Washington and the Nation
STOUT, JONATHAN
Washington and the Nation By JONATHAN STOUT Labor for Fourth term, But— Washington, D. c—The most curions contradiction in Washing tM teoax la organised labor's atti tuda towards Roosevelt (as...
...They deliberately ignored the fact that the AFL and the railway unions consistently and urgently advocated its passage...
...This question fa) now the source of many conferences between UNRRA snd the U. S. armed forces...
...1,500,000 tons of steel...
...We have sent 10,000 planes, 5,600 tanks, 210,000 trucks, 40,000 jeeps, 30,000 other military vehicles...
...Officials say one of the difficulties in making supplies available in Europe for relief and rehabilitation is a legal one...
...This is a hope that can hardly be extended at this time to Eastern Europe...
...Ever since the days of slavery...
...UNRRA desires some kind of agreement with the armed forces which will make possible use of many ef these supplies for relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction...
...Together with twenty-three Democratic Senators, mostly from the South, they were able to defeat the Murray-Kilgore-Truman Bill and enact in its stead the wholly inadequate George Bill, which attempts to deal with a grave national problem on a Statc-by-State basis...
...Does it plan to meet the big national and international issues resulting from the end of this war at forty-eight separate doors...
...Lend-Loose Aid to Russia . . . I.eo T. Crowley, Foreign Economic Adimiuatrator, made public the following figures: American lend-lease aid to Russia from October, 1941, to May, 1944, totaled 10,400,000 tons of supplies...
...2. By that time the Nazi blockade or the Italian-Swiss border will have been lifted and the two bona tide leaders of Italian Social Democracy, Modigliani and Silone, will return from Switzerland to resume active leadership of Italy's major political forces...
...ReLIABI.K diplomatic sources report that Titp.lt...
...He has failsd Uncle Joe...
...But the very same labor leaders who are smoldering about these things have been making and probably will continue to make speeches about how labor is for a fourth term for the President...
...Their return, therefore, means the downfall of the efforts of the Italian Communist leader, Palmiro Tog-liatti, and his stooge, Pietro Nennl, who was expelled from the Italian Socialist Party for his collaboration with totalitarian elements...
...A i l these things have engendered strong feeling...
...And it is against these men that the Administration uses the threat of blacklisting by the Government, of canceling draft deferments, etc...
...I.nhni...
...It ia simply a matter of reporlorial fact that some 'of the very aame labor leaders who in their union conventions helped whoop through a fourth-term endorsement for Roosevelt are right now going around with fury in their eyes and (off the record) on their tangoes because: 1. Mr...
...through in Yugoslavia...
...On tha other hand, never before have I heard so much beef Jag against the President in labor ehjems...
...Washington and the Nation By JONATHAN STOUT Labor for Fourth term, But— Washington, D. c—The most curions contradiction in Washing tM teoax la organised labor's atti tuda towards Roosevelt (as the one hand, there is the public record of all those official User endorsements of a fourth tans...
...Other shipments included 414,000 tons of railroad equipment...
...States' rights has been the cover for opposition to progress in America, ft is a moth-eaten, dessicated and hypocritical device for the perpetuation of ugly prejudices, for the division of onr nation into forty-eight hostile camps, for the protection of do-nothingism...
...Here are workers who are not on strike...
...Well, the Republicans have gone and done it...
...It might even be Mikhailovitch in the end...
...7,600,000 pairs of shoes...
...Also, Tito revealed his real weakness to Uncle Joe when he permitted a small force of Nazi parachutists to chase him from Yugoslav soil...
...Wurldtivri Pirn...
...Opponents of the Murray-Kilgore-Truman Bill tried to make it appear that the measure was the brainchild of the CIO Political Action Committee...
...Does the Republican Party plan to solve the nation's postwar problems on a bssis of States' rights...
...The George Bill leaves aaemployment compensation rates at the preeent inadequate state levels...
...The only question that remains is who is to replace Tilo...
...2. Mr...
...And so the Balkan pot is boiling again...
...And it's silly to try to blink the fact...
...2,800,000 tons of food...
...Such devious tactics will not hoodwink the seven million members of the AFL...
...This would include blankets, clothing, shoes, etc...
...Modiqliani, Si lone, to Return For those who are interested in the fate of European democracy, there is a glimmer of light snd hope...
...From January I, 1944, to May 1, 1944, there were 2,04)0,004 tons of supplies sent to Russia...
...The same question holds for transfer of ownership to an intergovernment agency, or a particular agency for another government...
...It is relatively safe to predict: 1. That within a month Itsly will be declsred liberated...
...The return of Modiglisni and Silone will be facilitated by the United Slates Government...
...Apparently, Togliatti and Nenni know the announcement of Italian liberation is imminent...
...t. The maaner in which the Administration has dealt with the machinists' locals in and around Sas Francisco on the question of forcing them to work mere than a 48-hour week has given union oeVials a glimpse of the iron 1st in the silk glove aad has revealed the Administration's War Manpower CommissioB'a "Labor Referral Plan" as noth tag more or less than the labor conscription with which the Tories in Congress hsd been threatening labor snd from which the Administration was supposed to have "saved" tha workers by the substi-tatisa of the WMC "Labor Referral Plan...
...One official has estimated that there will be over six billion dollars worth of "personal items" alone...
...Progressive opinion in Washngton wants to plan now to avoid, some of the scandals which occurred »t the end of the First World War...
...Roosevelt's chief lieutenant, Jimmy Byrnes, helped Seattle the Kilgore-Murrsy Bill sad helped pat over the George Hill...
...Traditionally, the Republican Party has fought States' rights and favored the creation of a strong central government, dealing with national problems In a nation-wide way...
...No estimate runs under twenty billions, the highest running to fifty billion dollars worth of such materials...
...900,000 miles of telephone wire and 300,000 telephones...
...At that time, much •f the surplus of war goods was brought back to the United States, sold to American buyers, resold to European buyers, reshipped to Europe with huge profits made hy the middle men...
...How does one explain that...
...Tha return of these two seasoned and stalwart Socialist leaders offers the hope that in Italy, at least, there may arise a truly democratic people's government without a Stalinist or any ether kind of totalitarian blight...
...Such measures, it is widely felt by labor, are bad enough when they are used against strikers...
...Informal appraisals of material which will be available run into fabulous figures...
...While the Army has authority to discard supplies, there is some question whether it has the power, without act of Congress, to transfer ownership to any other government agency...
...Whoever it is, it will be someone who can rally Serb support...
...The fact that the Republican Party can come up with nothing better to offer the American people now than a return to States' rights mast be discouraging t. its liberal supporters...
...The implications in tha case of the San Francisco machinists are particularly grave...
...Roosevelt swang the weight of the White Reuse behind the War and Nsvy Department politicians in their successful effort to scuttle the Nelson Plan for a planned and orderly return to pescetime prodaction which would have rut down the incidence of postwar unemployment...
...It comes from Italy...
...According to press dispatches, only three Republicans in the Senate voted for the bill when the showdown came, while twenty-six Republican* lined up against it...
...And one wonders . . . when is and when isn't it lip-service ? The net impression remains that, despite all the speeches and fancy engraved endorsements, the labor vote will remain the real enigma in this campaign right up to—and including—Election Day...
...Does it plan to have forty-eight varying labor relations laws, forty-eight Afferent social security acta, forty-eight varieties *** wage and hour regulation...
...But here the Administration is using them against men who are not strikers...
...600,000,000 worth of machinery, etc., etc...
...While much of the heavy equipment will not l>e of use for peacetime purposes, there will be a great supply of bulldozers, tractors, power units, jeeps, trucks and other heavy equipment which can be used for rehabilitation and reconstruction...
...Army, UNRRA Discuss, Surplus War Goods for Europe WASHINGTON—What is going to happen to the vast store of war supplies left over in Europe by Amer-kan armed forces at the end of the war...
...And Uncle Joe has decided he cannot continue to back anybody who is unable to win Serb support...
...Their only hops of establishing a Communist foothold on Italian soil after the official liberation announcement is to cloak themselves somehow -and quickly—in the mantle of labor so that when the house-cleaning comes in Italy, they can start their propaganda mill going about the "persecution" ol Italian "labor leaders...
...w?ekly publication of the railrosd workers, which maintains a strictly non-partisan political policy, warned the Republican Party some two weeks ago that if it persisted in joining with reactionary Southern Democrats in blind opposition to postwar leg:slation covering human needs, such as the .Murray-Kilgore-Truman Bill, it would be committing pn'iiiral suicide...
...Even from Switzerland, Modigliani and Silone have been able to guide the Italian Socialists out of the trap of a "united front" with the Communists...
...That may help to account for their frantic efforts to obtain American recognition of their spurious new "Italian Confederation of Labor...
...It makes one wonder which line ef thought will finally govern on Sleetion Day...
...Here are men who are working eight hours a day, six days a week, watching thair bosses skim off fat war profits they will never realise in a lifetime of hard labor...
...Philip Pearl on States' Rights OuT of the confab of the Republican Governors, lasting two or more days, came the decision to make the Republican Party the champion of States' rights...
...The Kilgore Bill woald have given workers protection against postwar unemployment with uniform, federal compensation rates ranging from $12 to $35 a week far a period of two years...
...Tito's big failure lies in the fact that he has been unable to win any supporters among the Serbians, who comprise about 00 per cent of Yugoslavia's population...
...Tito on the Skids...
Vol. 27 • August 1944 • No. 35
