Congressional Tory Bloc Forces White House Retreat on Reforms
LORING, EDWARD
Congressional Tory Bloc Forces White House Retreat on Reforms By EDWARD LORING WASHINGTONri^. C—With the Congressional ternTonly one month old, this week, the opening of the year has befeh marked...
...The motorman took the brake handle from its socket and approached him...
...He put the brake handle back in its socket and started the car...
...Was it Communists...
...What Dies and his lunatic fringers did last Monday was to jump the gun on the moderates...
...That town has sent its best sons—black and white—to the four corners of the earth to fight what is supposed to be a people's war against the Axis...
...Congress is angry—and it should not be visioned a? a mass of fat-bellies and silk hats...
...But for the moment the •Peculation about the Allies' next moves is tak-*5 a back-seat, and the widespread question is— jjjt'* happening in Germany ? The strange noises coming out of Berlin in-weate that a shake-up of startling character "••y be developing...
...The soldier <lid not move...
...Note—The President announced a plan this week for a new FEPC...
...The Negro workers did not stir...
...With his brain trust, some of whom are as guilty of past Communist activity as those he would frequently expose, Dies has been planning to seek an important nomination—perhaps the Vice-Presidency, or an important Cabinet post, or at the very least a place in the U. S. Senate...
...There is no brief here for the Communists and'their fellow-travelers...
...but that is not Fascism...
...3—The Administration through Attorney General Biddle has begun to waver under the attacks of men such as Senator Wheeler who have been demanding the removal of special prosecutor William Power Maloney from the case of the 33 indicted pro-fascists...
...Lewis has his men among the railway workers, the farm workers, the chemical workers, and through his subsidiary, the United Construction Workers, • could easily move into the aircraft industry, where there are still nearly 1,000,000 unorganized employees...
...A while back, a loud-mouthed cracker attempted to assert his "white supremacy...
...Dies' job will be to paint the administration and its social planners as "Crackpot Bureaucrats...
...The White House, and its social program, will now suffer because little concern was paid to the political nepotism which filled key Washington war bureaus with incompetents, while important and highly skilled men either left the capital in disgust or were ignored when they asked for work—any work at any price...
...Perhaps there are-even some clear-thinking people in London who can imagine what this would mean for England, too...
...Liberals Ask Strong FEPC to Guarantee Negro Job Rights By JAMES RORTY On a street corner in a southern war boom town, a dozen N'egro workers and one Negro soldier in uniform stood waiting for a trolley...
...The consistent CIO pressure in the past will be forgotten and the rank-and-file of unions everywhere will say that it was John L. Lewis who won the first substantial raise for his union...
...Dies attacked the conservative Citizens for Victory Committee, Friends of Democracy, Marshall Field and other avowedly interventionist forces...
...We must have a policy and we must have action implementing that policy...
...Get out of there, you -!" he shouted...
...This means only that Biddle has had no -word from the White House, which is still considering easing its way out of the mess which will undoubtedly be stirred up in the Senate if the trials make public the damaging material Maloney's staff has gathered against men such as Congressmen Hoffman and Wheeler...
...It has challenged the color bar in some of the union constitutions and rituals which operates automatically to build up forces hostile to the unions, to break strikes and to lower working standards...
...He has gone too far...
...What do they mean by pro-Fascists...
...When, to the amazement of the Washington newsmen who had never before witnessed such politically morose behavior, Mr...
...Delegation after delegation piled into Washington...
...Was ittiMcJsts...
...It has been learned that MeNutt did this at the urging of the White House, which in turn was not entirely uninfluenced-' by the pressure of the now vital Southern Congressional bloc...
...Now it is first come, first served, on the street cars and buses...
...So the race is on to see who'll come in first...
...These 18 are liberals and progressives of various kinds...
...Dies' attack was not mainly against Communists, but against democratic organizations and individuals who are anti-Communist but progressive and whose "crime" was opposition to Dies and his Tory cronies...
...The decent citizens of that town, white and black, called a meeting...
...The original nomination of Edward Flynn, a straight political back from the Bronx, where hacks are a dime a carload, was as great as political boner as the Baruch dinner to Hopkins...
...This may mean 1) that Hitler is now 2*2™' 10 dominate the Army command, 2) that ?*• U a serious breach between the Army ;«nd the Nasi rear, 3) the complete absence ^Mtttr in the situation for one reason of ilt-°™*r- [The New York Daily Newt ibis week *"* wide currency to the rumor that Adolph Hitler was dead.—Ed...
...The President's friends and supporters look to him now for similar courage and foresight on the national and international level...
...with' the effort to portray Roosevelt as harboring assistants who seek to destroy the home, the family and the Ten Commandments...
...This is part of the same pressure picture painted by those opposed to social security plans...
...who after all the genial camouflage is removed is (Continued on Page Seven...
...By demanding a daily wage increase of more than $1,000,000 a day for his 600,000 miners at this moment, Lewis will be the final force cracking the Little Steel Formula for the labor movement...
...but responsible leaders of trade unions, church and civic bodies, and racial minorities...
...JL housecleaning of the Communists and their fellow-travelers from those government agencies where they have succeeded in lodging them-ssties would have aroused no important opposition from anyone but the Communists...
...In short, less than half of the 40 can be regarded as Communists by any definition...
...They decided to scrap the jim crow ordinance for the duration...
...which must be sharpened, not blunted or dulled...
...acting on orders from the White House, and without prior discussion with the committee or its staff, postponed indefinitely the Washington hearings of the Fair Employment Practice Committee which were to have considered the grievances of the colored locomotive firemen which I described in The New Leader three weeks ago...
...MeNutt curtly refused to see the delegation, the churchmen sent a stiff telegram to the President...
...Wheeler...
...4 (By Cable).—We had been ^pecting a surprise following Casablanca, and jt has turned out to be Churchill's trip to wfaj...
...Martin Dies-Enemy of Democracy Martin .Dies, Representative in Congress of a few thousand Texans, has now become the spokesman for a loosely organized coalition of Southern Democrats, pre-PearHarbor isolationists and reactionary elements who have in common only a bitter hatred and fear of President Roosevelt and his social reforms...
...T\ey are flying through the air...
...Though he carefully edited his words from the Congressional Record, this is what he said on the House floor: "There have come repeated demands that this person or that person be branded as pro-Fascist or pro-Nazi simply because he expressed anti-Jfwish views...
...jMnhr Dies has given the whole liberal world tjMn and the most powerful impetus since W$ in the direction of another united front tn the Communists...
...Against this broad background of power politics and bids for control of the American government during the post-war years, Martin Dies has begun to create his destiny...
...I do not hold with those wB condemn anyone on ' account of the misdeeds of some people in that race, bat tftre is no law against a man's denouncing the South...
...Liberals can no longer mark Dies down as a Southern buffoon, for he no longer controls his own thoughts or actions...
...But because of Dies' record for unreliability, the moderates were resolved oh keeping in their own hands final judgment on the Dies lists and ultimate control of the house-cleaning...
...The results were more disastrous, apparently, than had been expected...
...ui U are as clearly CP...
...The moderates looked to Martin Dies and his House Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities to supply them with the facts and names of subversive individuals in the government agencies...
...Should Lewis win his rather stupendous—a word used advisedly here—demand, he will have depreciated the prestige of Murray in CIO and R. J. Thomas in the Auto Workers' Union, of which he is president...
...A housecleaning is coating in Washington...
...This latest move, though only in the "reported" stage, is part of the trend towards making peace with Congress, the majority of which may have little sympathy for the Wheelerites but do not like to see their colleagues disgraced In public...
...When they say Fascists, what do they mean by Fascist ?' Host of them mean people who have expressed anti-Semitism views...
...Similar stories have been told of the WPB...
...The chief unrest amongst labor is in the aircraft and steel industries, where the operators are making huge profits and wages have remained comparatively low, ranging between $40 and $60 a week...
...When there is no more room, they do not have to give up their seats to the whites...
...starved and weak though it has been, has done invaluable work...
...The significance of Casablanca, and of Churchill's journey, may lie in the anticipation of desperate Nazi offers In the meantime, the democracies might well be interested in Stalin's attitude toward conceivable German overtures for a compromise in the Eastern war...
...Meanwhile, it is grimly determined to keep the peace at home, and what it is doing-to that end makes sense...
...As stated in Executive Order No...
...This bloc, the "lunatic fringe" of Congressional conservatism, is bound together by fear of post-war changes, the cost of which might tax huge fortunes out of existence...
...Ideas do not need convoys across the channel...
...They discussed that incident and others like it, almost inevitable in their disrupted community, short of housing, short of transportation, war-tensed and jittery...
...WLB Chief Davis is now conferring with James Byrnes, economic stabilization czar, over the problem...
...Does Martin Dies know that "Capt...
...Washington reporters, especially Ken Crawford, remember how heartsick Biddle was over the quashing of the case against Coughlin and" Social Justice...
...8802...
...He paused...
...The New Dealers have their own problems right now and could not do anything even if they would...
...To this end . . . we ask that you re-affirm Executive Order No...
...See Nazi Quarrels, 'Peace' Moves By S. L SOLON London Correspondent, The New Leader LONDON, Feb...
...In the past few days Biddle has refused to comment on the reports that Maloney has been kicked upstairs to weaken the effectiveness of the government's case against the propagandists...
...Many, such as Jack Herling of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, or David Saposs of the War Production Board, were - attacked because as anti-Communists they earned Matthews* enmity when they fought his Communist views many years ago...
...The latest Finnish note to Berlin is reported to have expressed intentions of winding up the Finnish- front...
...For example: Goebbel's article in Das Reich this week winks coyly in the direction of the Allies with remarks on the Russian successes—"If the armed force were no longer able to break the storm the East, our Continent wonld be prey to Bolshevism...
...And a week later he witnessed a sequel which is more heartening, almost, than one could have hoped for...
...where labor is still unrepresented, the War Labor Board, the OPA and hunderds of minor offices...
...In the past few weeks President Roosevelt has yielded to the Southern bloc, which controls a strategic group of 130 balance-of-power votes, on the following issues: 1—He has permitted Paul V. MeNutt, War Manpower Commissioner, to cripple the Fair Employment Practices Committee which is charged with holding public hearings on discrimination against Negroes and other minority groups...
...it is surely...
...They mean people who believe in simple fundamental Americanism, people who believe in preserving our Constitution, people who believe that America shall not fall a victim to the maudlin internationalism which characterizes a few people in this country...
...The campaign for the 1944 nomination begins within the next half year—and they are maneuvering for positions of control over that nomination...
...The case is considered an amateurish effort to win over the support of tie big city machines and balk Farley—which was done for Roosevelt in New York by millions of voters...
...It does .not take an expert propaganda analyst to recognize words in that talk which have been used frequently by official German public relations men...
...Roosevelt, if he likes, can make a characteristically brilliant recovery The way to fight southern reactionaries and demagogues is to fight them, not surrender to them...
...Recommendations for such postwar freedom-from-want plans were part of the President's speech to Congress until the last minute...
...There are many sincere men in both houses, many conservatives, even, who are not anxious to play with Dies...
...Maybe we'll die together," he added...
...And what did the stupid blundering of Martin Dip accomplish...
...8802 and re-implement its execution...
...governmental history...
...When Mr Roosevelt returned from North Africa, he had on his desk not only this telegram but a carefully prepared memorial, signed by half a hundred distinguished priests, rabbis and pastors, from which the following is quoted: "The principle that there can be no second class economic citizenship, no ceiling of color or creed in the defense of democracy, is fundamental...
...The delegation organized by the Citizens" Committee to Save the Jobs of Colored Locomotive Firemen included officials of the Federal Council of Churches, the Central Council of American Rabbis, and the Catholic Interracial Council...
...Note.] While captured German Generals are deploring the war against Russia to their captors, Berlin is flying kites for possible peace moves...
...C—With the Congressional ternTonly one month old, this week, the opening of the year has befeh marked by a series of retreats and compromises by the White House in an effort to retain some control over Congress and through that influence direct U.S...
...Of the 40 persons Dies attacked by name, this correspondent by making a careful check with authoritative sources, including reliable Cvemment investigators, was able to make this eak-down: Only eight of the 40 are unquestionably Communists...
...For whom did Martin Dies attack in that ofte hour and forty minutes of distorted fact ind fancy on the floor of the House last Monday...
...foreign policy and post-war planning...
...New evidence of a conflict over power between Goering and Goebbels are wming to light...
...Fortress Europa may soon be leaking badly...
...The behind-the-scenes story is this: Ever sinct the November elections, the conservatives in the House have been waiting for the appropriation bills to come up in order to institute a nousecleaning in the various government departments...
...This technique will be tinged with anti-Semitism, with propaganda designed to place war guilt upon the President and his "international" advisors...
...Dies defended those who have talked anti-Semitism...
...The majority of the moderate conservatives were content to remain within these limits, jew of them were prepared to go so far as to use the,appropriations club to oust from government positions men who simply differ from tbcm politically and to whom there is attached no subversive taint...
...But it is no heavier than that of the government at Washington...
...President of the Amalgamated Bank, is chairman, and David Dubinsky, President of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, is treasurer, to charge that Dies' action aided our nation's enemies...
...Roosevelt has decided to cooperate with the powerful south European bloc of industrialist and other forces...
...Capital Comment Qies Speech May Boomerang in House •y JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, D. C—Thank God for the stupidity of Martin Dies...
...What Dies accomplished was to earn the anger and deepen the distrust of (bote he might have strongly influenced...
...The man who told me this incident is a trustworthy person...
...6—The strange case of the ambassador for Down-Under has Washington agog...
...It was an arbitrary and graceless action, motivated apparently by the need of a panicky administration to make the world safe for the southern Democrats—and incidentally get its budgets passed...
...Turkey has also behaved "strangely," in the new demonstrations of friendship for the Allies...
...The acceptance of Peyrouton is a symbol of Presidential acceptance, despite the^ constant reports that some subterranean bloc in the Army or the State Department has made its own foreign policy...
...The motorman looked back and saw him...
...These men are linked to each other by the hope of sharing in the political loot which they expect to result from the ousting of President Roosevelt's administration in 1944...
...And what lies behind the curious fact that the Most prominent names among the 40 Martin Dies chose for a public reading were almost every one of them those of liberals', progressives •ad known anti-Communists: What a break for the Communists if Martin Dies should succeed in getting these anti-Communists fired...
...is a weapon which must be used, not discarded...
...Hoffman or Smith...
...They were neither sentimentalists nor busybodies...
...The police promptly arrested him and an exasperated ju<ige gave him thirty days in jail and a fine of $150...
...It had better be good, and it had better be soon, Lewis Move Brings little Steel' Wage Formula to Crisis WASHINGTON.—The strategic moment for which John L. Lewis has been waiting, in order to move both against President Roosevelt's easily assailable labor and wage policies and against Phil Murray and others who have earned Big John's enmity in the past year, arrived this week...
...On January 11...
...If I am got to die 'in this war," he said...
...Many of the men attacked this week are now good hard-working government officials who have not held for years the views ascribed to them...
...I'm going to die right now, because then 111 know why I'm dying...
...Much of the fault for their anger should be placed on the administration, which permitted its many bureaus to be infiltrated with dilettantes and inexperienced executives...
...Both he and J. B. Matthews, his highly paid chief investigator, brain trust and ex-Communist leader, knew that many of those he named in the recent speech as dangerous radicals were neither dangerous, nor radicals, nor even of that curious milk-toast pattern known as the "pink...
...Minister of Home Security, and therefore police chief of the Isles, attacked as a dangerous "crackpot...
...Evidence that the AFL and CIO are not unconcerned was seen in the visit ofjGreen and Murray to the White House...
...or such characterizations made of Ellen Wilkinson, who has charge of air raid shelters: Ernest Beviti...
...but one which would still rob the committee of its independence.] It is true that in a moment of threatened crisis the responsibility of honest and able Negro leaders is heavy...
...Several cars whizzed by, loaded to the doors...
...Nor did they move or speak when the Negro soldier boarded the car and took a seat in the white section...
...This new headache for the Nazis is perhaps the most definite sigh of internal German decay...
...The tt*»ent emergence of the latent Goering-Goeb-feud is also giving rise to speculation about •WW's position and as a matter of fact his *»«reabouts . The Wehrmacht has been making **ge-scale surrenders to the Germans, and in f«ce of Hitler's specific instructions to the • •"towy...
...Paul MeNutt...
...There is definite evidence that Dies no longer is attacking those whom he feels are subversive...
...It appears to be loaded with international implications, and according to informed opinion here it is...
...With the*most voluminous files in the country to pick from, why did Martin Dies select for mention only Communist small-fry...
...What Dies tried to do was to push the majority of the conservative bloc into going farther than they wish.to go...
...The OWL will eventually blow up in one of the worst scandals in U.S...
...So ift too far, in fact, that he has appreciably lessened what little personal influence he ever has had in Congress and what opportunity he may have had for doing greater harm before he could be stopped...
...Many of the Federal officials attacked have the viewpoint or are even to the right of the British Labor Party leaders, some 32 of whom are in the Imperial Cabinet today...
...Today, behind the virtually unassailable position of Congressional immunity, the thoroughly cynical Matthew...
...His speech moved the Jewish Labor Committee, of which Adolph Held...
...This is either paving the way for a new peace speech, or it is designed to raise Moscow suspicions about the Allies...
...It makes a lot more sense than what our Federal government has been doing in Washington...
...It has cracked open industries that have been traditionally closel to Negroes and other racial minorities...
...First Lord of the Admiralty...
...The soldier rose, removed his tunic and cap and placed them on the seat...
...For, by his latest piece of assininity, Dies has done what might have been devoutly hoped for by his worst enemy...
...In his speech before the House early this week...
...manpower chief, or A. V. Alexander...
...The British would deem it preposterous to hear persons such as Herbert Morrison...
...He saw it happen...
...The Negroes fill up the seats from the back...
...Not a single one is today even so radical *» to belong to the Socialist Party, although It ib true that one time in the past, four were Socialists...
...Lewis' policy committee was called together hurriedly to put pressure behind the entire movement for a national wage increase...
...4—There is authentic talk that the Federal Security Administration with all its vast social services, so irksome to the Congressional Tories, is about to be eliminated...
...A full discussion of this issue is impossible even in this outspoken newspaper...
...What does Dies mean by "maudlin internationalism," by "misdeeds," and the other phrases...
...2—The President has deliberately refrained from sending to Congress the post-war social security plans (The American Beveridge Report) Which were prepared for him by the National Resource Planning Board and the Social Security administration...
...First, Goebbels censored Goer-jog's speech, arid yesterday Goebbels' mourning "Wer was squelched before its final release...
...Then came one in which the jim crow section was full, but the white section had a number of empty seats...
...The trade unionists knew, if the Administration didn't, that the FEPC...
...The motormaYi, by good fortune, had a rush of good sense lo the head...
...In his absence, the President's subordinates have fumbled the ball all over the field...
...Then they were expunged at the hint of Democratic Party leaders who said that they could not control their votes of the president dared talk of post-war reconstruction...
...And there is no other organized BWp in this country today which was willing before Monday to make common cause with the CSfawttaists over the issue of such a govern-jfiital housecleaning...
...Or should we ask, what does Dies' well-known ghost writer, well known for his bias and personal vendettas, mean by writing in this vein...
...But why did not Martin Dies name some of the big-shot Communists in government posts...
...The sheer playboy and dilettante background of many of its key men has amazed sincere Congressmen with no axe to grind...
...5—The President has accepted the French North African situation...
...Was it Nazis...
...The Communists and their fellow-travelers were to be the principal objectives of the vast majority of the conservatives...
...At least 10 of them are active anti-Communists...
...President, one of the most significant and powerful affirmations of your whole political career...
...fellow-travelers in n»re or less active degree...
...ff the remaining 14, three are unclassjfiable by this correspondent, there being no information Available on them among reliable sources...
...Congress bad amassed much evidence of this invasion...
...Joseph Medill Patterson, publisher of the isolationist New York Daily News, and pa?-t owner of the isolationist Washington Times-Herald, was once a memner of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, and expressed violent radical views'1 Does he know that Wendell Willkie...
...Once this raise is won by Lewis, he may-decide to move rapidly into the AFL or to send his organizers into the fields, jurisdiction over which is sought by the UAW and other CIO unions...
...This may be headed off somewhat by a WLB decision to abandon the formula and beat John Lewis to the publicity...
...Eighteen are anything but Communists...
...with all its sins representing an evil form of government, . one thing cannot be charged to Fascism, and that is that it was anti-Semitic at the time of its origin...
...J8|fce probable result is that for the purposes housecleaning (which is still in the cards) as conservatives will look for their guidance to certain of the more experienced ami reliable government investigation agencies rather than the Dies Committee...
...Roosevelt must make up his mind on the race relations question...
...is taking vengeance on his enemies...
Vol. 26 • February 1943 • No. 6
