...A propaganda campaign to obtain more Government money was organized...
...Communists Launch Smear Drive Against Jewish Labor Committee...
...Their daily paper, El Popular, gave a fifteen-line version which was entirely false—"entirely" is written quite deliberately—attempting to minimize the violence of the pogrom...
...The article was based on a report to the War Production Board by a metallurgist of the University of Minnesota...
...but they ask that no -unnecessary burden which they cannot bear be placed upon them...
...alfewa* to eonatmt a )HtL capable of producing 1,200 tons of pig hw* daily...
...Before a dinner audience of more than 1,000 persons, A. A. Berle, Jr., Assistant Secretary' of State, William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, and Bertrand Russell, philosopher, discussed the ilMes and problems of the day "The New Leader has fought consistently and courageously for the democratic rights of labor," Mr- Green said, "and today it occupies a key position in the struggle for the liberation and re-establishment of a free trade union movement throughout the world...
...It was only after the greatest pressure that Henry Kaiser wa...
...Since then several Mexican Communist deputies have resigned from the Communist party and disclaimed their previous attacks on Gcrkin, Pivert, Serge and Regler...
...Representatives of trade unions in the audience, after an appeal by Adolph Held pledged funds to insure the continuance of the weekly for the coming year...
...Julian Carillo, and Carlos Contrerfes, charging they met two days before the meeting to plan the hoodlum attack...
...The story can be found in the files of a subcommittee of the Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House of Representatives...
...Phil Murray, in a statement for CIO, was more cautious, emphasizing that no nationwide incentive pay system was possible, and that where plans were worked out in specific cases, certain guarantees would have to be met...
...The Iron and Steel Institute in its 1941 report showed that leas than one and a half per cent of the Nation's pig iron output was produced by furnaces west of the Mississippi, and this area once boasted eight blast furnaces which have been put out of business...
...These include refugees from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bessarabia and Soviet citizens forced to flee from the Ukraine, White Russia and other Soviet territory occupied by the Nazis...
...An article in the November Saturday Evening Poet stressed the necessity of constructing these plants...
...Widespread publicity in the United States and a statement by 160 prominent Americans, in-eluding governors, labor leaders, writers, and editors, brought action by the Mexican government, and a measure of protection for these men...
...wr!.Tu«»day, April 13, the Communist Jewish *T^"Wr Frnkeit published a story to the e#ect ealv Jewish Labor Committee has aided •nd *h ant>-Semitic" refugees in Russia « not those of the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, ^jlV'JWlhto this lie the Jewish Labor Goui-a letter of June 30, 1942, writ-J^jy Adolph Held, chairman of the Jewish |?*"Committee, and Jacob Pat, executive J"*****, to Maxim Litvinov, Soviet Ambassaw«*hington...
...The Mesaba range near Lake Superior has been the world's greatest single source of likgh I grade iron ores...
...began, and continued to the end without further disturbance...
...The Steel Trust has succeeded in shutting elf all discussion on the development of the sponge-iron process and the reworking of ore deposits in scattered parts of the country...
...The "incentive pay" issue has already caused a deep rift in the United Auto Workers, with Walter Reuther condemning the idea in strong terms, and party-liner George Addee plumping -for the system...
...Who Goti the Butter In enumerating factors causing- the butter shortage for civilians, a recent OWI release states, "Men in America's armed forces on the average eat double the amount of butter ordinarily consumed by persons in civilian life...
...Bat in the files of this committee, beaded by Frank Boykin of Alabama, can be sketched the picture of Steel Trust influence in the War TnttKftm Board and a campaign to head off any expansion that could form a basis of post-war competition...
...The CIO will demand that the War Labor Board be given the authority to make necessary adjustments to correct inequities...
...Contreras, a bitter foe of Carlo Tresca, was seen by Tresca in New York some months ago who warned against some possible crime of violence...
...The bar, the billiard room and the club room were almost completely wrecked in true pogrom , style...
...It is on their behalf that we take the liberty of addressing you...
...Labor to Battle FDR on Wage Freeze If Prices Not Rolled Back By CLARK RYAN Special to The New Leader DETROIT.—Labor marked time cautiously on the President's wage freezing order this week, with the exception of John L. Lewis, whose hatred of the President brings an automatic negative response, and the United Automobile Workers, which has faced a steady rank-and-file pressure for increased wages to close the gap in prices...
...Murray stressed the fact that the CIO supported the President's move because CIO saw it as a declaration for the "rolling back" of price levels...
...They are mostly working men and women, many of them with large families and limited incomes...
...In the meantime, the Jewish Labor Committee informed The New Leader that it has already sent through Russian War Relief over 150.000 pounds of clothing to refugees in Soviet Russia...
...Challenging President Roosevelt's executive order freezing Wage rates, the United Automobile Workers (CIO) sent the General Motors Corporation formal notice that the union is desirous of invoking Jts right under the existing collective agreement to reopen negotiations on the wage clause...
...to adjssjnase for oar needs...
...For one must not forget that here was the cold-blooded organization of an attempt at mass murder...
...The wings of the Low-Maxon faction are being clipped...
...zation program last spring, only to watch Congress and special interests rip the heart out of it...
...The Michigan CIO speaks for 1,100,000 workers...
...But Julian Gorkin was stabbed and badly wounded in the head...
...Enrique Gironella, formerly a professor in Barcelona, and later editor of La Batalla, was seriously wounded also in the head, probably by a blow from an iron bar...
...Last year Contreras ynigj^ to organize attacks against prominent European Socialist refugees, including Gorkin, Serge, Gustave Regler, and Marceau Pivert...
...nn-This week, however, they were caught 10 ¦ barefaced lie...
...A determined resistance was put up, however, and the arrival of the police prevented any more bloodshed...
...Its iron content was Bo high that it was feasible" to haul the ore with its naces...
...In an interview with the newspaper Excelsior, Julian Gorkin, Spanish socialist leader and one of those wounded categorically charged the Spanish Communist party in Mexico with inspiring and organizing the attack...
...to pay homage to the memory of Carlo Tresca, Victor Alter and Heinrich Erlich and to associate themselves with the protests raised against these crimes by the work-ingclass and Socialist organizations of the United States...
...The CIO has been dawdling on the decision to send a committee to Britain and possibly to Russia to establish relations with trade unions in those countries...
...On the one hand, Tory groups will attempt to use this system to wreck existing labor standards and substitute piecework systems for present hourly standards...
...But the Pressman-fellow-traveler bunch, who have become today single-minded yes-men, •re quite willing to sell Labor down the river herder to prove their "uselessness...
...We snssi Mss||HMr that we were short...
...The scheduled speakers were joined by Francisco Madero...
...With James B. Carey's statement today that "1944 food production is menaced by the House Appropriation Committee's abolition of farm itcurity," the CIO has joined the AFL and the JUilroad Brotherhoods, among others, to save firm security from the Hunger Bloc...
...Messages paying tribute to The New Leader were read by Matthew M. Levy, chairman ol the meeting and ' vice-president of The New Leader Publishing Association...
...The letter said: sw^earfIr- Ambassador: As you are no doubt '¦Jewish Labor Committee has for rmost,a year been carrying on a campaign te aid the refugee victims of Nazi aggression now living in Soviet Russia...
...Labor saw the President announce a 7-point price-wage-profit stabili...
...Introduction of incentive plans in our industry will create further chaos and confusion and will not solve the basic wage problem, nor increase over-all production...
...collected money in this country to be used wf secret conspiratorial work inside the Soviet Union...
...The issue has brought a long-simmering feud into the open, and factional lines are being drawn for the convention next autumn...
...who is the leader of i.,or8*nization which feeds on conspiracies against the government of the United m7v *nd the people of America, should accuse ¦e of 'conspiratorial activities...
...amount, one-half went into the hulls of new ships...
...is it not the same Browder, whose party ,r characterized by Attorney-General Biddie . .e Bridges case) as a subversive anti-*P*eriean organization...
...April 1, Earl Browder, in a speech de-i« Brooklyn, made the ridiculous charge «Mt Nathan Chanin, noted Jewish American hoor leader and chairman of the Adnrinistra-W Committee of the Jewish Labor Committee, jH...
...James Carey, Julius Emipak, Albert Fitzgerald—and this week Joe Curran...
...But who looks there ? Buffer, •«tf«r...
...Two of the can-Ben who led the fight' against grade-labeling, Dan Gerber and Harold Sorenson, have resigned...
...The Office of War Information cites the following figures...
...The Iberian-Mexican Center is located on one of the most crowded avenues in the city: At eight o'clock a gang of about one hundred Communists laid siege to the hall, broke down the iron door, and burst into the Center looking for the speakers to beat them up...
...As Congressman Knute Hill tells the shny, the Steel Trust strategists developed a plan known as "concentrating the ores," an operation done at the mine site that would "benetlciate" the ore and raise its metal content by eliminating impurities...
...During the riot, some of the Stalinist hoodlums telephoned the newspapers that a body of workers was breaking up a fascist meeting which began with shouts of "Vive Hitler...
...And not the first...
...Thirteen of these were put in jail charged with assault and battery, attempted homicide, and malicious mischief— among them an instructor in the high school, a member of the Communist party...
...Vive Mussolini...
...Utters from consumers apparently play a his tele in influencing Brown...
...Three weeks ago a Communist gang led by Leo Katz and one Zucker-man (Lambert) tried to break up by violence a meeting of mourning for Erlich and' Alter held by Polish Socialist refugees at the Jewish Center of Mexico...
...In connection with this work we are receiving countless inquiries from American citizens who are anxious to aid their relatives in Soviet Russia but find the difficulties almost insurmountable...
...The GeverUMsrt the steel monopolists (l,Ht,NMH for the expansion of new production facilities, bat 90 per cent of this Government money wot spent to expand the steel plants in the East...
...In their efforts to help their dear ones, they first encounter the difficulties arising out of the Soviet regulations in connection with parcels received by citizens and residents of the U.S.S.R...
...QaDars-and-cents ceilings on meat have been postponed until May 17...
...The words "incentive pay" are going to receive increasingly larger attention in the nation's headlines...
...Clippings from Mexican papers which reached here after Mr...
...Yours sincerely, "M...
...A complete blast iron furnace costs $15,000,000...
...Held: "I fully understand the inconvenience caused by some customs regulations, but ant afraid I cannot do anything to have them altered...
...Berle remarked in his address, "and I have every cenfidence in your continued championship of the great progressive causes...
...The recent OPA petition by the jjsogressive Galbraith-O'Leary-Rowe group de-manded Maxon's removal on the grounds that he was using "public office to further private interests and private views...
...The regulations apply to all Soviet citizens, whether refugees or not...
...The funds could hire keen used to warfc the undeveloped areas of the West where vast quantities of iron ore are available with natural gas, hydroelectric power and coke-producing facilities near at hand...
...baterf C*m?ai«"n ot slander has continued...
...Labor's stand is consistent behind the principle of "equality of sacrifice"—with stress on the equality...
...In the first six mortths of 1942, 2.688,087 tons of steel were thus hauled by railroad to the Pacific Coast, and of sfcis...
...At the same time, Philip Murray opened a CIO campaign to modify the President's April 8th order...
...Various persons have been unofficially suggested for the committee, but there has been no official announcement...
...This will force Higher milk and meat prices, and give the Hunger Bloc much of what was just vetoed in the Bank-mm Bill...
...Speakers at a recent convention denounced those "friends of labor" who come around at election time, and declared that they were "sick and tired of those Democrats who pose as New Dealers...
...This story was repeated to the police by each of the 93 attackers who were arrested...
...An, AFL statement also stressed the necessity of reducing prices as a prelude to wage stabilization...
...He named as the instigators Antonio Mije, Juan Camerera...
...As against this there is the established pig-iron process which needs expensive and enormously large blast furnaces...
...Carlos Contreras, alias Enea Sormenti, was one of the leaders of the GPU in Spain during the Spanish civil war...
...New Leader Feted On 20th Anniversary Readers and writers, leading liberal and labor personalities crowded the Hotel Commodore in New York City last Sunday night to celebrate The New Leader's twentieth anniversary...
...You have been an exponent of the American tradition in its most liberal sense," Mr...
...The trade unions would be willing "to go along with the President's wag...
...the reaction of the American labor WTOnent at the execution by the Soviets of «• two noted anti-fascist labor leaders Erlich ** Alter, the Communist Party has embarked 5°n M hysterical and unrestrained campaign •f Tiliifleatjon...
...it < ' * . * * , Waihington .Votes:—Labor War Relief is now tjte lsrgest contributor to charities—surpassing i. T. *VT- • • • PM't I. F. Stone has resignetf from the Press Club over the refusal to serve Negro ePtft Walliam Hastie in the Press Club restaurant...
...Incentive payment plans," Reuther said, "are not the answer to these wage inequalities, nor are such incentive plans a magic formula for increasing proluctkm...
...Moves in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have found an echo in Michigan, where the CIO Sews reports that the Wayne County (Detroit) Labor's Nonpartisan League has launched a move for the formation of a new political party...
...It is a cheap, easily set-up process ideal for small, independent, local enterprise...
...r In a letter to Adolph Held of July 7, 1942, the Soviet Ambassador replied: "My dear Mr...
...The Steel Monopolists are devoted to stopping any development of furnaces and pig-iron plants west of the Mississippi, hi order to keep control in the Pittsburgh district...
...They are willing to make sacrifices in order to send relief to their friends and kinfolk...
...The Detroit move is a prelude to a statewide convention in June...
...But the metallurgist was also once connected in a leading position with the Mesaba Iron Co...
...Sharp dissenting notes have been struck by Phil Murray, Matthew Woll, Walter Reuther and Others...
...The attitude of the Mexican authorities towards this affair was entirely correct...
...The public consumption of butter in the pre-war years from 1985 to 1940 averaged JL7 pounds a year...
...The Boykin Committee found that to produce one-half the new ships launched in this country during October, the Pacific Coast had to haul every ton of steel from the Eastern steel mill* over railroads already choked with other IMPS* sary transportation...
...no war needs will be permitted to interfere with its post-war perspectives...
...British Cabinet Minister, who spoke to the audience via transatlantic hook-up, are printed elsewhere in this issue...
...George Weaver has been hUMd telhe CIO National Staff as Director of the Committee to Abolish Racial Discrimination...
...The New York District Attorney stated he wanted to speak to Contreras.] After the intervention of the police, the meet-ins...
...Now it averages Id pounds...
...In 1941 the Gano Donn CssnsalttmV.-mV " ported that oar steel capacity neeJI...
...No old clothing, even if dry-cleaned, can be sent, and duty and other levies on new clothing are so high as to make its serxfifrig by people of small income prohibitive...
...Those mentioned include: R. J. Thomas, George Addes...
...sponge-iron plants can be more quickly constructed in small-capacity units...
...All CIO affiliates have been urged to write the Congressmen — or go hungry next year...
...It was also found that every single pound of that amount could have been produced within a comparatively few miles of the Pacific coast shipyards and other war Industries, from its own local iron-ore deposits close to local sources of feel and hydroelectric power...
...Serge's report, shed additional light on the story he tells...
...Labor's support of the President's order will depend upon the Administration's effectiveness in "rolling back" prices to adjust the gap between wages and the high cost of living...
...It would be well if readers send on batches to Prentiss Brown in connection with grade-labeling and dollar-cents (•flings...
...One interesting example highlights the Steel Trust practices...
...Labor Director Robert Brooks is shaky...
...The list cf scheduled speakers was: Maldoado (a CXT trade union leader), Jacob Abrams (of the Jewish socialists), and Julian Gorkin, Paul Chevalier and Victor Serge for the European socialist refugees...
...The story can be found in the several months researches of a special subcommittee of tile Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House of Representatives, surely a title calculated to scare away any probers...
...But our soldiers and sailors average 32 pounds a year...
...Gorkin Stabbed as Mexican C. P. Wrecks Erfich, Tresca Meeting By VICTOR SERGE MEXICO CITY, April 2.—Yesterday evening the Iberian-Mexican Cultural Center, organized by Spanish refugees, held a closed meeting to commemorate the deaths of Carlo Tresca, Victor Alter and Heinrich Erlich...
...Tea Pressman was responsible for those pre-' |ttttre handouts at the New York CIO meeting f^ifc,.president's "freeze" order...
...Berle's address and the speech by Herbert Morrison...
...But these once fantastically rich veins impurities over a thousand miles to blast fur-show signs of exhaustion, and the Trust*, fwed the necessity of turning to remaining low-grade deposits...
...Jimmy Wechsler was the only fellow-P3/-staffer Ipiign the petition...
...Capital Comment tabor Gains Ground In Battle of OPA By JONATHAN STOUT I WASHINGTON.—Facing strong independent Labor pressure, OPA's Prentiss Brown has agreed, The New Leader learns exclusively, to appoint two new deputies, as yet unnamed— one from Labor, who will also be the executive sseretary of the OPA Labor Policy Committee, the other a retailer who believes in price control...
...The Steel Trust intends to keep that situation...
...Labor's restlessness in the economic field is reflected in growing Third Party talk...
...The reason given for the raise in corn fetfjfih nickel bribe is needed to persuade the HBsaetilators to unloose some hoastisjd^stofju, lit why doesn't the Government selfaowt {fit* vn wheat and corn reserves iter feed and break ¦ speculators' hold-up...
...LITVINOV, Ambassador...
...The UAW represents 300,000 workers in GM plants...
...This morning the Communists made a great effort to influence the press, but without any appreciable result, the criminal nature of the attack standing out too clearly...
...The "incentive pay" idea has also received vigorous endorsement by the Communists, who long ago have been in favor of placating the industrial groups on the wage issue...
...That time the attackers began th* riot with the war-cry: "Death: to the Sazi spies...
Vol. 26 • April 1943 • No. 16
