The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
Prophets of Doom Hardly so, if we are to believe business and industry reports which are, curiously enough, bring recorded in neighboring columns of the same newspapers which i t~. ? i ? the...
...And in the present state of the deterioration of relations between the United States and Russia, there is the strongest antipathy here to helping Russia develop its industrial resources...
...The reaaon is simple...
...What Jews still remain in the Ruaaian zone are domiciled in house* from which Germans have been ousted to make room...
...In the Americsn, British snd French sonea the Jews are given twice the food ration which they are given by the Russians...
...It will not come from labor's efforts to hold its line of earnings in the months that lie immediately ahead...
...Industrial Union Council for a John W. Yates PoRt...
...twenty, among them the largest i ? the country—inctlid-ing Buffalo, Youn.-stown, Dayton, Birmingham, Klint, Pontiac, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Houston and San Francisco—may require a full six months to retool and start full speed at work again...
...He wants sustained high levels of production aad employmeat at goad productive wages, in an atmosphere of industrial peace at home and world peace abroad because he figures that means a beneficial economic circle instead of the vicious circles of the past...
...Capital Comment Intfansigeancc, has never been more unpopular ? u/official circles in Washington than it is right now...
...Labor realizes this, and the levelheaded elements in industry probably appreciate this too...
...From here on out, the tough-talking Russians are going to hear much tougher talk themselves...
...It is reported ss having a therapeutic value for .-ballrml spirits...
...One may accept Russel Porter's evaluation of the typical business man of today with a grain of salt, but it certainly is leagues away from the belligerent silhouette which his colleagues on the same paper are crayoning for their reading public...
...i ? the panicky strike stories, Here is how ?econversion record shapes up, for instance, in a summation by the Committee for Economic Development in a *pot check-up of eighty-four major cities • ml former war production centers...
...At the same tune, Krank points out, the Legion boasts that a Franklin I...
...The propaganda campaign to get the United States to share the atom bomb's secret with Russia has attempted childishly to make Truman appear ailly in "trying to keep a secret that cannot be kept...
...I don't like il myeelf...
...On the whole, it may honestly be said that their howling of "Beware, labor is coming," is chiefly a product of hardened personal attitudes...
...With the continued existence of I'MUKA trembling in the balance, officials of the organisation are planning an Immediate determined drive to get the** displaced peraoaa to go l»ck hosne Ths greatest pressure will be put on them to do so...
...True, some of the big unions whose membership rolls were unduly swelled during the past half dozen years have lost a portion of this membership sinre the war plants were closed...
...The allegation that labor's initial steps lo safeguard its elementary Irving requirements by demanding a wage that muld cope with the high-price home budgets of 1946, does not square with reality...
...But if'a the truth, ¦ ? · Unk ? A is faced with a terrific problem...
...The real secret concerns the industrial process by which the bomb is manufactured and the industrial resource* which are required to make it possible...
...I can report that authoritative quarters give that argument the black eye...
...That, in fact, is not the secret...
...Roosevelt Post has been set up in the liquor industry in New York...
...Turned down were applications from the ItufTalo Federation of Labor foi a Union Labor Post, and the Kansas City (Mo...
...That is the only chang...
...The sounder judgment, however, lies with those who adopt the realistic view that the forthcoming parleys sre not going to result in abolition of strikes or produce a cure-all for industry-labor disputes...
...The factors that may influence the future stages of reconversion are given as variable...
...But on the whole, the labor movement, with at least 12,000,000 members in its fold, stands there strong and conscious of its power and ready to defend its positions...
...And food ia the all-consuming interest in life in Germany today...
...They are no longer called concentration campa...
...U is reported that Europe will have no fuel for heat, no food and inadequate shelter...
...Following thst drive, u nicka plans« lampaigii to get the nations of tha Western Hemisphere to open their doors to those who will become stateless persons by refusing all efforts to get them to go noma...
...Families with incomes of less than $1,960 in most cases went into debt in 1944, the government studies show...
...Not even Assembly Centers...
...I'm torry...
...All the more to because I ? Hit A officials are expecting the suffering of the coming winter to equal the suffering those poor derelict* suffered during the war relief...
...A meek and docile front in face of the uncertainties and perils of the postwar days could earn precious little at this hour for organized labor in this country...
...The French in their zone, with Gallic perception for the needs of an emotional outlet for people long and horribly suppressed, have instituted the weekly practice of taking parties of Jews from the Assembly Centers on inspections of the Nazi SS prisoners in the jails...
...And that's the point on which the issue now will be joined...
...The militant spirit which labor is displaying at this moment should not hurt its position during tha forthcoming discussions...
...Most of these persons are in England, France, Germany...
...He thinks it ia better business to provide job* and wages (hat will sustain the buying power of eonaumera at reasonable prices to himself than to enforce extortionate prices and profits at the risk of drjviavg the customers of all industry out of their job* and out of the market...
...Twenty-five of these closely surveyed cities show reconversion well under wsy with no major unemployment indicated...
...But that surface picture in the Russian tone ia materially affected by the fact that the Russians have no Jewish problem in their zone because the Jews refuse to stay there...
...three cities will require a three-month period to fully re-in vert...
...They are now called Assembly Centers...
...Italy and Scandinavia...
...The view now being taken here is that a swaggering, swashbuckling imperialistic Russia is a threat to the peace of the world and that we must not repeat the mistake we made with Japan in helping arm her for the destruction of Pearl Harbor...
...One of name...
...Industry, the country over, is moving ahead with retooling and re-planning for civilian production with greater speed than it moved in 1940 and 1941 to meet the oncoming needs of the war...
...This, according to Judge Advocate Man-rice A. Frank of the National Conference of Union Labor Legionnaires, is u "weak excuse" and "ridiculous...
...7, covering experiences in a cross-country flying tour with a representative group of employers in the National Manufacturers' Association, to wit: "The typical business man and industrialist whom one meets when traveling around the country ' today is a keen specialist in management, production, engineering or one or other technical profession...
...FAMILIES NEED $ I AN-HOUR PAY WASHINGTON (LPA).—Workers need a wage of at least $1 an hour, for a standard 40-hour work week, all year round, to "break even" on current expenses, is the conclusion of the Department of Labor, which has done many studies on family budgets...
...The only reason given by the Legion is that no new posts are being chartered...
...The average family needed sn income of $1950 after income taxes were paid to "break even" in 1944, according to A. Ford Hinricha, acting commissioner of labor statistics, testifying before a Senate body on the 66 cent minimum waye bill...
...What the conference may be expected to realize is a modus operandi that would keep labor disputes down to a minimum and from turning into wasteful strikes...
...The tignifieant thing, neverthele**, is that the rtport of the CSD make* no reference to the current sporadic itriket e* a retarding element in reconversion...
...These still exist in the Americsn, Brit-ieh and French cones...
...There is no expectation of keeping secret for long the scientific knowledge involved...
...He has accepted the idea that unions are here to etay aad so is a good part of the New Deal, la fact, although he would net admit it pub , Ikiy ia many cases, he has accepted a goad part of the New Deal philosophy...
...There are no longer any concentration camps in the Russian zone...
...What happened to the ousted Germans is not officially known, but it is believed they have been taken to Russia as slave laborers...
...Whatever unemployment we may face in the coming months and through 1946, will be due primarily to the release from industry of the millions of men and women who had been engaged in war work aince 1940...
...Shadow Over America LEGION REBUFFS UNIONS CHICAGO (LPAL—The American Legion is once more under attack by ,ite labor members because in recent months it has turned down two applications— one by an A FL and one by a CIO body— for chartering new posts...
...A further reliable explanatioi may be added to President Truman's announcement on the atomic bomb, which also finds its place in the general picture...
...What disturbs most the high apostles of balanced budgets and untouchable free enterprise of the Arthur ? rock, Mark Sullivan, David Lawrence school of industrial philosophy ia perhaps the irksome fact that the trade union movement appears not only to have survived the period of "underground" existence during the war when strikes were taboo, wages frozen by law, and every form of labor militancy subordinated to the major demands of the war effort, but has come out of its corner ready to fight for a proper spot in this brave new postwar world we have just now entered...
...Officials report that there are approximately 1,200,000 persona coming from Russia, Poland, eastern Europe and the Balkans who so far have refused to be repatriated to their homelands as long as they are under Soviet control...
...No less annoying to these publicists is the fact that the New Deal, which they have helped to kick around, abuse and belittle so ardently for nearly a decade, .still stands there, embodied best in the "Wagnerian cycle" of labor and social legislation, with the Labor Relations Art, their pet aversion, still intact...
...kick is a sidelight on the report on the plight of the Jews still remaining in concentrstion camps in Germany...
...The curious angle about these self-appointed .spokesmen for American industry is the fact that they do not represent a cross-section of thought in American industry vis-a-vis labor...
...Almost with unanimity, the Jewa have left the Russian cone for the American, British and zones...
...Tough language, ain't it...
...With some except Ion a, of course, he is not out I« smash the unions or break dew* wage ¦rale...
...There is an unhappy time ahead fur Europe'a homeless million and a quarter human being...
...What effect, if any, the present tense labor atmosphere is likely to have on the President's labor-management conference scheduled for November 5, is rather difficult to forecast There arc those who are inclined to think that the tension, even if considerably subsided by the time the parleys get under way, will interfere materially with the success of that conference...
...The allegation being made by the propagandists (and some rattlebrained liberala', too) that at the rate the Russians are going in their scientific research they are probably close to the secret already...
...It may be worth quoting, in this connection, an excerpt from a piece by Russel Porter, in the New York Time* of Oct...
Vol. 28 • October 1945 • No. 41
