Capital Comment
Capital Comment [Jonathan Stout is on Special Assignment. He will resume his column next week.] Lame Duck Congress Still Has Big Agenda ' WASHINGTON (LPA).—While any major changes pr additions...
...If that of 1946 follow the usual pattern, FDR may face an antagonistic Congress during his last t w<> years...
...AMERICAN progressives should cerebrate rather than celebrate...
...All of us on the progressive side face a simple alternative...
...The liberals must then be in a position to nominate and elect his successor...
...Either we must organize or the Republican conservatives will run this country from 1948 onward...
...Major White House proposals are expected to center around the world problems of international organization, monetary arrangements, and a world security The White House is expected to propose several intendments to the war surplus disposal act, passed in taw closing days before the recess for the election campaign...
...Outgrowth of the hearings on the plight of the white collar workers in wartime, the resolution has the support of CIO and AFL, as well as representatives of such low-wage workers as thoee in the textile industry Heated controversy in the closing weeks of the session is expected if any move is made to bring out of committee one of the four proposals for postwar compulsory military training...
...The off-year congressional elections of 1938 and 1942 tended to rjn against the President...
...But its activities are limited to one state...
...The House Committee resumes hearings on the measure on November 16...
...The immediate task is to organize this power, to unify it and mobilize it...
...Th<» form of the new mobilization is not the vital thing...
...And, especially, provision should be made for the widest possible representation of honest and effective groups...
...I^bor and liberal groups are righting hard to pass Mfaral bills on which prograaa has been made, but unlass they pass in the next six weeks, the long and tediies prottaa of introducing the bills, forcing hearings, u4 getting favorable reports will have to be done over a*a| At the top of the liat ia S. 2048, the bill to set up a paresanent Fair Employment Practice Committee with eafsjaswent powera...
...There is, too, powerful opposition to this plan...
...The Commission on Educational Reconstruction of too Amerkmn Federation of Teachers (AFL) has urged that consideration be postponed...
...This is no time to Moat over election returns...
...The important point is that it •houH happen now and that it should be wide enough to take in the great bulk of the liberal, labor and farmer groups which were in there doing practical and effective things to reelect the President...
...At best "we hive won a delaying action which affords the opportunity for a future full-scale attack and vjetory...
...Claude Pepper (D., Fla...
...Several restrictions on the way government»wned property can be sold have caused serious probIpMt of administration, and FDS's proposals probably be aimed to speed the diapoaal procaaa...
...New York's Liberal Party deserves great praise for projecting a masterly program and lining up more than 325,000 votes behind it...
...The official spokesmen of PAC ^ire the first to say that they do not deserve all the post-election bouquets any more than they merited all of the pre-election brickbats...
...But the continuation of these good influences is dependent on the active and steady support which he receives from the country...
...It has lieen reported favorably by the Senate Labor and Education Committee, and ia at the top of the calendar in the Senate...
...It is true that the President has the prestige of his victory, that he has improved support in the House and Senate, and that he enjoys the advantage of the scare that was thrown into isolationist and reactionary congressmen by what happened to some of their stubborn colleagues...
...But there is general agreement that immediate action of liberals on a national scale is urgently called for...
...The Farmers Union was on th^ right side...
...A storm of oppoaition, both from labor and women'a groups, may have slowed down the drive for so-called "equal rights" constitutional amendment...
...The Railway Labor Executives' Association has voted to oppose any such measure and has instructed its representatives to appear in oppoaition before Congressional hearings...
...Then...
...Plans must be carefully laid to provide against the inclusion of mere selfseekers and disruptionists...
...AFL men were in there plugging away with PAC members...
...There is inevitably a revival of talk about the formation of & new party...
...Under this proposal, sll measures setting up special protections for women, including minimum wage and hour laws, would l>e declared unconstitutional...
...Charges bare been made by the Department of Justice that laaurance companies have In many caaaa agreed among Ihemeelvea to aet rates for ire insurance, and the lobby would like to exempt sack practices from prosecution...
...The worst evils •Save been temporarily pushed back, but the victoty is only temporary and partial...
...Cuy Cillette (l> , Iowa) is sponsoring the amendment, which in high up on the Senate calendar...
...They liked it, and they are now in a mood to go on...
...should be, first, a conference of leaders...
...The best result of the campaign was the revelation of widespread liberal and labor political power...
...Such a survey as The New Leader presented on November 4 shows that every great city outside of the solid South was the center of a complex of^liberal and labor groups working in the most practical and energetic ways for the election of the President and of liberal, internationalist congressmen...
...He will resume his column next week.] Lame Duck Congress Still Has Big Agenda ' WASHINGTON (LPA).—While any major changes pr additions to the nation's laws will probably await the, arrira) of the newly elected Congress soon after FDR's formal inaugural for a fourth term in January, there it still a long agenda of important unfinished business before Senate and House as they reconvene November 144k...
...A proposal that the War Labor Board consider any wage under 40* an hour substandard, and permit wage raises up to that level without WLB review, ia now in the Senate hopper in the form of a reaolution by Sen...
...Will the basic composition of the 1945 Senate untkanged, and with the 1945 House still potentially dominsted by * coalition of(Republicans and reactionary Democrats, the coming weeks' debates are expected to foreshadow the kind of actioqs we can expect from the Tttk Congress in 1945...
...Organized groups of professional men and women, actors, social workers, physicians, teachers were getting their first taste of practical politics...
...Nathaniel Coleman of the Ohio PAC was quite right in saying that a lot of rural voters go on dropping Republican ballots into the box just' because thus far no one has taken the trouble to present the case for a change...
...Republican publicity singled out the CIO's Political Action Committee...
...IV War Powera Act, under which OPA holds its latbsrity to ration goods and aat prices, as wall as after war agenrias perform their functions, aspires on UK, 11, 1M4, and ia up for renewal...
...The returns from such states as Minnesota, Ohio and even New York show that the conservatives have no lien on the agricultural vote...
...The bill haa passed the House, but it is expected to meet very atiff opposition in the Senate...
...How diverse were the centers of Roosevelt support is not generally realized...
...But the great surprise of our political referendum was furnished by the farmers...
...Lame duck Sen...
...Moscow to Baghdad Iran—Cockpit of Oil Diplomacy DAVID J. DALLIN Cartels, Kilgore and Peace DANIEL SELL Liberalism in the South...................a*thu* w. calhouh How Much Food for Europe?....................w.^swr Twenty Years of Earl Browder.............mm *o»off Social Revolution in France?...........awiwsmwiwii* A Record for Petrillo J. C. RICH For a National Conference of Progressives...
...This thing is urgent...
...In 1948 he will inevitably pass out of the picture...
...The powerful insurance lobby is expected to areas for pasaage of a bill to keep the Insurance companies free from the anti-trust laws...
...Representatives of 21 Protestant denominations oppose any consideration of a peacetime draft until the war anda, and are joined in this stand by the national federation of parent teachers' groups...
...The proposal was endorsed by liethSooseveK and Dewey during the election campaign, hut (I expected to encounter stiff opposition on the floor in both House and Senate...
Vol. 27 • November 1944 • No. 47
