WPB-Army Dispute Seen Over As Wilson Takes Production Control
WPB-Army Dispute Seen Over As Wilson Takes Production Control Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C —The war rages on new foreign fronts, but the same old skirmishes are ran through here...
...The field for competition would clearly be limited...
...The renaissance of Charles Peguy, commented on by Paul Texter in last week's New Leader, is finding favor in many circles...
...The ClO's James Carey, together with Mr...
...There is many a slip between "political morale" and effective action against a highly-organized modern dictatorship...
...What these men propose, in effect, is a corporative order with all industry organized on monopoly trade lines dealing with large-scale trade unions...
...And this week, a Wall Street Journal' correspondent reported that the WPB i* "quietly, assuming, direction- of war production" and that Wilson's "most pervasive control over military and other production is likely to go through...
...Or building machinery fabricators, who raised profits 791...
...417, passim):— "He recognized his bushy eyebrows, his watery gray eyes, his...
...The fears were justified...
...Kettering of General Motors, Francis of General Foods and other "streamlined" business spokesmen...
...Mates Off f»e Caff TPHE most recent Gallup Poll on political sentimeat in Canada shews the moat meteoric rise of the Canadian Commonwealth Federation is public favor through 1942...
...Officials of the Institute of Pacific Relation deny that such a proposal was made...
...New Europe was to be made prosperous and secure by the riches of the Ostland...
...has- resigned, and most observers see the beginning of the end of the committee and...
...To take one item, for example: Advertising is one of the "operating costs" claimed by the steel companies...
...There has been plenty of bungling on both sides...
...For the four-volume OPA "War Profits Study" shows that while Pittsburgh labor was getting 12% more, the nine steel companies that dominate all steel production for war—in the Pittsburgh area as elsewhere—had increased their profits 531...
...Now Bard is understood to have informed Manpower Commissioner McNutt that the Navy was not opposed to discrimination hearings in Detroit if...
...But now that victory is in sight, Big Business is more vocal and active...
...WPB-Army Dispute Seen Over As Wilson Takes Production Control Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C —The war rages on new foreign fronts, but the same old skirmishes are ran through here in the battle for war production...
...In May 1942, the Nazis claimed that "all Ukrainian fields have baen planted...
...especially in Britain, had taken the initiative nr spurring an effective production policy, had insisted on the ouster of Chamberlain, bad rallied: the nation in crisis...
...Recent Russian propaganda, according to Berne dispatches, is beginning to make definite appeals and is being directed to German workers...
...The November issue of Fortune Magazine contributes some interesting- and pertinent facts to the Pittsburgh picture...
...Marty the butcher...
...Peguy finds favor in toe Comrrwnu-eal and this week a columnist in the Wall Street Journal, Thomas F. Woodlock, comments highly favorably on a new English translation of some of Peguy's writinge, by Julian Green, entitled Charles Peguy...
...Ever, before the outbreak of the war in Europe, the steel companies were getting all the business they could handle...
...That stench grew so fierce that Marty's brigade was nicknamed by the Germans as the Himmelfakrt (ascent to Heaven...
...Within the army itself, it would be extravagant to insist on any substantial defection...
...Whereas other real persons are disguised by Hemingway in his portraits, the figure of the egotistical, arrogant Marty stands out sharply by actual name and physical description...
...But Wilson has come back...
...He kills rare things...
...But today there is no competition...
...After deducting for food...
...Nor is that all that's phoney, in the set-up...
...My point is that the conservatism of the bulk of Washington correspondents is not unrelated to the daily routines which they follow...
...And that seems to make more sense than any of the press releases from the National Association of Manufacturers...
...Two, the total amount of money deposited in savings accounts with the Iron and Glass Dollar Savings Bank, located on the south side near the Jones & Laughlin Steel Mill, dropped* from $2,428,000 to $2,310,000 between January and August, 1942...
...Somervell, observers here noted, had organized' one of the neatest administrative squeezes of the year...
...One persistent story nude the rounds and from the Chinese embassy reached Chungking where it war flashed back here as a dispatch to the New York Times...
...The trade unions, seeking improved labor conditions find it much easier to come to terms with the big monopolies than with the general run of small firms...
...Nevertheless, for those who are merely intellectually carious, net' profits of the nine steel companies after paying income taxes represented, a 311% increase...
...At the beginning of last autumn the official explanation had already hardened—all the agricultural surplus of occupied Russia would be required by the Army...
...its attempt to enforce a policy forbidding racial discrimination Walter White, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has charged that White House Secretary Marvin Mclntyre—"Mclntjre of Kentucky is setting himself up as self-appointed President of the Negroes"—was partly responsible for the suppression of the longplanned exposure of anti-Negro discrimination in the railroad industry (particularly since the installation of Diesels has eliminated the back-breaking job of coal-shovelers for the steam engines...
...Is the foreign worker happy and satisfied in the new order...
...But he is crazy as a bedbug...
...His forte was murder, the murder of all dissident Loyalists...
...He is always reaching the theatre after the actors and audience have gone home...
...The- two most vexing questions at the moment are the Polish-Soviet border question—the failure to settle this thorny problem caused the breakdown of Polish-Czech negotiations last week-end —and the question of China's borders...
...An interesting question is, why don't the companies distribute their advertising budgets among their workers in the form of wage increases...
...In fact, many of the ada say frankly they have nothing to sell...
...The picture of this cruel man who disgraced the heroic fight of the Spanish loyalists has been etched in acid by Ernest Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls...
...of administration stepchild* us now not being looked after at alii Pressure and pretest are already mounting from the nation's progressive unionists and liberal spokemen...
...Qui va...
...Just as steel may be said to be the heart of war armaments, so Pittsburgh may be described' as: the heart of the war effhrt...
...Now Negro leaders, interested in colonial affairs, are asking about Abd-ei-Krim and other African nationalist leaders...
...And his business needs some minding...
...War Profits Expose look at Steel...
...The Washington Story ^\NE of the most interesting commentaries on the life of the- Washington news corps, rtit* among working newspaper men, is the story by Jimmy Wechsler in the current issue of The Guild Reporter, organ of the Newspaper Guild.- Say* Wechsler...
...I had always taken him for a great figure," Gomez said, "For one of the glories of France...
...That, might seem uncommonly strange, especially in view of the report of the University of Pittsburgh Bureau of Business Research that per- capita income of wage earners in the steel area for 1948...
...Marty, who from all reliable reports sits comfortably in Moscow, has been resurrected by the Comintern following a silence of about four years in which he tried to scrub away the stain of blood which darkened his hands in Spain...
...Where are those leaders, for instance, of the Algerian "Star of North Africa," of the Tunisian "Detour" movements and the French Negro nationalists who were deported from France to different parts of Africa by Daladier at the biginning of this war...
...rent, etc., the family, says Fortune, has four dollars left to squander on clothing, winter coal, doctor's bills, education, recreation — and war bonds...
...The steel companies are selling nothing...
...For that you may have your choice of two explanations...
...His company Has put pressure on him, and, "die big-wigs of the NAM have put their, words in...
...Foreign Communists who were slated to be exterminated were ordered to Spain to join Marty's division of the International Brigade...
...A great council of all industry would maintain contacts with the Trade Union Congress and would be the informed mouthpiece of industry in dealings with the government...
...The question is whether the story was some sort of trial balloon front the Soviets, an actual suggestion made here or some idle speculation—but that brings us back to the F. Philips Oppenheim cycle...
...That old one kills mbre than the bubonic plague...
...Perhaps it was intuition, or maybe it was the reports that steel workers' wives brought home from- the grocer, the butcher, the clothing store and the landlord...
...What about the "almost 12%" wage increase...
...In actual money, the 531% for the nine* steel corporations which monopolize steel war production was $521,589,000 profit after paying all charges except income taxes...
...Brehon Somervell, the tough, ambitious chief of the Army's Services of Supply, has ideas of his own as to how things are to be run...
...Tiene mania: de fusilar gent...
...To highlight the picture, he presents Here an analysis of one selected' industry—steel] WASHINGTON, D. C. — The ceuntrysid* around Pittsburgh, in a loose way of speaking, has got prosperity...
...and he knew him for one of France's great modern revolutionary figures who had led the mutiny of the French Navy in the Black Sea...
...There are also cocktail parties...
...To avoid difficulties it is always us who do it...
...Publication of the full proceedings will come in the near future, but proceedings never cany the corridor gossip...
...However, in the Low Countries, as in Norway, other factors are operating against Nazi well-being...
...for instance, the major war contractors in aircraft who have increased their profits 1,682...
...Or railway equipment producers, who increased profits 946...
...When McNutt last week cracked down on the public hearings scheduled, to investigate the case of the railroads, file cancellation just about took the drive and...
...His face looked as though it were modelled from the waste material you fin* under the claws of a very old Hon...
...No, the steel magnates' 531% is really quite -modest in comparison...
...As a price for increased monopolist control, the big business groups would grant concessions to labor, but the smaller industrialists, subject to competition, are afraid of the increased social service costs and find it harder to release juvenile labor for educa* tion...
...Vichy has made an unsuccessful attempt to utilise his writings...
...Writes George Pad more in the Glasgow Forward...
...The foreign worker will believe in New Europe," came the reply, "as- soon as- he gets the first increased bread rations from the East European territories...
...Not in joke...
...There is a heavy demand, from would-be deserters...
...Randolph,, is organizing a series of meetings to register strong disapproval of...
...Nevertheless, newspapers and magazines, from the pulps to the slicks,, billboards and other media continue to carry steel company advertising...
...It has been reported, that nothing would please Somervell so much as Wilson's return home to "mind his own business...
...Or metal fabricators, who jumped their profits 1,097...
...obtain 'new territory in the non-military war agencies in Washington, and to bid for control over war production...
...Rosenberg had scaled down the figure to 85%, and not much after that a Berlin breadcast informed that "70% of the the total acreage has been sown...
...This Is Andre Marty...
...In normal times, there is an argument for this...
...Any type of rare beasts...
...And- so the fertility of the East was contributing "magnificently" to the welfare of the Third Reich —but, it was explained, "indirectly...
...And most of the post-war thinking was being done by labor...
...And again it is simply undeniable that in great sections of Europe the Nazi soldier is a member of a privileged military aristocracy...
...and come the end of the war and the end of war profiteering, a high wage level which s strong union might be able to maintain or at least keep from plummeting would cut a bigger melon out of profits than the steel magnates care to contemplate...
...Divagatieners...
...But the courier from Robert Jordan does question Marty, and is summarily arrested...
...Companies Reaped Vast Profits While Prices Absorb Puny Wage Increases By JONATHAN STOUT [two issues ago, Jonathan Stout exposed a secret four-volume OPA study which showed enormous profits in war industries...
...But any accountant will tell" you that the addJertising budget is deducted from the income tax payable to the government...
...In and around Pittsburgh, everybody is working, everybody is...
...The.OPA war profits study's conclusion, jqst as obviously, is that the steal companies1 cushion .similarly is rather FAT...
...according to the OPA war profits study...
...McNutt believed they would be helpful...
...After his surrender to General Boiehnt at Taza in May 1926, the Rifften leader was banished to Madagascar and later to Reunion, a small French island in the Indian ocean next to the British possession of Mauritius...
...The story is that a proposal was advanced to give Hanchukuo to the Soviets, while China would be recompensed with French In do-China to the south...
...Criticism of this National Policy for Industry has come strongest from the National Union of Manufacturers which represents the smaller in* dustrialists who were not consulted when the "big 120" drew up their document...
...And in the new maneuverings WPB's Ferdinand Eberstadt, so closely assosteteft in the past with the Army way of handling problems and so often reported at loggerheads with Wilson, has been somewhat eclipsed...
...At any rate the FEPC, always a kind...
...He may get the lowdown later from the garbage man . . . most of the daily runs in the Capitol unless I have been disastrously misinformed—consist of seeing a familiar succession of publicity men, major or minor, dignitaries, old college chums who hold government offices, other reporters, professional tipsters, promoters, and other forms of sublimated newspaper men...
...Always for political things...
...the corporal said...
...wage increase on paper adds up to a-minus in their pockets is shown in OPA's hush-hush study of war profits which Leon Henderson kept a secret for almost six months until The New Leader found a leak in the wall of silence less than three weeks ago...
...This was suggested this week by observers who noted Malcolm McLean's resignation from FEPC to take a job as adviser on Negro affairs for the Navy Department...
...Last month the Institute of Pacific Relations held almost secret sessions in Canada- with unofficial delegates from every nation bordering the North Pacific present, including unofficial representatives of the U. S. State Department...
...THE Communist press is now engaged in • a campaign to build up the figure of Andre Marty as a leader of French resistance...
...Fortune cites the $35-a-week income of a family of six at New Kensington, Pa., and describes the weekly budget...
...The debate on our propaganda to Japan is growing hotter...
...The statement A National Policy for Industry is signed by 120 men, including representatives of such large firms as Imperial Chemical, Unilever, Stewarts and Lloyds, Vickers and the big motor companies...
...Here is the conversation of the arrested man with the corporal...
...He's orssy...
...The real issue is between planning and lack of planning—and the prospect of centralized civilian control creates at least the preconditions { for effective, democratic planning of America's war economy...
...What, then, do the Allied Governments propose to do about Abd-el-Krim and the other leaders of the North African nationalist movements who, if they knew that they would reap Roosevelt's Pour Freedoms would be foremost in the fight against Fascism...
...In the recent meeting between Gerard Swope and Charles Wilson back home, Swope pleaded for Wilson to come home and help the company, out, or least to "lay off" antagonizing the Army, which is GE*s biggest customer...
...The soldiers offer not only fantastic prices for the "protective clothing...
...Clippings and Comment By DANIEL BELL 9? °PE*?*Poff tWELOjfcATIC intrigues are at their stealthiest *^ when the question of boundaries and territory h fWjHI Secret codicils to secret treaties afceeasl fa every foreign office, according to the EL Phillips Oppenbeim pattern—which is not so -far from reality as seme people may think...
...Practically leaving them penniless...
...There has been no competition since 1939...
...That was his reputation...
...In money, that amounted to $236,371,0M...
...Steel has been selected for the comparison between wages and' profits because it is so conservative...
...MWt biehoe mm...
...Peguy, Socialist, mystic and patriot, died in the first world war...
...The German police in Poland have been instructed to cross-examine members of forced-labor regiments en route to Germany...
...Hitler's food policy, holding France for example at the edge of starvation, has been an effective means to slow down political unrest among the French . masses...
...What would be comparable to the profits of bis employers is what lite worker has left—if anything— after paying these charges...
...Pnrifiea ma* que le Salvarsan...
...chin and the double chin underneatte it...
...Especially the French...
...Second, steel producers have been more modest in their profit-taking than some other industrialists...
...Mata mi* que la peete bubeniea...
...We always furnish the firing party...
...An unflinchinglyhostile population, the invasion threat, in some cases an unfavorable climate, in otBSr cases the nearness of the Russian theater of war—all work together in jarring the nerves of the German garrisons...
...Forqoffei» Men TPHE North African campaign raises the spectre T of Abd-el-Krim, the already almost legendary leader of the Riffs who fought the Spaniards and later the French in Morocco and was only defeated by a combination of both...
...As a matter of fact, the excellent job of reorganization which Wilson, formerly of General Electric, has been doing has irked the Army no end...
...It was widely reported at first that Assistant Secretary of Navy Ralph Bard had' taken the stand that the PEPC hearings would hamper Army-Navy morale plans...
...Does he believe in the New Europe...
...When we were at Escorlal we shot I don't know how many for him...
...It really started in earnest when Hugh Byes in his Government by Assassination suggested that our propaganda not insult tan Emperor and that Hlrohito might well emerge as a "wise and statesmanlike ruler...
...It is said to be quite frank and explicit about Somervell's desires to...
...Basic Verities...
...But'ample corroboration of the feeling among Pittsburgh's steel labor that the 12...
...That, too, is deductible from income taxes, and therefore would cost the companies exactly nothing...
...Donald Nelson, chief of the War Production Board, has been working: quietly through his lieutenant, Charles E. Wilson, in his attempt to organize and plan civilian direction of war production...
...This is Hemingway's physical description of Marty: "Even here at the front in the light of a bare electric bulb, he having just come In from- driving in an open car on s brisk night...
...And, while we are at it, it might be apropos to point out that the propaganda of the war profiteers which implies comparisons between wages and profits are false to begin with...
...Here is what Hemingway wrote (Pg...
...the neglect and abuse which Negro demands for industrial justice in- tile war effort have been taking...
...Trotskyites...
...Reporters covering Washington live in a strange, vicarious world where history is something you are told about by an 'informed source,' after it has been made The correspondent virtually never sees men and everts in motion...
...But, of course, that would raise the wage level in the steel industry...
...It is found that many German soldiers, prefering hard labor to military service, frequently disguise themselves as Polish workers...
...By the time the war actually-was under way, tint steel companies were beginning to build tip a backlog of unfilled: orders which has grown larger rather than smaller aver since...
...Tma' weak, news leaked out of a special Somervell-Army manifesto against the Tolan-Pepperivilgore bill to set up an over-all Office of...
...A recent Belgian report which was given to Brendan Bracken, British Information Minister, estimated' that "every German soldier is a $4,00Q-a-year man . . . and the Belgians have to pay...
...The consequent rift in social policy between the big concerns and the small, says The New Statesman and Nation, is likely to prove of great political importance...
...We shot French...
...Many Negroes and trade unionists were apprehensive when last month Paul V. McNutt incorporated the committee under his Manpower Commission...
...The S3 army behind the front is a formidable factor checking the crisis of "wavering, morale...
...There is the factual basis on which the war profiteers have been weeping and wailing to high heaven about "the terribly high wages that labor is getting while the poor boys in the Army only get 50 bucks -a month . . . and the terribly high taxes that THAT MAN' in Washington has been soaking them...
...The statement, according to the London Timet, inclines to the opinion that membership of trade associations should be compulsory and that majority decisions should be enforceable...
...He has a mania for shooting people...
...War Mobilization which would be in charge of planning and' directing our war economy...
...profits similarly, it would be necessary...
...In- the dense forests of Bohemia, Galicia, and the Carpathians, today—as in 1917-18, thousands of deserters are Hiding, What is most important to remember that in...
...his gray face had s look of decay...
...It is known, however, that in Czechoslovakia civilian garb ranks . in value even above foodstuffs...
...He may be a glory and all," tfce corporal said and put his hand on Andres's shoulder...
...We have shot others of divers nationality...
...See Complete Decline of F. E. P. C. efforts of uV ljfcilllli lilt .ifrfifristration to- »"Wmr 9eal f or Negrb wvcaeis through ' the Fair Employment Practices Committee seem this weak almost completely to have fallen through...
...and says, "On the day a four-engine bomber drops a ten-ton block-buster an the Tokio palace, I will consider then that we have reached the beginning of the end of Japan," » * * Big Butitmm RMes 4«oin BIG Business, both American and British, was bashful the first three years of war...
...It thinks vary little |of the WPB indeed, Gestapo Keeps Order, Food Crisis Hits Morale By MATTHEW LOW The reporters shuffled in and took their places...
...the face of all the hardships and every conceivable danger, the German soldier fears above all the Nazi Gestapo...
...He did not' know what this man had become with time, disappointment, bitterness, both domestic and political, and thwarted ambition, and that to question him was one of the most dangerous things that any man could" do...
...On this basis, the big firms would be able to grant greater social services to the workers...
...Russian Propaganda RUSSIAN propaganda to Germany during the first year and a half of war was singularly inept according to informants who have seen transcripts of the broadcasts...
...Russian radio appealed to Germans in general terms, on the basis that Hitler is a ••nasty" man sad sought army support against Hitler...
...New labor laws for western Europe, were being inaugurated, and the head of the Nazi Labor front had summoned the German press for an interview...
...Things for a while looked hopeful when the government took recognition of A. Philip Randolph's March - on - Washington Movement and organized the FEPC tp combat industrial discrimination...
...Somervell has appointed' David Sarnoff of RCA (a GE competitor) as colonel in charge of checking GE products...
...getting wages—and everybody should be happy . . . but Pittsburgh labor is not...
...It" is, of" course, well-known that Lieut...
...Fortune's conclusion is that, "obviously, the cushion the steel workers are so eager to provide f or•an eventual * posf-wer depression is rather fiat...
...From the evidence available, they are not Vivid-pictures have been consistently offered by the Nazi propaganda of the, ripe grain, the golden butter, chickens-, sugar beets and potatoes to be obtained from the Bast, and especially the Ukraine...
...Malcolm S. McLean, chairman of the FKPC...
...A similar group had been set up some time ago in England and fuller accounts of its plana, released in November, have just reached here...
...a British Labor Party committee, headed by Arthur Greenwood and Harold Laski, bad done most of the spadework in this field later to be ploughed by governmental committees...
...Or shipyard magnates, who stepped up profits 988...
...Herr H. J. Woudenborg was asked...
...In this country a ooramittee has already been set up with such people as Thomas Lamont...
...Young attacks the idea as a continuation of the old British Imperial policy of the Chamberlin day...
...First, steel labor on the whole has done about as well in the way of wage increases as any group of workers and better than a good many...
...Bat are the "increased bread rations" coming through...
...Such comparisons take no account of the.fact- that profits are what's left after paying operating costs—wages, rent, interest, maintenance, raw materials, etc To make wages paralled...
...As for the state of morale in the civilian sectors of New Europe, it is necessary to recall a simple lesson of history—revolutionary experience indicates that an undernourished population is less able to revolt against its oppressors than men and women who do not have to struggle for their daily bread...
...Truly shooting them...
...Several months later Dr...
...Some progress Has been made already...
...But he doesn't kill fascists like we do...
...The men of the Brigades would not shoot their own men...
...The general trend of gain was found all across Canada, but most particularly in Ontario...
...The poll shows 23 per cent support today compared with 8 per cent in the 1940 elections...
...Well, then, what's the idea...
...Andres did not understand any of this...
...increased by almost 12% ever- income in the same period of 19411 'Bet'that almost 12% wage increase has -drawn no cheers from labor in the Pittsburgh steel mills...
...Other foreign correspondents, notably James Young and Hallett Abend, have jumped on this idea with both feet...
...The companies say, they advertise so the public won't forget their names...
...There can be little doubt, of course, that Army and Navy resent FEPC interference, and probably Its* on "social?' grounds then on- grounds of "bureaucratic, independence...
...but are said' to attack and strip civilians under cover of blackout...
...Of all type...
...r Of course, this issue of civilian versus military control can be presented in over-simple and misleading fashion...
...He purifies more than Salvarsan...
...FOrtune gives that the coup de grace with the following two significant facts: One, the number of savings accounts (which are largely workers' deposits) in the Mellon National Bank in Pittsburgh decreased' from 31,000' to 29,000 between January and August, 1942...
...The promises are slowly being revealed in all their fakery...
...the heart out of the FEPC...
...But known as "a, tough fighter," Wilson returned to his WPB desk...
...Como lo oyes," the corporal said...
...Labor...
...to deduct from the worker's wages HIS operating costs and maintenance—food, rent, clothing and all those other items which enable him to go oat: producing...
...We have shot Belgians...
...There is competition, and advertising is one of the ways of overcoming competition...
...For purposes of comparing profits and- wages, it weald hardly be accurate to deduct income taxes from profits since the 12% wage increase cited above also is given before pay* ment of income taxes...
...This analysis, which is offered by a special report on radio broadcasts, prepared by the intelligence services of various government agencies, gives point to the suspicion that 1943 will be an extremely trying year for the morale of the New Order's millions...
...Wechsler contends that the Washington newsmen might write more illuminating analyses, especially of labor issues, if obey saw labvr in action rather than waiting- tensely for a handout breaking near their deadlines...
...In public speeches Stalin has' stated that he had no wish to destroy the .German army, only the Nasi pasty...
Vol. 26 • January 1943 • No. 4
