Manila Tragedy
Finnegan, Les
Manila Tragedy Manila Binds Its Wounds With Faith in U. S. By Les Finnegan (Our Correspondent in the Fur East) MANILA, P. L—I couldn't believe what J naw in Manila. It'a a city of death and...
...this is Coventry and Vienna, Rotterdam and Cherbourg, Antwerp and Cologne...
...Staccato headlines which until recently were chiefly devoted to reports from the war fronts are being •reconverted" to reports from the labor fronts...
...But of this there is no sign...
...The reality of clogged sewer*, of inadequate water supply, of ruptured bridges, of dozen* of burned and blackened etreet cars lying along Dewey Avenue, the demolition of Mamie's seaport with its imposing Custom* Building and docks— these turn the thought* quickly to the debt that Is owed to the heroic Philippine people who underwent this unbelievable terror of seeing almost everything they loved and built so proudly snuffed out, obliterated...
...News flashes from Detroit, Pittsburgh and Chicago appear to create the impression that the trade unions have embarked upon a campaign of aggression intent on squeezing out of industry a goodly share of the profits accumulated by it during the war years in the form of "extravagant" wages and "fa?tastic" werk hours...
...Whether Davis' statement reflects aajority judgment of the Arministration oris one man's opinion remains to be seen...
...It is to be hoped 1 hilt thi s conference will concern it~elf not merely with the creation of more ('onciliation machinery or strik e· mt'dialion agencies but will probe deeply into fUlll la mentals of post-war labor . n'Rnage~ ment relations...
...Part of this increase came from the l? percent rise in basic rates allowed by the Little Steel formula...
...Manila Tragedy Manila Binds Its Wounds With Faith in U. S. By Les Finnegan (Our Correspondent in the Fur East) MANILA, P. L—I couldn't believe what J naw in Manila...
...is, therefore, no idle _St on the part of some ambitious UJjlaaders...
...the only new construction is Army barracks, wooden warehouses and supply depots...
...Intramuros, the old Walled City erected by the Spaniards hundreds of years ago, is a place of desolation, the thick stone walls that have watched Manila grow out miles beyond its confines are shell-torn and broken...
...And you think also of their statements that "We need the incomparable skills o( American worker* as much now in reconstruction of our country ss we needed their skills to fashion the weapons that liberated us...
...Max D, Danish Editor, "Juttice" "T ABOR CRISIS" is fast becoming a I daily cliche in the press and on * ? 'the radio...
...Tall automobile workers, the steel •atken, and the many other unions «tfea may join in the crusade for the preservation of their hard-earned living easdition* in the postwar era thst lies isssediately ahead, let there be no mistake about it, will face tremendous taitacles involving a test of strength with some ef labor's most hardened an-tatcanti in industry's camp...
...Spacious gardens give birth to vines and weeds that climb up shattered walls through which the moon floods eerily...
...Out of a civilian working .orce estimated at It millions at the war's end, 44 Vi million M* fell within'this class...
...There can be no poetry in ruin and destruction and tortured death...
...It should be a ghost city, but it isn't...
...Then you think also of the Statements of leader* of the Philippine people that without American help It will take 60 years to rebuild thi* stately city...
...On the ether band, the stand and the wage and price policy of the Government tam far have remained emigmatic...
...nothing for Manila until Army and Navy demands are satisfied, until the war is finally won...
...With daylight any illusion of perverse beauty vanish** with the sight of ugly scarred wreckage through which Maml ans wander in search of a piece of tin, a stick of wood or a length of lead tube...
...No ships have been available to bring structural steel, concrete, asphalt, lumber, electrical wiring, plumbing for civilian use...
...Here U the jagged facade of a Spanish-style apartment building standing solitary, impossible, like the dream of a mad architect Sometimes you think there is poetry in this horror, and suddenly you are ashamed of yourself...
...But the •odden end of hostilities in the Pacific and the lightning-fast cancellation of war eontr?et* brought with it not only dismissal from jobs of hundreds of thousands of workers in the shut-down war work plants...
...On each side the fragments of magnificent residences rear themselves in stark ghastliness against the star-filled sky...
...Thi» sharp change of attitude, oddly enough, does not stem directly from either reconversion problems or re-employment difficulties...
...Hers Is a moon-bathed steeple, half shot away—all that remain* of a stately Catholic Church...
...The anti-labor drive which has already started in tie general press will, in all likelihood, take manv angles snd' slants including reinvigorated attempts to poison the minds of returning veterans against Uses union "greed" and "aggression...
...The great legislative building, the American legation, the postoffice, dozens of other structures are gutted and blackened by Area and shells...
...We expected to see ruins but we also expected to see the bustle of building activities, of wrecked structures being razed and new foundations being laid...
...In the steel industry alone, it is reported, take-home pay has already dropped from an average of $50.85 to $38.38 per week...
...Wilkau H. Davis, now ex-director of Economic Stabilisation, was the only high sublic official who boldly came out two week ? ago with a declaration that the AdmmiNtiation"s policy would be to raise vates «nd to control prices and that the country's general prosperity depends upon the highest levels of production coupled with the highest wage structure passible...
...the same is true of electric lights—all homes and business places are lit by makeshift lamps...
...Together with other correspondents I was horrified at the devastation of Manila...
...The government buildings near the center of the city are even more sickening to behold...
...The labor-industry-government, conference scheduled to take place next month mllY give Prellident TI'umlin lind Recl'elary Schwel1enbach an opportunity 10 (jisplay their policy...
...Sometimes the walls and floors will hang crazily downward, sometimes a single cupola will point weirdly skyward or a lone lovely archway will rise above the pulverized walls of a flattened church...
...Even more basic is the fact that the cost of living— which in July had reached its peak in five years—has increased, ->t least in critical items, more than 50 percent since the start of the war and that, in addition, taxes have climbed so that real income of workers' families ii even less than indicated...
...inaiitence on ike take-home wage, -assyd* batag projected as an economic ?^mkos that is likely to upset the reeon-"?^.pple-cart...
...Most of the extra payments have now either vanished or have been diminished...
...The terminate e{ the war and the vanishing of extra earnings, however, has ipso facto mSBP*"1 that truce and, to all practical sMMpfe, swept into oblivion its cor-rellary, the Little Steel formula for freeing wages...
...It is a crucial figure, the ?art isstrr"* of labor's fight tar s decent ,.uian1" Belong as the war was on and ritrs earnings from overtime and bonuses aasjdad workers in both war plants and rifihsn industry to meet the spiraled ait of living, the long and at many times gnessy truce between labor and industry brace based on the pledge given by liber te President Roosevelt on De-restber 17, .1M1, tan days after Pearl Harber—had to be endured...
...There are no street lights, the few telephones in operation belong to the military...
...It also brought a switch to a 40-hour week and a sharp decline in take-home pay to millions of other work-ers employed in counties* active industrial establishments...
...It should be a ghost city with its mile after mile of leering empty facades, its beautiful government buildings, hotels and apartment houses reduced to the agonised twiatings of steel girders and the obscene gaping of concrete walls and floors hanging by threads of shattered metal...
...There can be no beauty in the liest ruction of beauty...
...Somehow most of us believed that during these last seven months of American reoccupation reconstruction had started...
...The streets and once lovely avenues lie buried beneath inches of dust which turns into an extended quagmire during the frequent rains...
...The immediate effect of this drastic decline in take-home pay may be illustrated by the following figures...
...Davis did not hesitate, moreover, to state in defense of price control that wages were not an important element in srices...
...And a thousand other cities at whose recollection memory recoils...
...The explanation was simple...
...Air commentators who only a few weeks ago were content to "cover" •labor in a scsnty couple of seconds, are ••voting precious minutes to near-hysterical speculation on what the current "wave of unrest" may lead to—prolonged •trife, riots, the retarding of reconversion and, what is even worse, cataclysmic deflation...
...The Japanese fought in them and then when they were forced to leave demolished these beautiful buildings by igniting barrels of TNT and gasoline...
...Only 'i', million job* ara dependent upon anything *>ere than change of customer...
...people walk its muddy shell-torn streets, barefoot, carrying on their heads long strips of corrugated tin or lumber to build some sort of habitable shack or roof to sleep under till some kindlier fate than war rescues them...
...this is Nanking and Shanghai, Hiroshima and Balikpapan...
...the rest was built up from such factors as overtime pay at higher rates, general upgrading in skills, and bonuses for increased production...
...In the light of these facts, the campaign of the auto workers for a 30 percent increase of basic rate* in earning*, or the steel workers' demand for a 26-cent-an-hour increase in basic* pay would seem to be anything but a campaign of aggression...
...The national average for factory workers increased from 123.19 in 1937 to $46.10 in 1946...
...What It actually represent* I* a defensive move to arrest deflation of living standards, a deflation which if allowed to proceed would throw back mil-lios of workers to living conditions they had to endure s dozen years ago before explanation had come to the basic Industrie...
...It is well to bear in mind that the great bulk of American labor is employed in establishments that will not require physical conversion...
...No demolished buildings are being pulled down...
...e< America...
...The feeling of walking through an unreal world is particularly heightened at night when one can walk along a once-beautiful suburban street, now dark and spectre-ridden...
...Philippine authorities say that probably no one will ever know how many were buried and burned alive in these ruins...
...It'a a city of death and ruin, a nightmare of rabble and debris, a fantastic chaoa ?f mountainous wreckage—a grisly monument to the insanity of modern »an...
...In addition, and that is very serious, the trend in basic rates in all industry is downward, while wage increases are still forbidden by government policy if they will raise retail prices...
...I couldn't believe Manila, until I thought: this is Hamburg and Berlin...
...And you walk down a rubble-lined street and remember the little Filipino lied Cross nurse who said, "Don't ever let us, after all our suffering and struggle, have sn occasion to wonder, 'Wa* it really worth it?' " Labor Offensive or Defensive Reconversion Poses Vital Problems...
Vol. 28 • September 1945 • No. 38
