OPA Cracking Under Pressure of War Profit lobbies
OPA Cracking Under Pressure of War Profit lobbies Dairy Trust Squeesfcs Farmers to Spur Action Against Gov't By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. ?—Attack* on the Chnc* at Price Administration this...
...Indeed the revolution of Lenin and Trotsky, for good or for worse, has long been dead...
...New Issue Arises Over Labor Restlessnes I ? Special to ? hi New L&ades WASHINGTON, D. C.—If the coal mine controversy does not reach a final and acceptable solution by Monday night when the present Truce agreement expires, although that;seema unlikely now, full responsibility will rest with former Senator Edward Burke whose political connections and anti-Labor record have been worth $50,000 a year to the Southern Appalachian Coal Operators Association...
...3 Break the will and spirit of the American people to go on fighting and sacrificing by speeding up the inflationary spiral aad producing chaos on the home front...
...self-styled leader of the Polish Communists and the Kremlin-controlled Patriotic Polish Union, announced the formation oh Russian sou of the new Polish Kosciusko Division that would march under the traditional Polish flag Symptomatic, too, was the audience in the Trade Union Hall: Polish Communists, Russian Generals, General Ledovie, the leader of the ©tech forces in the tSSSH, priests w;th gut crosses, Slovaks, White Russians, Bulgarians and an assortment of ether Slav* Even the Metropolitan Nikolai of Kiev and Galieia was there, making the first appearance of a Russian ecclesiastical dignitary on a petite platform for many years...
...bow the Communists now conduct them-plliis In- Yugoslavia and, later on, in Poland, (Jssehoslovskta and Greece, f'fcmetion 0f Communist attacks on Miknailo--dift, courageous Cbetrlik leader who has re...
...Nazis and Fascists from holding office in the United Labor Committee...
...The Pmmmaaists have been desperately fighting 'tnanng rear-gadrd action in the CIO for •see lima...
...The controversy draws to its conclusion happily—or nearly happily—for all therefore...
...and on the American continent were destined to replace the Comintern...
...At the opening session, the delegates launched a drive to prevent a restriction on labor in politics...
...What the Dairy Trust spokesman did not say is that the Pat Boys he ispieamam ere afraid that this rollback is only tbe first kits of a real rollback campaign which ultimately will save the consumer a treat deal more than "just 60 cents a year...
...Alvin U. *****·¦· Clinton S. Golden, Arthur J. An> ¦yr...
...In Detroit 25,000 Chrysler workers left their plants after waiting 8 months for the WLB to, recommend an empire to handle grievances...
...It will depend above all on whether Soviet Russia is prepared to adhere to the Atlantic Charter...
...Despite this, however, practical considerations indicate the situation is a victory for Lewis...
...Indeed, the future peace will be determined by Allied adherence to principle and not whether the Comintern is liquidated or not WLBPassesMine Crisis...
...In every section of the country," Brandt predicted, "the line of dairy production will turn downward and at a dangerously ill reread ? » pace unless the country recognizes what is happening before it is too late and brings about corrective measures...
...Pennsylvania, Jersey Labor Groups Unite For Political Action By ANDREW KHINOY PHILADELPHIA.—Organised labor in Philadelphia united this week for independent political action in a step which may pave the way for a labor party in traditionally Republican Pennsylvania...
...of the Italian Parliament and ?*1 historian (for Italy)—wilt be a JWight of the first anneal meeting of ••American Labor Conference on later-?***»' Affairs...
...Their frank slogan is "rale or ruin...
...Authoritative sources piloted out that Stalin's step was a unilateral action which will require a bilateral follow-up m It practical effect in this country...
...Skeptics outnumbered those who accepted the Kremlin's asjDsteral announcement at face value...
...This was part of the cumulative evidence last week pointing to the ganging up of the War Profiteers Lobbies, who will not relax an iota of their middlemen's stranglehold on a war-harassed nation's need, and the marshaling of their forces for their greatest drive to date to shatter America's home front...
...V...
...tootioasal to poke Its nose into the subject of profit limitation for the Big ? us mean middlemen...
...vice chairman...
...Otherwise the statement would not have been made...
...erf el Machinists Union, 500,000 strong, voted to leave the A FL, accusing the Executive Council of aiding Wm...
...delegates voted to bar Communist...
...Waaatagtoe sources saT The New Leader report...
...them no other spheres of influence ?? Hollywood cocktail clique, the Park ftJMV:*vJtftechmerz and slumming society," jKHmV National Association of Manufacturers...
...chairman of the constitution committee, told Communists they had no place in labor's ranks...
...Or the parallel demands by Jama» G. Inge-bretsen, director of jgonjmmintsl affairs for the -U.S...
...The original impetus to the various Slav Congresses that have arisen was a Slav Conference which met in Moscow on April 4-5, 1942...
...Spearheaded by a hate-blinded Reactionary Bloc in Congress, the middlemen's lobbies op*rtting in the bask fields of food, clothing and shelter have anited their efforts in Washington to do a job which will bring Hitler the first good news he has had in months and which is aimed to nctnmnMen the following ' 1. Make impossible of accomplishment the President's program of economic stabilisation and all efforts to maintain parity bill m mm prices, profits and wages...
...It is a peculiar phenomenon of the times that as the Soviet star rises in •shot estimation, the stock of the American Cssmnniats has been going down...
...They, have talked about the effect on the anti-Comintern pact, the coming relations with the U. S., the future role of the Communist Parties...
...Acting on direct orders from the White House, which appear to have stiffened the spine Of Administrator Prentiss Brown, OPA last Tuesday ordered s 7 percent rollback of potatoes and onion retail ceilings for the public...
...No language could be plainer than that of Irving Fox, general counsel of the National Retail Dry Goods Association, in making the open threat during his testimony before the House Small Business Committee last Tuesday that industry will not permit...
...Huteheon's raids on their locals...
...And for a lone- time it has ap?? evident that Stalin was swinging towards *4*"l****ee of this premise...
...It represents the final triumph of Russian nationalism and as such—if Stalin really means business—may result in a closer rapprochement between the U.S.S.R...
...ta* American Communist Party will'not et* that hint to jtself, then obviously the labor Moment should take the broom to them as an •Weeion of unity between the United States tihb* Soviet Union...
...and Prof...
...It is an open seers*, that Barke is the core of the die-hard opposition among the Coal Operators...
...The reasons given in their report served to point the responsibility for the Mine controversy where it actually belongs...
...rjetmyed the- dVeywtg ***>¦>- efeefty characteristic of the* senthern operators when, getting wind of the Labor Board's decision before it was issued, Burke leaped in to ask- the Board for a new hearing which "would have the effect of dragging the controversy out still further...
...For the present, the United Labor Committee, organized at a two-day constitutional convention by representatives of more than 130,000 trade unionists, prohibits itself from acting as a political party or an affiliate of a political unit Its leaders, who are a cross-section of Philadelphia union labor, do not intend to put forward their own candidates for public office, but expect to wield the balance of power in city campaigns and participate on a unified basis in national campaigns...
...The Labor Board turned this down as exceeding the Little Steel formula...
...1 fact which the latter have tried to keep from the public For instance, the Dairy Trost spokesman...
...who believe Stalin was sincere in sink-isf the Comintern do not believe this will automatically mean cessation of Communist activity KuM United States...
...Only the myth has enrvived...
...The chairman of the All-Slav Committee is the Russian Lieutenant General Alexander Gundurow and the first vice-chairman, the Soviet writer and dramatist Alexander Komeichuk, husband of Wanda Wassilevska who led the recent attacks on th* Poles...
...The city Democratic leader...
...The conference sparred the growth of other Slav conferences in different countries and began reporting on their activities in an official magazine Slavome, the organ of the All-Slav Committee organised in Russia...
...John Feldman, also of the A.C.W.A...
...to do its job of eon-trolling price...
...has handed the "distribution** racketeers in the whole year-and-a-half of the war...
...It wul also depend upon Tie, the democratic ttCn*rtTT*m who bear the brunt of the struggle against the^Axia...
...When said with how much virulence the next crisis will strike depends on the success of OPA's price roll-back campaign...
...But let us not rejoice prematurely...
...and the Allies...
...and United jOffice and...
...It is perhaps amazing, and at the seme time indicative of the patience of the American people with self-evident and outrageous wrongdoing-, that there has not as yet arisen in more than isolated volume the demand that the Government take over and administer 'in the public interest the affairs of Big Business distributors who strike against the war effort as the Government did in the case of the coal mines when labor finally struck against the rooking it was getting Comment By JONATHAN STOUT ? WASHINGTON, D. C—Reaction here on the {fceelatiori of the Comintern was either black or tJMs . . ¦ there were...
...candidate for Governor in New York last year, told the delegates that if the war was not over by the summer of 1944 the most important issue before the people of the United States would be the reelection of President Roosevelt...
...derided the claim that the resolution would hamper the war effort or hurt Russia's feelings...
...No one will shed any tearf over the tong-demyed death of Moscow's International...
...or the spread he-twee* farmer and consumer are rightly limited ander the aew order to *? rents oa . potatoes and ? cents on onions ?? the basis of ltv-poaad sack*, or approximately 22 percent...
...In Baltimore transportation was tied up by a strike of drivers sad operators...
...It is perhaps symptomatic that two weeks before the announcement of the suicide of the Cemamnist International, the Moscow-controlled All-Slav -Commifctee met in the high-columned Trade Union Hall of the Soviet capital, to the accompaniment of all the publicity pomp and fanfare of which only the Bolsheviks are capable...
...Mayor Bernard Samuel, Republican incumbent who hope* to run next November, also orated at length...
...The northern operators, it is reliably reported, are prepared to strike a decent compromise with the coal miners along the lines sag testen by the War Labor Board and call it a der...
...The sum of that criticism was a desire by organized labor, consumer groups and small farmers to strengthen...
...Tree, it has survived the present crisis...
...Perhaps it is no mere chance that Browder's NJflave been losing ground In the labor movement concurrently as tney were losing ground with Stalin...
...Soviet efforts to establish a hegemony mar the Balkans and has remained loyal to the .jane* of unfettered United Nations cooperation, it ni indicated, will be the most immediate test s| Kremlin sincerity...
...A.L.P...
...This, as Wendell Willkie and Thomas Lamorrt would say, represents the positive feature of the Kremlin's move...
...The final effect of the Kremlin's decree win depend entirely on the practical results achieved by it...
...The intransigeance cd Burke and his southern operators, however, threaten* to delay, if not prevent, final settlenosntjfn short order...
...In denying Burke's request, the Board indicated its wish to avoid further embittering its relations—or rather lack of relatione—with John L. Lewis...
...Noted Speakers to Address American Labor Conference A symposium on "The Eve of Libera-"¦•"^-'eeturing Finn...
...It is likely, however, that the growing reactionary trend in both the Republican and Democratic parties may force them ultimately to form their own party and coalesce with the American Labor Party in New York and the newly formed American Labor League in New Jersey...
...Ishqiaeji Stshatisatioo Cser Jimmy s>nue ia the only one who ns.;, that fMom^assm...
...were a number of Slavic and bsMn diplomats...
...From these groups appear to be coming tht recruit.« for the new Anti-Communist friends of the Soviet Union, for which Stalin Masel...
...Viewed historically, the dissolution of the Third International is one of the momentous developments of the war...
...But there is also a negative one which bodes ill for the future of Eurepea* peece...
...But saasag the latter were such eminently well-gafstated and vitally concerned groups as the taste Department and the top leadership of the 00...
...OPA Cracking Under Pressure of War Profit lobbies Dairy Trust Squeesfcs Farmers to Spur Action Against Gov't By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. ?—Attack* on the Chnc* at Price Administration this week have reached a higher peak of fury and taken a new direction which threaten* complete destruction of...
...and C.I.O...
...But them ia 0|iQ another and greater crisis ?? oemad...
...and—what is most important—a hard-and-faet limitation of the profits exacted by the middlemen toll-takers for the "service** they render in bringing the farmers' produce to the cons inner...
...They sent a demand to Governor Martin, Republican, that he veto the Farrell bili prohibiting unions from using their funds for political purposes and warned that if he signed the legislation they would test its constitutionality in the courts...
...This constitute* the first blow by the Administration in the field of profit limitation as distinct from production-cost control...
...In a New Leader article on February 27 I predicted that the various Slav Congresses that the Kremlin was feverishly creating in...
...It will depend on, to begin with, whether the Communist Party in the United Bute* will actually give op its ghost and thertbV relieve the American labor movement of a cancer that has long been gnawing at its vitals...
...Oscar Jaazt ¦***rvntions should be sent to Devhjt J2™«y, American Labor Conference oe ¦"•»»tional Affairs, 9 East 4«th Street, .f* Tork City...
...to survive in its present form...
...The resolution was adopted by an overwhelming majority, after delegates from some locals of the Radio and Electrical Workers (C.I.O...
...And ? Suthe first move into the "middleman*" field ^"hat it is possible to raise the return to the dirt farmer and still lower prices to the ptsbfie points directly to the unconscionable war pioftV ?? ring by the middlemen racketeers and constitutes the No...
...the Communists have recently been majBBg errands...
...Or the best and most desirable sjhgoative would be for the American labor pssstent to sweep this totalitarian menace out •Ml bouse finally and for good...
...Dean Alfange...
...One need not be a prophet to realise that Stalin has given up hopes for western Europe and would concentrate upon Eastern Europe and the Balkans with their predominant Slav populations...
...Or the language of the Dairy Trust aa uttered by John Brandt, president of the euphemistically-named National Cooperative Milk Producers Federation, in demanding before the Senate Agricultural Committee last Tuesday that Congress force revocation of OPA's price rollback orders and that OPA's power to set prices be transferred to the War Food Adminiatrattaa— where the Dairy Trust swings more weight...
...Or the Government could outlaw the fjssmnuiisu...
...Joseph Schwarte, of the Knit Goods Workers (A.F.L...
...John Brandt, testifying before the Senate Agriculture Committee this week, tried ilcipoi slaly to present the picture that OPA's proposed rollback of butter prices on June 1 was not really in the public interest because it woald save the consumer "just 60 cents a year, as it would amount to ? cents on 12 yrmada of rationed butter...
...r>^PV sunrise in nMmnetieni to...
...Behind the frenzy of the Big Business middlemen, who in the main produce nothing and whose only excuse for chiseling their way to the war profit trough is the "service" thaw render in the handling between basic proshaesM and ultimate consumers, is the first setback...
...interesting to note that those who have |ad the longest active experience in combatting •he Communists tended generally to fall into tto skeptical group...
...secretary, and Joseph McDonough, of the CLL"., treasurer...
...Lewis's original demand was for two dollars a day...
...At this meeting Wanda Wassilevska...
...When Robert Geiger, representing a Steel Workers local, complained it was a "slap in the face for Russia," Michael Harris, regional director of the Steel Workers, retorted, "I take it that mean* Russia has a totalitarian government...
...At the nasse time the regulation of wages bee been followed so rigorously that workers have been allowed relatively small aad numerically few wage increase...
...In the debate...
...phnn of the...
...Distributor mark...
...They recognized the soundness of Lewis's position and agreed with the necessity of granting the coal miners wage increases...
...At the same time they felt the constructive compulsion to save the Labor Board for the twin reasons that it is the only governmental war agency on which Labor has equal and direct representation and that the Board's very existence was one of the strongest arguments against some of the repressive Labor legislation being floated by the labor-haters on Capitol Hill...
...of the Ner-*««*« Labor Party, Omei Been, &ee*y *3··- of the Int'l Union of Maritime Ofia-JPM'or Belgium), Panl Vignaax of the Trade Unions (for France) and •"¦"¦no Salvemini, former Independent 2...
...e»onr the other speakers, prominent 7~°r end international circles, who are for the various sessions oe "Labor ** the Peace" and "International Plan-"*« i" the Post-War World" are: Wil-Green, Carter Goodrich...
...The wage increase should be granted, the minority report seid, be hag "jeetiied because of the tremendous aad uncontrolled rise in the coat of living darbag the, past two years...
...In Akron, Ohio, 4?,04· rubber werkers walked out for several days to protest the WLB's failure to act oe their wage-price grievances...
...Cheater Daria, Feed AdettaV iatraenr sa the Bean, et Agrienmnve, ha* aaked that the consumer rationing section be plneed ander his jurisdiction...
...and see it became an effective, functioning war orgs ? i eat ten on the home front...
...Nearly all commentators aad editorial writers have overlooked a highly significant fact in their discussions of the dissolution of the Comintern...
...presented in the columns of The New Leader for the past six months, has come heretofore mainly from organwed labor, consumer groups and small farmers...
...Although ostensibly a world organization, of the twenty members on the Executive Committee of the All-tSlav Congress in Moscow, ten are Russians and the rest a sprinkling of Czech...
...But even the best friends of the Labor Board among well-informed circles head do not feel the Board is yet out of the woods...
...None have considered the act of the Comintern in relation to the Kremlin's new foreign policy and to the .existence of the various Slav Congresses created last year by the Kremlin as an instrument for furthering Russia's pan-Slavism...
...From George Dimitroff to the ill-famed Otto KuBSmnen the Comintern danced to Stalin's tune...
...An indication of the importance with which old-line politicians view the United Labor Committee came at the first day's session when the city Democratic and Republican chairmen appealed for the support of labor and cautioned against independent action...
...That criticism was aimed at two points: 1. The demonstrated failure of...
...Chiefly by virtue of, the effort* of the Labor members of the Board and1 through Ha own adroitness, the War Labor Board baa temporarily gotten off the spot...
...The failure of price regulations makes imperative that wage regaiatipas a>u*i oe r ealis tieally ad hasted...
...But there is a more realistic background to the story...
...is provided by the lobbies of the landlord*, eannera packers, ahippena, food speculator*, dairy trust sad other Big Bonne** toll-takers in the spread bstwona pre-dacers and consumers Their stated objective is eossptete destruction of...
...the Atlantic Charter and all thejarlnckplee for which labor is fighting this war?* The dissolution of the Communist International also signifies the triumph of the traditionally nationalist policy of the Tsarist Empire...
...2. Shake America's strength to its foundations by cracking the nation's internal T"*»ny ' wide open...
...2. The lack of will or courage on the part of various top...
...Professional Workers (C.I.O...
...Charles Weinstein, of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers (C.I.O...
...The first reaction of the Dairy Trust ho Odo news came a week ago Thursday when Brandt, who incidentally is also president of the giant . Land o' Lakes Creameries, rallied Big Business distributors to the attack at a conference of Grocery Manufacturers Bales Executives, Inc., and the Army Quartermaster Corps representatives in Chicago...
...last this is more than a possibility la infested by what has been going oe recently . %Jbs CIO...
...aa approximate 12 percent increase to the farmers, that is to the actual potato and onion glowers...
...sweep "them out of these unions, therefore, gpMnvtn-dajrtroy the mel nmwn* nf thyf^Wnmu...
...Making clear they will not tolerate totalitarian control within their ranks, the A.F.L...
...investigators and research people have been making a detailed study ef the whole distribution mark-up system...
...had.attempted vainly to limit the ban to Nazis and Fascists...
...It was learned authoritatively that the British and United States Government have for some time been pressing on Stalin the view that the Comintern must be scuttled for the sake of complete present and post-war United Nations collaboration...
...Nor dad Brandt reveal that what has excited the Dairy Trust is the open secret that following strict orders from the President paw weeks , ago...
...c ? .·· "Weakness, vacillation and indecision are the prominent characteristic*.** the report continued, "which have marked recent attempts to regelate price...
...This week, toe, the...
...James L. McDevitt, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor and chairman of the Philadelphia Central Labor Union, was elected chairman of the U.L.C...
...and all farther efforts at price eontrok *> Criticism of...
...Bet the trouble ia that the Wer Leber Board ?* poeertee* -Je grant ???oases beyond the Little Steel for mala...
...If the Board's recommendations for settlement of the mine controversy are followed in the collective bargaining negotiations, it is estimated coal miners can look forward to a total increase of about a dollar a day...
...It-is, indeed, the triumph of Peter the Great, Alexander Nevsky and other Tsarist legendary heroes over Lenin and Trotsky...
...Ever since 1927 the Comintern was nothing but an instrument to the hands of the Russian Communist Party and the Soviet Commissariat for Foreign Affairs...
...The most difficult role in the situation, perhaps, was that of the labor members of the Board...
...Jama* P. Clark, was applauded vigorously when he called for the outright repeal of the municipal one percent wage tax...
...At the name time nenne r* aad other food cosnpsaiee are offering high-paying jobs to OP A administrators to guide them through Washington ugnlettone...
...It will depend on whether Moscow drops the fake "Union of Polish PatfidtB.'' It will depend on whether Moscow abandons its smear campaign against Drazha Mikahilovich, Yugoslav Military leader, and stops meddling in internal Yugoslav affairs...
...officials to protect the American public against the bloodsucking- activities of the war profiteers...
...Included among these, ahnfeantly...
...is claimed now as a charter member...
...The aim of the magazine, according to an editorial in its first issue of June, 1942, is to enunciate "the struggle for national liberation on the part of the Slav peoples and also the liberating role of the Red Army...
...That Use-up, it was stated, could come from one of ?? min ? ? The least likely is that the Amer-Hj Communist Party could disband and cease HUVity...
...this became evident to inner Communist ***** ? America, the vfested bureaucarcy of (Continued oe Page Seven) See Slav Congress Npw Soviet Policy Tool Comintern End Paves Way for Russian Pan-Slavism By LEON DENNEN By dissolving the Communist International Stalin has buried a corpse which haa been in the process of decomposition for more titan a decade...
...let basis of the housecleaning could well be Mumdtnee from the text of the Comintern's •ifimiomtion of dissolution in which it con-tptt that rt has "become a drag on the further fMsJtffaeniag of the working class...
...grays...
...Charles Weinstein, of the AC.W.C...
...despite steps simultaneously outlined by the Administration to grant subsidies to farmers to take up the alack...
...Til ; m r-————¦-^ Labor's restlessness ever the wartime lees of collective bargaining rights threegh the paralysis of the War Lsbei Board flared into new striken and wslheets this week...
...The meeting » to be *"* ea June 12 at the Hotel Commodore...
...Serbian and Polish Communists...
...In the end the Labor members of the Board, in unanimous minority, voted to grant the miners a two-donkrs-a-day increase...
...Beamlyraal base from which the Communists fcMdraw their strength, it was pointed out, 1» VUatrjvely few unions which they dominate...
...The new tarn, takea thta week ? attacks on...
...It ia general 1> tgoted that to bridge the sxpostsd gap between prices and wages woeJd require increase* in exceee of the Little Steel f ormolu's 1ft par cent...
...This was the reply of the Dairy Trost to OPA's order to roll beck butter prices 10 percent on Jane 1. As soon as the order was made public two weeks ago the Dairy Trust immediately rolled back -prices they had been paying the farmer, without waiting for June 1. That was the first step by the Dairy Trost te prompt farmer protest against...
...Thea» who fur mos the new cries* lev the Uber Board point oot that Labor will have little iwaoou for going so tbe Labor hWasd far what k is in any case peweeieee to gosa* In such case, the sjeastton of the Beard's reuse* for being is certain to he raised again...
...Brandt waa not even subtle sheet has threats of a strike against the war food production program if the...
...For these latter the test of JpXremiin's sincerity, it was stated flatly, will...
...Chamber of Co»m.rct before the Betake Small Business Committee, that Congress forbid OFA to issue any directives or regulations without prior "full discussion and consultation with representative* chosen by industry...
Vol. 26 • May 1943 • No. 22
