Washington and the Nation
STOUT, JONATHAN
Washington and the Nation Army-Navy Elite Corps Demands Labor Conscription By Jonathan Stout WASHINGTOH, D. C—The brass hat elite corps in the Army and Navy is emerging •» the spark plug of the...
...3. Payment of debts, svoidance of new ones...
...Roosevelt's 7 point program against inflation was: I. Tsxes to psy ss much wsr costs as possible...
...C. C. Teague, Hoover Farm Board member, head of the California Fruit Growers' Exchange and prominent in California's reactionary Associated Farmers, handles West Coast strings for the National Co-op Council...
...In the present subsidy fight its leaders are singing barbershop harmony with the Naticnal Associstion of Manufacturers, which works through the National Industrial Information Committee by interlocking memberships...
...Labor people in the War Production Board who have daily contact with the War and Navy Departments report a threat from some of the more rabid offlcers' group that "the armed forces can't be called on to fight Japan after Germany is licked unless we get labor conscription...
...2. Bonds to lend money now for the wsr, ssve it for Ister...
...As in a puppet show, the threads of intrigue from Wall Street to fsrm sre seldom seen, but one plsinly visible is manipulated by Ralph...
...The chairman of the committee is Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., of General Motors...
...Whatever the lsst-ditrh support the Big Four leaders succeed in drumming up, they will insist to the last man that they are merely carrying out the expressed wishes of the members in local resolutions...
...With respect to the threst by some of the more violent brass hats shout not fighting Japan unless they get labor conscription, it was explained by one of the leading labor members of the War Production Board that the view advanced by the military is that they fear the public, labor, and industry will relax as soon as Hitler is licked...
...ey report stiff opposition from the militsry at every suggestion for the reviving of some parts of the civilian aupply industry...
...Fact is, the Bureau propaganda snsrhine alwsys prepares members far in advance for whatever position the nstional lesders have taken...
...The American Farm Bureau Federation, and its president, Kd O'Nenl, are the rest gentry of farm-bloc circles...
...The Army and Navy seem to think that layoffs are preferable to civilian production...
...Then an operating group railroads supporting resolutions through at the end of a tub thumping meeting Rut the system doesn't slwsys work...
...Oh iiiN i) the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives: H. K. Bab-rock, former president, still casts his shadow of influence over Kzra Benson, present head...
...man" i* Charlet Dana Hennett...
...The committee, soliciting funds, listed nine media for putting out information, including radio programs such ap thst of Fulton Lewis, Jr...
...The brass hats, he said, are putting sll the accent on lsbor in their fears of public relsxstion...
...snd to convince farmers the Administration means to sell them out by importing cheap South American food for s labor controlled industrial nation...
...4. Ceilings on rents and prices...
...Actually the BiirFour farm organizations—the Farm Bureau, the (Jrange, the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, and the National Cooperative Milk Producers' Federate n — are not democratically run by dirt farmers, but by Big Business, as the newsletter...
...Given time, and information, the workings of democracy may yet rid the Farm Bureau of those of its leaders who have betrayed the members...
...Members include Howard Pew of Sun Oil Co., Lammot du Pont, Ernest T. Weir of the Steel Trust, and Colby Chester, chairman of General Foods...
...This should apply to necessities only and will require public funds to cany out...
...Washington and the Nation Army-Navy Elite Corps Demands Labor Conscription By Jonathan Stout WASHINGTOH, D. C—The brass hat elite corps in the Army and Navy is emerging •» the spark plug of the drive to force labor con-tcription on the country, despite the opposition of organized labor, organised management elements in industry and a majority in Congress...
...These are the men whose voices ssy they represent farmers...
...DACK of the National Cooperative Milk Producers' Federation, in the forefront of the fight against subsidies, is John Brandt of Land O'Lake Creameries, beneficiary of New Deal programs which bailed them out several years ago through Government-financed butter purchases...
...Labor persons in the government, however, are increasingly' less restrained in their expressions...
...6. Stabilization ill farm prices 7. Rationing...
...20, 1943.' Big Business-Big Farm Organizations are intertwined with the Hate-Koosevelt snip Willkie forces...
...And it is even more interesting thst some of the most militant opinions on this eventu-slity are coming from CIO persons rather than from AFL members...
...labor conscription and that he (Roosevelt) feels it necessary to go along with the generals and admirals on this question...
...This is known as "education...
...The generals and admirals are convinced, he reported, that the light against Japan will demand a continuing great effort by the American people and thst the only way to guarantee such an effort is a universal service set to check any tendencies toward relaxation...
...Behind the Grange tcentry it the Matter, Albert J. Gott, who came to thit potition after the row of former FCA Governor Myert with the Admin-ittration over a low-cott credit program for farmer*, (loll if bitterly anti-New Deal, workl cloiely with the other H\g Four farm organization headi...
...This is true, they say, even in the increasing number of situations where the only way to prevent unemployment due to present overproduction or decreased need of steel, aluminum, copper, etc., is to divert the surplus production of these items into civilian supply industries...
...Th« Freeborn County Farm Bureau (Minnesota) snd three others in that stste voted resolutions favoring subsidies, and urged officers of the American Farm Bureau Federation to "be guided by the opinions of the members in their expressions on legislation instead of voicing the biased views of the employed officers...
...We have not been able to express ourselves in our county since before Pearl Harbor...
...This oppxwition is said to have enraged some of the more vehement members of the Army and Navy Officers Corps...
...In a recent magasine article, Senator Nye's secretary labeled Moore as "a man who pulls the strings—the 'master lobbyist who Is a reason the farm bloc is seldom blocked...
...Lobbyist is Charles Hol-man, Farm Bloc stalwart since 1917 and bitter foe of Henry Wallace and -New Deal farm programs...
...It will cost in appropriations about 1 percent of the present annual erst of the wai'" Subsidies to the farmer are energetically opposed^ hy the Farm Bloc and by Big Business...
...From the stsrt it was the darling of Big Business: Robert Mc-Dougall, former president of t he Chicago Board of Trade, ssid in 1922 thst his orgsnization msde a cash grant of (100,000 to pay out to the first hundred Farm Bureaus formed...
...out one stone and the arch falls...
...O'Neal strolls through the Capitol much as he might wsnder over his Alabama plantation, giving a suggestion here, an order there, overseeing Congress st work from his sest in the gallery Msny congressmen feel bound to vote for the Fsrna Bureau if they wish lo keep their seats...
...AS reported by Helen Fuller in New Republic, Dec...
...So when these "fsrmers' " groups are cited as opposing subsidies, those who look behind the scenes will discover political trickery on the part of bankers, industrialists, and reactionary politicians...
...Spade' has revealed...
...They would describe ss a sorehead the Farm Bureau member who recently wrote: "In our state, farmers cannot make themselves heard in the national resolutions for over s year...
...Bsek of this attitude is the frank enjoyment by the brass hats of their prime importance and power ¦s the nation for the first time in • quarter of a century...
...And the brass h»ts seem to be alone iu their distrust of the determination and patriotism of tin great mass of the American ¦eeple...
...S. Chamber of Commerce...
...But their actions parallel and their voices echo those of Big Business...
...Despite the shift in the picture which now seems to make out the brass hats instead of the President as the real directors of the current wave of anti-labor propaganda, it is interesting that labor people in the government war agencies are now reported as being convinced thst labor is headed for an open break with Roosevelt...
...eels that criticism 01 moor recently has been inaccurate and unjust, the armed forces nevertheless hold contrary views, are demanding...
...The latest evidence on this score *>mes this week via the grapevine from •¦eisJs in the WPB who are presently **"**rned with reconversion plsns...
...No nation has controlled the deadly wartime fever of inflation without subsidies...
...Old-Time Socialists Meet Again Bernsrd Covit, War Correspondent for the U.P., author playwright, movie director, has just returned from a two-year internment in a Japanese concentration camp...
...President Roosevelt is said to have reflected the view of the military when he told American Federation of Labor President William F. Green and CIO President Philip Murray that, although he personally — -* — ——>i...
...One of the reasons for this, according to labor people who will deal with the War and Navy departments, is that the military elite corps hold the theory that a certain degree of unemployment is desirable because "it makes labor easier lo handle" and because "a fluid labor market" provides ready reserves when and where needed...
...Where fsrmers and local leaders get their grasp on real information, the schemes of the rulers go wrong...
...As a result, labor union officials are tending to be more careful in the expressions of their criticism ef Roosevelt, particularly on anything that may be quoted agsinst them later on...
...jol-lowt the lame line at NIK' and the I...
...Moore, former master of the Texas Grange...
...DIG Business farm deals are handled by the Pew-Gsnnett combine, now engsged in politics aimed to block Willkie, run Dewey, and turn the country over to the tycoons in this yesr's elections...
...Babcock is s close ssso-ciate of Frsnk Gsnnett, reactionary New York State newspaper publisher end lesder in the Dewey-Cornell-GLF-Gannett political ring...
...In a Senate investigstion of 1930 it was exposed as lobbying against cheap fertilizer from Government -owned Muscle Shoals with money furnished by the American Cyanamid Company...
...5. Stsbilization of wages...
...But ss the •¦i of the wsr comes clearer in eight, there is a growing concern ^the officers' elite corps for the inevitable day when the reins of •ewer most slip from their hands...
...This feeling on the part of lsbor people in the government offers a strange contrast to the generally more cautious and conservstive attitude of the officialdom of the labor unions...
...The Farm Bloc and Big Business t rom the Ntw Leader naenxngiun tiitreau ^""ONGKKS'S has reconvened, and the vital issue of food subsidies again comes up...
...Their propagsnds line is to wreck price control snd shift upon the Administration the anger of millions of little people ruined by inflated prices...
...In a recent interview, Moore said rase Robert M. Harriet of the New York brokerage firm of Harriet and Vote, mbttantially paid the billt ((12,000 to (15,000) for the "food confer-emee" Gannett tptntored and Moore organized in Chicago latt September...
...The Farm Bureau was organized in Broome County, New York, in 1911 by the Binghampton Chamber of Commerce and the Delaware & Lackawanna Railroad...
...y are already showing evi **¦*«* of recalcitrance st every *ep leading in that direction...
...in his message to Congress the President urged "a cost of food law, which will enable the Government (a) to place a reasonable flior under the prices the farmer may expect for his production, and (b) to place a ceiling on the prices a consumer will have to pay fur the food he buys...
...Again in 1933 another -Senate investigation revealed that the American Farm Buresu Federation offered to lobby for vsrious Big Business concerns, for pay...
...He will speak at the "Reunion of Old Timers" at Hotel Commodore, Wednesday, January 20, 8:30 p. m. Next dinner program, Saturday, March 26...
...When the term Farm Bloc is used in a newspaper story most readers think- of irrass-rnnts farmers...
...Publicity man for the Grange and tell-ltyled "Farm filoc public relation...
...1 KAVF...
...To hold prices in line, and yet psy for food production, the President pointed out the need for price supports snd subsidies where necesssry...
...Not strange, for the Big Business lobby has worked for years for a farm front...
...The question being raised by the latter is: What will labor do if it finds it is neces-ssry to support Roosevelt for a fourth term...
Vol. 27 • January 1944 • No. 4
