Secret OPA Study Reveals Vast War Profits
SHOUT, JONATHAN
Capital Comment Secret OPA Study Reveals Vast War Profits 1700 Corps. Had 150% Income Rise, Took Half of All Profits By JONATHAN SHOUT WASHINGTON, D. C—We were aiWl#|H»-a-vis in one of...
...It's 40 billion dollars worth of inflation...
...Leader of these attacks is Ignace Matushevski, publisher of the Polish paper here Novy Swiat...
...Part two is "Profits of Consolidated Corporations and War Subsidiaries, 1939-1941...
...Scores of other Federal officials, including "one of the New Deal's most famous glamour boys, will be named in- the Dies disclosure*," according to the Tmfs-Berajd...
...The wives of the arrested Communists are in a seperate concentration camp, in a place I about forty miles from Moscow...
...Rakovsky...
...in 1941 they were 10 times as great...
...The labor movement is not going to be destroyed to satisfy the disappointment of temporary office-holders who sometimes confuse their own destiny with that Ol' tile people...
...Among individual war contractors the record is even more lurid with war profiteering...
...magazine of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Delegation...
...War orders were filled by increasingly intensive utilization of existing plants and the expansion of productive facilities FINANCED WITH GOVERNMENT FUNDS...
...within the Soviet orbit is the Czech WUe government which this week postponed talks with the Polish government on a post-war regional bloc of Central European nations...
...Reports were available," Volume I discloses, "for 1,753 large industrial corporations in each of the years 1939-1941...
...According to the reports received here, Radek was killed by a GPU guard while on his daily walk...
...That search must be thorough and relentless...
...By the end of 1941, about one-fifth of total industrial and mineral production was for war purposes...
...Of the 200 war contractors selected for study, 100 are prime contractors and 100 are subcontractors...
...Heretofore he has refrained from open attacks on the top administration men...
...It also reflects a final adamant opposition to the federal policy of appointing industrialists to all high posts...
...Despite increased taxes, nine-tenths of the companies reported higher returns on invested capital in 1941 than in 1939...
...It is not light-minded, I hope, to reflect that for poetry's sake—I do not know what else to call it—for the sake of his name and memory, Carlo had to die a violent death...
...mg the period, profits of these corporations rose to $7.4 billion, an increase of $4.5 billion, or over 150...
...I shall ask either that the Judiciary Committee or the Committee on Appropriations take the files which I shall present to them, and that the public officials shall be brought before the committee of this House, that there be no further postponement of action in their cases, and if the facts that I present to the appropriate committee are substantiated—and they will be by the telegrams and writings of the public officials themselves—then I shall stand here on the floor of this House day in and day out until those public officials are discharged from this government...
...I shall show,' he said, "that some of these public officials have gone so far that they have used the files and data and information seized from certain competitors, whose political views were not popular with public officials, and having seized these files, turned them over to their competitors to use against business concerns...
...K...
...I'm looking for my official friend to tell Jrim I've located a large part of his missing 40 billions...
...Although the studies are utill withheld'from the public, their existence has been confirmed...
...The AFL newsletter reported this week that: "The proposed truce between the AFL and CIO, providing for arbitration of jurisdictional differences between affiliates of the rival organizations, will come up for ratification...
...Despite the progressively higher taxes, 11 of the 50* industrial groups more than doubled their profits (after taxes) from 1939 to 1941, and only half of them showed less than a 50% gain...
...For each group," the study discloses, "1941 profits before income taxes were more than three times the pre-war level...
...of Ignace Reiss who quit Stalin's secret service and was ambushed by the GPU in Switzerland...
...Most angered of the labor elements opposed to federal bureaus is the AFL, whose executive council meets in Miami Fla., January 18, to discuss a campaign for the elimination of the National Labor Relations Board with the nroblems of foreign policy and post-war planning...
...Volume III is divided in two parts...
...Before any other group Fighting French aviators *CW permitted to view Russian front line fighting...
...The information on the two leading Russian Communists was part of a general report on the fate of the oppositionists to the Stalinist regime who haw been in jails and concentration camps since 1936...
...Cissie" Patterson and the same Patterson interests which own the New York Daily .Veit«, control the Times-Herald...
...It reminds us more clearly of the fate of other democratic and radical leaders who were tracked down by the long arms of the totalitarian political underworlds: of valiant Carlo and Nello Roselli, heads of the Justice and Liberty Italian underground groups, who were kidnapped in Paris by Mussolini's gunmen in 1937, their broken bodies later found in a ditch outside the city...
...The UMW has attacked vehemently such steps as wage-freezing, which it calls "unauthorized...
...I wonder how "the boys on Bataan" feel about war profiteering Fat Boys who make 500% on their blood and sweat...
...So let us say farewell to Carlo, as best we can through the mounting tears, with a smile...
...Due to limitations of available data, the subcontractors were chosen at random, and are not necessarily the largest as to either asset size or amount of contract...
...Reuther was assigned to deal with the War Manpower Commission, the WPB and the Office of Price Administration, housing and gas and tire rationing...
...We can see so plainly—can we ever forget to see?—his own calm smile, and the twinkle of boastful pleasure in his eyes, while he says— as he surely would if the breath came back— those same meaningful words: "Well, they got me at last...
...Administration spokesmen believe that Dies will make an extreme attempt to uncover every conceivable government irregularity "some of which are inevitable in a vast wartime federal apparatus...
...That's the story Leon Henderson was sitting on for months, keeping it a secret from the American people...
...A special jail for the most important opposition leaders li in the Yakutsk area, deep in the Siberian wastes...
...For all prime as well as all sub-contractors, the return on invested capital before taxes tripled between 1939 and 1941...
...On the recommendation of UAW President R.J...
...Rake ? -sky is reported dead of natural cause« while in prison...
...A footnote explains: "The prime contractors were obtained from WPB confidential lists of companies holding the largest war contracts...
...Thirty-eight companies in three industries—aircraft, autos and steel—held half of the total contracts...
...Matushevski resigned from the Polish government last year when it signed an accord with Russia...
...In short, the rake-off of the profiteers was mostly on money put into their business by America's labor and farmers, and not on the investment of their own capital...
...isJTittle doubt in labor circles that the Federation will find considerable backing in Congress if it decides to fight the NLRB...
...That is why he was hated — and killed, that is why his murder must be solved...
...Carlo Tresca fought all totalitarian brands and was a leader in that fight...
...For durable goods producers 1941 profits after taxes were almost double those of 1939...
...The...
...About three-fourths of the increase occurred from 1940 to 1941...
...The increases ranged from 11% to 955...
...Over 70% of the contracts had been awarded tc 100 large companies, mostly producers of durable goods...
...Forty billions...
...It is all the more important, therefore, that the full resources of our police agencies be mobilized to find out who the real killers are...
...Labor Lobbies Criticize Gov't Agencies, Seek Wider Union Representation f ? ?. ?. GREENE...
...His last motion was to swing round and confront the long-expected enemy...
...The evidence also shows the carefully laid plans and the large sums spent (the purchase of a car, etc...
...Political circles here link the new de Gaulle-Communist alliance to the diplomatic jigsaw PUttle of Polish-Russian-Czech negotiations...
...It was he who unflaggingly led the fight on Fascist apologists here...
...In fact, over the past five years, Tresea had assumed a wider influence in the Italian-American community than ever before...
...The «flure to solve the problem of the Polish-Soviet oprders was believed to be the prime reason for 'he visit of Premier Sikorski to President Roosevelt &»uia fears that Britain and the U. S. may •°?ort Poland, and is lining up its own bloc...
...The guard was arrested, bat his fate is unknown...
...If the executive branch of this government does not act, and act promptly, then I shall offer motions on the floor of the House to strike the names of those officials from the public pay rolls, and to place Congress on record as against any appropriation for their continuance in office," In his own words, Dies has publicly "declared war" against the officials involved, which means the New Deal...
...HearRadek, Rakovsky Dead in Soviet Prison Karl Radek and Christian Rakovaky, leading Soviet figures who were sentenced to ten years each at the second and third "Moscow Purge Trials...
...That's the story the voters did not know when they either went to or stayed away from the polls test November...
...The question of the western boundaries of the Soviets has been one of the most vexing of the *ar...
...In aircraft, profits in 1939 were 81% above the 1936-'39 average, while in 1941 they were almost 17 times as large...
...These 1941 profits were 3% times average earnings in the years 1936-'39 for the prima contractors and slightly less for the subcontractors...
...t This political murder, in Ihe heart of New York City, brings vividly to our doorstep the single method of totalitarian political debate...
...The report ie expected to be the most controversial document presented by Dies in the committee's four-year history...
...New Dies Report, Will Charge Conspiracy Against Congress Special to...
...Where is that missing 40 billion...
...It was to counter such criticism as out-™JJ above that the Gaullists smuggled Andre Philip out of France and made him Labor Minister...
...In 1918 he was Prasident of the j Ukrainian Soviet Republic and held other ? high Soviet offices including that of Am...
...Some of these officials hold dual positions— with the government agencies and with a private concern which has important matters at stake before the government bureau involved, he told a Times-Herald reporter in an exclusive interview...
...Dies's appropriation runs out at the beginning of each session of Congress and the Texas representative has started his drive to get it renewed...
...No specific figures are available, bat material gathered by the Russian Socialists shows that the number of those jailed reaches well over 100.000...
...for non-durables the increase amounted to over 30%, and for trade and services 25...
...Those arrested are not permitted to send or receive letters from the outside...
...WASHINGTON, D. C—A campaign by the nation's strongest unions against key federal War Agencies was under wav this week...
...He had loved the fight...
...CIO raids on the Kaiser shipyards on the West Coast and other industries prove a serious obstacle to such ratification...
...It was less dangerous than the naivete of the Bolsheviks, who reasoned themselves into believing that evolution was on their side, and freedom would emerge like a slow-motion rabbit out of a hat once their party was in power...
...He had loved danger...
...cause the are aliens or alleged "subversives...
...For me it is an obvious and almost childish thought.' It must have been in the mind of the reporter through whom I first learned the tragic news...
...Well, I'm out of my daze...
...He had lived a violent life...
...AFL opposition to the Board began five years ago when NLRB decisions favored the CIO bv calling collective bargaining elections on plant-wide instead of * craft basis...
...To the House, Dies gave a hint of these officials' alleged activities...
...Jonathan Stout, in last week's Capital Comment, revealed the existence of four special volumes on War Profits which were written and published for the Office o? Price Administration...
...Frankly announced as a capital lobby, the new UAW office will not hesitate to attack administration labor policies...
...That tete-a-tete was a month ago...
...Immediate cause of Federation discontent with the Board is the NLRB's favorable consideration of the CIO's petition for an election at Henry J. Kaiser's Portland shipyards, where the Federation has a closed shop contract...
...Volume IV indicates the direction of profits by showing that the average for this group was 40% higher in the first six months of 1942 than it was in 1941, and at an accelerating rate...
...Had 150% Income Rise, Took Half of All Profits By JONATHAN SHOUT WASHINGTON, D. C—We were aiWl#|H»-a-vis in one of Washington's restaurants, thte N«w Deal official and I. I was pretty well hypnotised as he waved a masterful finger at me and described how our national income last year was around 120 billions, while all the money we spent only added up to 80 billion...
...However, the war profiteering revealed so far becomes small potatoes when you get to volume II and its analysis of 200 war contractors...
...he demanded portentously, fixing me with a glaring eye...
...These include matters which have attracted nationwide attention," it was reported by the Times-Herald, now considered the official mouthpiece of the Wheeler-Dies anti-administration blocs...
...bassador to France, until his disagree moata 1 with Stalin...
...PactLinkedtoSoviet Polish Question LONDON.—British Labor and French Socialist circles here were dismayed by the news of the alliance between the de Gaulle French National Committee and the French Communist Party...
...Frankensteen will handle all matters pertaining to the WLB, the NLRB, the conciliation service, 'Department of Labor, legislation and cause they are aliens or alleged "subversives...
...he was still fighting, but not for long...
...It was this that destroyed his life, as he well knew it would...
...The failure of the Russian government to settle the Polish border problem has brought about attacks on the Polish exiled government from extreme reactionaries in Polish emigre circles...
...I want to tell him that it's not in people's pockets, but that the War Profiteers have it well sewed up...
...Strangely, Lewis reflects the opinions of all labor, including many of his enemies, by stating: "Currently the war production set-up here is almost completely a big business proposition with labor being tolerated only on the fringes...
...The first volume of the War Profits Studies is entitled "Profits of 1753 Large Industrial Corporations, 1939-1941...
...These published reports were cited as evidence of Dies' new approach to "un-American activities," for they are aimed directly at the removal of high government officials not associated with communist or fascist circles...
...The Soviets have yet to renounce the terri-J°2 taken in the first phases of the war...
...He was the last of the great revolutionists who fought implacably with love instead of hate in their hearts...
...Lewis refers to the Washington war effort as a "big business-military show...
...An Editorial The assassination of Carlo Tresca, noted anti-fascist leader and editor of II Martello, was political murder...
...New Leader WASHINGTON.—Martin Dies, chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, was prepared this week to charge that at least 10 high ranking government officials are part of "a conspiracy to destroy popular government in the nation," it was learned by The New Leader...
...Instead of inflation, what America has to worry about is plain rooking of its millions of plain working folks through higher prices for everything from "sunup to sundown, wholesale elimination of its small-businessmen, and an unprecedented concentration of all wealth and power in a few big hands...
...In a letter last week to the Sunday Times Matushevski utilized the imprisonment of Polish Socialist leaders Eilich and Alter to tax the Sikorski government with failure to accomplish anything by the Soviet accord...
...Through the close of 1941, this war output was for the most part superimposed upon expanding civilian production...
...Documentary proof of these assertions will be presented to the House this week, Dies said...
...The full story of war profiteering disclosed in OPA's four volumes cannot be told in one take...
...Who has seen that mentioned in any corporation or NAM publicity...
...It was reported that in 1940 there were over 30,999 persons, including children, in that camp...
...The boys on Bataan didn't get time-and-a-half," is the familiar Tory argument...
...Imagine bottling up that much money...
...It was he who exposed the Juliet Poyntz kidnapping, and the Robinson-Reubens spy case wlich sent three Soviet agents to jail here for passport fraud and halted another purge triai in Moscow...
...Stout continues this week and next his exclusive report, offering the highlights of scandalous war profiteering in America.] See DeGaulle-CP...
...The anarchists had their naivete, their inability to fight for concrete freedoms without making an Absolute of the abstract idea...
...Whether this would replace the reported spectacular expose of fascist activity, or be a supplementary report on alleged "un-American" activities was not learned...
...Part one is "Comparative profits of 200 War Contractors and 1659 Other Large Industrial Corporations, 1939-1941...
...In general, the rate of profits expansio* varied with the industry's ability to produce war goods without converting its existing facilities...
...However, New Deal circles are warning the capital to expect a "smear" campaign against the administration's domestic policies...
...Which means a little group of less than 2,000 of America's Big Business corporations...
...kindness had a chance, sympathy and justice...
...study classifies the 1753 corporations into 50 industrial groups on the basis of predominant pre-war activity...
...Charging that "big business" was in control of the government while labor was unrepresented in federal councils, the last edition of the UMW Journal said: "Labor's traditions and institutions are not the creation of politicians nor the by-product of paternalistic government, but were forged in the~ heat of a thousand battles over a half century of American history...
...His enemies got him at last," he wrote...
...Tresca died in the front rank of the fight of.free men against tyranny...
...I feel as though I had lost not only a friend, but a fortress...
...And in 1941, 69 war contractors got that croix-de-guerre—with palms...
...And Volume IV is entitled "Corporate Profits in the First Six Months of 1942...
...The importation of these methods, rampant in corrupt capitals of Europe, must be halted here at once...
...Those things made him a target for the tyrannists of both camps...
...Radek was long the principal Soviet spokesman on foreign affairs and in 193C served as secretary of the Commission that drew up the new Soviet Constitution of 1*17...
...Each fortnight, his publication excoriates federal inefficiency and the many "burros and burrocrats," as the United Mine Workers Journal refers to federal agencies...
...His entourage has ben filled with men suspected of tie* with leading French industrialists—their tradition is always to have a man in every camp —and men whose sympathies have been Croix de Feu and reactionary...
...The announcement of the French Commuhist-Gaullist accord brought this comment by the New York Times London correspondent Raymond Darnell: "It was variously interpreted in French liberal circles outside the de Gaullist movement as an attempt by the Comintern to gain political control of France, using the protective coloration of General de Gaulle's anti-German movement, and as further evidence of Russian suspicion of United States and British motives...
...There is no mistaking Lewis' attitude towards the New Deal and its war politics...
...He had to die at the hands of the tyrant's assassins...
...of Leon Trotsky, killed coldbloodedly by a GPU assassin who is yet to be sentenced for his crime, nearly two and a half years after the murder...
...For the grim penalty of the failure to solve this hideous crime may well be the assassination of other political figures whom the totalitarian groups fear and wish to silence...
...And "bot for a leak in that well-guarded wall of silence last week the story might have been a secret still...
...The greatest gains were in the durable goods industries where every group but one showed at least a doubling of profits between 1939 and 1941...
...in organizing the crime...
...Rakovsky and Radek had been two of the best known figures in the Communist movement...
...It is not irrelevant to remember that Tresca was in his decline...
...The New Leader has in its possession photostats of the key charts and tables...
...It was calculated to force the Administration to abolish some bureaus, appoint high labor officials to influential Dosts and curtail the Power of former industrialists and financiers such as Ferdinand Eberstadt and Charles Wilson WPB vice-presidents...
...Its essential implement is the armed, bigoted, unthinking, extra-legal, antimoral gang called "Party," usurping the power that belongs to the people and the state...
...And while all this has been going on, the War Labor Board has been haggling over niggardly wage raises never exceeding 15% to small handfuls of workers here and there—all in the name of preventing inflation...
...That 40 billion," he orated, "is in people's pockets...
...I left him in a groggy daze...
...And those less than 2.000 Fat Beys, as the OPA's War Profits Study reveals, "represent less than 1% of the total number reporting net income, but their profits constituted more than half of the total profits of all corporations...
...In so bitter and blank a loss, one seeks irresistibly for some small mitigating thought...
...Fuller detail will come in next week's dispatch...
...Who hired the assassin...
...In aircraft and shipbuilding, where there was no conversion problem, profits in 1939 were already showing the effects of mounting war orders...
...Carlo Tresca — *7/te 2>eam of a Revel By MAX EASTMAN I feel bitterly lonesome since Carlo Tresca died...
...De Gaulle has sought Russian backing and recognition, while the Soviets seek to line up a European bloc of the Czechs and the French...
...Of equal importance on the national political-labor scene is the United Automobile Workers' decision to "launch an intensive and continuous campaign to bring about overhauling of the WLB and the WPB so that the interests of the war effort and labor may 'be more effectively served...
...For instance, in 1939 three war contractors already had jumped their profits to between 400% and 500...
...Man, it a the most colossal thing that has ever happened...
...Opinion is unanimous that the alliance was not made for any reasons of internal politics (the memory of French opposition to the war in 1989 and 1940 and the defection of leading Communist chiefs such as Marcel Cachin is »ivid in memory) but is the result of jockeying on the international scene...
...It's dammed up purchasing power...
...This action of the UAW is believed here to typify more than any other union move the resentment against government policy on labor matters and the general dissatisfaction with labor's inability to win important government posts...
...Totalitarianism is nothing but tyranny with modern technique...
...He would have been surprised himself, and also a little injured in his pride, if he had died in bed...
...The small change represented in the "higher wages" for labor about which Big Business propagandists have been howling is a panhandler's handout compared to the scandalous War Profiteering of the Fat Boys as revealed in this official and restrained government report...
...It is tyranny controlling men's minds as well as their bodies...
...He called it anarchism— and that was all right too...
...Why don't you write a story about how the threat of inflation was stopped cold by damming up that 40 billions...
...It would be a mistake to assume, as some newspapers have done, that Carlo Tresca was in the "twilight" of hie activities...
...Indeed, it appears to be an actual blacklist against effective labor spokesmen, and only those are admitted to the inner circle who can be trusted to nod acquiscenec after the decisions are made by.others...
...A key to his sadden departure from caution was seen by New Dealers in his boast that he had the support of "a solid bloc" of House members...
...What follows is a summary of the highlights...
...In past weeks this newspaper has been used extensively to send up trial ballons in an effort to frighten President Roosevelt's officials in charge of anti-fascist investigations...
...In 1939, income taxes absorbed 18% of the profits of all 1,753 corporations, while in 1941 almost 50% was paid in taxes...
...And by "we" I mean this democratic republic which is fighting for its way of life, not on foreign battlefields alone, but here also where the life is being lived...
...And we've got it bottled up...
...For each of the 50 groups," the study reveals, "profits before income taxes expanded over the two-year period...
...Of that there is little doubt, for the pistol shots on Monday night that killed the widely-known and respected Italian antifascist came from the camp of totalitarianism, an enemy that Carlo Tresca hated implacably and fought vigorously all the years of his life...
...He stood so firm in this time of dissolving characters and standards, firm, in his courage both physical and moral, firm in his integrity, firm in his love for the oppressed...
...But it can not extinguish the light which illumined his life— not if we keep on trying, as he did, to understand the subtle and complex forces plotting against freedom in this day, and resist them with half his courage and devotion...
...It is this animal and savage power-drive that Tresca was fighting, both in its fascist and its communist form...
...Dur...
...We need to know for the purposes of self-defense...
...In shipbuilding 1939 profits before taxes were twice the pre-war average...
...Volume II is "Profits of 200 Important War Contractors, 1939-1941...
...And since then I have seen the OPA's four-volume study on War Profits...
...Not the least of the gadfles needling the government is John L. Lewis...
...These charges were drawn after detailed examination of income tax returns which were "startling," he said...
...and de Gaulle maintained close links with Moscow that were cemented by the Gaullist ambassador there...
...The de Gaulle Committee has been under heavy criticism from Socialist groups hefi for the "unholy" coalition around de Gaulle...
...I echoed, running my hands mechanically through my pockets...
...The French Communist move with Darlan is regarded as the second step in obtaining political support...
...Subcontractors were selected from two OPM studies...
...And those were the things that made Carlo Tresca so big —and of late years so solitary on the left...
...To Carlo Tresca's family, The New Leader expresses its sympathy...
...But we do not need to know in order to shape our indignation or map the general course of our duty to his memory...
...To the martyred leader of anti-Fascists, to this giant man of integrity and courage, We pay cur tribute...
...Where...
...have both died in Russia according to information now available and released by the Socialist Vestnik...
...Common-sense had a chance with the anarchists...
...In 1940, 24 war contractors hit that mark...
...An additional 15% was scattered among 42 companies engaged in shipbuilding or the manufacture of industrial machinery, railway equipment, auto parts and accessories and chemicals...
...As to the officials directly involved, Dies said the reverberations of their behavior should be such as to prevent them from proceeding in cases now pending in their department...
...The controversial Texas Representative said he would expose the officials as having used their connection with the most trusted federal departments to enrich corporations with which they were associated...
...Similar restiveness is reported among members of the International Association of Machinists working in aircraft plants from Lower California to Texas...
...of Bulgarian birth, had joined the revolutionary movement la I 1891...
...Contracts for more than $20 billion of war material had been let by U. S. procurement agencies alone...
...And on Capitol Hill a Tory Congress, at the lecherous urging of the Big Business monopolists, is preparing to plunge the knife into the time-and-a-half after 40 hours provision of the Wage-and-Hour Act...
...The extent of that profit is revealed as follows: "For the 100 major prime contractors, 1941 profits before income taxes totalled $3 billion;, for the 100 random subcontractors they amounted to $231 million...
...Thomas, the quarterly session of the International Executive Board, which met recently in Los Angeles, decided to set up a Washington office to be staffed by UAW men under the direction of UAW Vice-Presidents Richard T. Frankensteen and Walter P. Reuther...
...That Carlo Tresca was killed by hired professional gangsters is without doubt...
...Only seven of the 50 groups showed less than a 50% gain in profits from 1939 to 1941...
...Nevertheless, aggregate 1941 profits after taxes showed an increase of 56% over the 1939 level...
Vol. 26 • January 1943 • No. 3
