Labor-Baiting Will Not Win the War!
Labor-Baiting Will Not Win the War! "pHE NKW LEADER has been pro-lahoi for twenty years. It still is. Hut it does not tak« the position 'I at laboi is sacrosanct. That lalior »- make mistakes...
...And i l touched off the dlr thfst and most vicious propaganda campaign against labor unions of the past -decode...
...Suppose it wen ixf/rrwa, case of political exigencies forcing Roosevelt to g(v* up one of thee* Mocs in order to . unserve fa* strength in the remainder...
...General Marshall ignored the fact that the strikes tat was talking about never happened...
...Capital Comment Marshall Smear Indicates FDR May Not Run in '44 By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON, I) C. The bells that announced the New Year also announced as an inaudible undertone—Roosevelt's renunciation of a fourth term in the presidency...
...And Berryman interprets hi...
...HCTilMaamrand this, is an official view—that mothI p and fathers and t i e families of many thousands of American boys whose lives are ubout to be saeri...
...The way in which the pronouncement was seized upon and blown up to the bursting point, suggests that it was the opening gun of a carefully planned campaign...
...Because of strikes, he said...
...Both in Britain and America he is regarded as our most distinguished military leader...
...2 said on its eili '..rial page: "High military uuthority has virtually indicted Ibe directors of strikes for treason...
...The pattern of the Administration's latest attack on labor first showed itself three weeks ago when Byrnes, using the anonymous technique later made celebrated by Marshall, called in a hand-picked group of Washington correspondents for a special luncheon and fed them the nation-wide page one scare prediction that in the next three months, four hundred thousand American boys would lie on the battlefields as invasion casualties...
...Hitler does not hold exclusive title to thr tech nioae of amrushag...
...The railways, during the year, carried 14 per cent more freight than ever before...
...Unless it is ended and repudiat ed...
...I'nited Steel Workers have launched u campaign in favor of allotting some of this backlog to civilian production...
...It wou|ri, in fact, run directly contrary to the interests of the Nazi state...
...few examples will adequately suTftmarize the rest...
...Anil'in folk)wing his natural impulses in putting -ude for the first time all considerations of political opportunism—it begins to appear that Roosevelt's li-yeer reign, which came in aa the "Roosevelt Revolution...
...We believe that they will grasp the situation m an instant...
...This disturbing report from high sources is directed to I lie men aial women of America who want to see this win won will, a minimum spilling of blood...
...And thus the families and loved ones of ten mil lion American bays were given a pointer whenlo vent the reaction to their premature grief and anxiety for their fathers, sons and brothers...
...That lalior »- make mistakes there ran be no tlnulit...
...it will directly, immediately, unmistakably divitlo our people, hinder production, prolong the War and endanger the lives of countless American fighting man...
...the fact that the talked-of railroad aHiha never materialised and never was intended litei»Ily to occur...
...Nevertheless, there have been very few strikes...
...Byrnes did not explain why there would be four ijp^rtd, thousands American casualties in the next month...
...The Ku»r unions had neither the means Bar the opportunity to defend themselves...
...And under the hearlwuj, "Strikes Cost Lives," the anti-labor Washington f'osf on Jan...
...that, iu fact, the calling of the ftrihe was a technical operation under the law to anahje Roosevslt to take over the railroads so that he would not need the magnates' permission to nego gate a move satisfactory contract with the railway workers He ignored the fact that the one-day steppage of about 26 per cent of the workers in the steel industry occurred at the same time the steel operators were banking many of the blast furnaces anyway because of a WPB order to cut back steel production in order to reduce excess tonnage...
...The latter phrase was the one 1 heard in labor circle* all over Washington following the Marshall blast...
...thoughts: "If strikes are casting soldiers' lives, •hauhjn't the Commander-in-Chief tell the people...
...Often it would lie difficult to prove specific monetary damages resulting ftSufa walkout...
...Ja ignore...
...For the all-out offensive .tgainrt labor is going full blast from coast to coast...
...There is not the slightest evidence that any of these result* flowed from striken or threats of strikes...
...He tasked as though the steel industry had quit producing, us though the railroads has quit running, as though the whole labor movement were out on strike...
...When AFX President William Green 'and CIO President Philip Murray offered tfae cold, sober facts te prove the Marshall statement completely unfounded, the Washington Po$t on January i devoted two columns on page one to a sncer-aiul-smear editorial i » which it scooped a handful of i>iud with which to .bespatter the labor movement a la Pegler ha referring to Green, as "the great strategist, Wil Item Green, who Jwiiieuvoi.d the disastrous retreat for George Browne and Willie Bioff...
...They couldn't use his mime, Byrnes told the correspondents, but they could print his words as coming from a "high authority...
...They fear unemployment in the near future...
...Informed i hat even in wartime American trade union* maintain the right to' srike, regimented German workers would yearn the more for our sort of freedom and be tho more determined to break the Nazi yoke...
...The tragic effw-t of this doe* not depend on some inn......d report of what semitone thinks op some other confi lient...
...The other blocs OB which Rocsevelt might have counted are much sina^r in their organirod force...
...is destined to go out as the "Roosevelt Reaction...
...Chief collaborators of the Roosevelt Reaction have been War Mobilization Czar James F. Byrnes and Economic Stabilisation Czar Fred M. Vinson...
...They are fighting not Hillei or Hirohito but American trade union...
...In (he midst of rising prices, scandalously high profits, wages have been kept down...
...fefrff Posey in his editorial column in the Wash lugM* Peer of January 4, demanding a government diln* against the labor unions, isn't satisfied with Aenuniitratioii use of the Connally-Snvith Act...
...No one explains how General George C. Marshall was maneuvered into making his historic statement on New Year's Eve...
...That was the level on which the anti-labor propafanda campaign emanating from the White House spread like wildfire into every, community in the lsndj, Washington had its share...
...twisting and utilizing the bnad emotions df a people to wipe out a free labor movemen...
...The news of them was played down in Germany—¦ami for obvious reasons...
...The total achievement of labor has been magnificent...
...Ift^rn in the Star of Jan...
...It is highly improbable that he did this of bis own initiative...
...that the stoppage was not a strike, thai it was t . . . . . .i | | the neglect ef tee companies and the government |mextending the expired union contract of the -it.-, i workers, and that the delay in extending the <•<»• Met was the responsibility of the War Labor Beard hom11rr of itp refusal to assure the steel workers (pit it would permit any new contract drawn to though the railroads had quit running, as though the eht jone...
...RliasreH has sever beos accused b. in* . peiitiealhehela-th* woods...
...Rveryontt who knows anything about tin matter understands that thu Nazi line is to represent Amerk* mid Britain as plutocratic tyrannies, publicize strikes over here- would break down the picture which bus been built up...
...Whatever one may think of mathematical probabilities in a time of war, such a prediction in advance of the^fact—if any, and if ever—can only add up to a scare story designed to plunge into premature grief and trembling the faroi-hnt and loved ones of not four hundred thousand American boys but ten million American boys...
...The turn of the year brought convincing statistics of the achievements of American workers...
...Thej* passenger service ran 200 per cent higher than in 1929...
...The question i* usked here: Is it reasonable to suppose that in such a raw Ibxpaevelt would nave chosen to sacrifice the larger hWf...
...For, it is reasoned in labor circle* here, only a commander in chief who does not intend to sack that office again would have been so careless of the political couseoueooen as to permit hi* chief-of-staff to repel,and estrange his must de voted political supporters by leveling at them so monstrous an indictment as Geaeral Marshall leveled at the steel and railroad workers and the whole American labor movementNd one—not even the chieftains of the Democratic Party—questions the general agreement that a fourth term fur Voonuvnll'would require the mustering of every possible vote that can be corralled...
...That explanation was left to General Sawhaii And whan in* turn cami General Marshall aWaed...
...encouraged the (icrman*> prolonged the war and, therefore ifaused the death of American soldiers...
...Their profits were a billion and a half over The steel men have produced so much that there is a surplus...
...That was the signal...
...the syndicated clawMn of David Lawrence, the journalistic mercenary •f big business interests, for whom the contemptuous Phrnse "trained seal" was coined by fellow WashingJJfc correspondents during the first World War, puts It this way: j t r a g e d y of sensational proportions has just been ***»aled to representatives of a substantial section 2 * * American pi-ess in an informal, but nonetheless 1 IPiel* manner...
...Workers have been restless, unhappy...
...i have a r%ht to be indhjrnant Ireeause if the lead era ef the lailioad and steel iiin.M.s had not suddenly broken out with their strike wave, there was a cnunit- - yes, a good chance—that the war in Europe might have been brought to its climax in February without t he necessity of a costly invasion...
...It depicts the figure, of Uncle Sam, •**edi chi» on hand, in the familiar'pose of Rodin's * *J*nei«a ,»cuiwt»re...
...And >t was in CIO circles that I heard it enunciated with the greatest bitterness—-for there is the greatest disillusionment...
...The charges made by General Marshall are to the effect that the short strike of steel workers ami the threat of a strike on the railways furnished material to (ioebbels...
...Now the politicians and publicists of reaction launch the bitterest anti-labor campaign we have known in our time It is a,direct threat to national unity and to the war effort...
...Pf^government leaders have minimized the effect J* atrihes . . . is il anj wondei the strikers minimize IjPWe.uear a lot about Our Rights . . . why isn't « » « mor?Vmph*jiia on Our Duties...
...II* is as acutely aware ea anyone of the ¦¦willing and slowly riving tide of lahor irriUtiem with the Adatiotstratioa's d*a»*atie peticie* m the past year...
...Urn largest singe hW of support would be'the labor Vote...
...Why, then, en to* of that, did he peraiit hi* rhief-of-atat* to atSaat Ma chief supporters with a vile rharre thai waa ripped to shreds within 48 hours after it* utterance and waa completely exposed in its ¦¦founded, unjust and hyaterical irresponsibility , . . unban he already knew that he waa net going to need that political support, and therefata aenld afford to give free rein to his —totel hngnlai* without thought to the political Ml he would have to pay...
...To these i* added now, a* an assistant architect, General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff...
...No one, however, has ever ascribed to him special e.xpertncs either with regard to international affairs or domestic problems...
...Ill all the din of voices, one salient fact remains hidden...
...This means," Marshall amplified, according to the authoritative Washington Star, whose representative was present, "that,the war could lie extended months laager, and that the Allies still may have to fight through the summer, at a cost of scores of thousands of casualties, before Germany can be brought to her knees...
...Their blunders, however, arc piouyunc when stacked up against the vicious offensive initiated aguinst organized workers with the opening of tlui new year...
...Not vicieas enough, he complains: ca Ail, the government, can do under this (ConnellySittith) act when1 wartime strikes take place without notice is to sue *Tor damages...
...With all the thunder at their disposal react iimaty politicians, publicists, and some industrialists have started a class conflict of alarming dimension...
...They have felt that their patriotism whs used to bold them in line while they were being imposed upon...
...3 » A cartoon^by Berryman in the Washington .Star ^JanuenyjFis titled "The Thinker—and Some of •W^BioUffhts...
...To make this declaration he stcpjied down from his pedestal, abandoned the authority of his office...
...This is not a tempest in a teapot...
...The damage, according to high military authority, more frequently shows up in terms *t American soldiers needlessly slaughtered...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 2
