Where the News Ends

...It is recalled that it waa due to tha interest of President Roosevelt, back in 1937, that the organization of th* Steel Workers proceeded peacefully and was carried forward to a successful conclusion...

...The ethical issues involved in these trials of vanquished by victors are more complicated than many -Americans, in the heat of war passion, would be will ing lo recognize...

...CH4MflfIHNWar Crime and Punishment ?HI decision to try war rrimirrals has passed from ihe stage of discussion to the phase of action.' We have been reading accounts and seeing pictures of the trials of the warden and guards of the infamous Kelsen concentration camp...

...To launch an aggressive or unnecessary war is certainly one of the greatest crimes against humanity that can be imagined...

...On November 5 we shall have the national conference of management and labor...

...thing wrong with it, the employer representative* have the duty of pointing out the defects and suggesting what seem* to them a workable compromise...

...Further research into the history of the years I'M'i and 1940 would reveal that the annexation of Latvia, Lithuania and F.stonia, the seizure of Eastern Poland, were similarly carried out in a spirit of aggressive warfare, in clear violation of the Kellogg I'aei and of specific tresly obligations...

...But the lesson which a potential aggressor might well draw from Irials conducted along ihe projected lines might well be Iwo-fold: lhat it is unwise to attempt aggression without sufficient force and that il will go haul with ihe defeated in future wars...

...It is hsrdly necessary, lo leach such lesson* to aggressors...

...Murray's reply to this curt communication offers illumination of the entire situation and, it must he aaid, gives the impression that the labor men si* dealing wih farts out in the open...

...But if the present negotiations lead to a strike in either of the two great fields involved, it will be the employers who must bear the chief blame...

...It is because of men like Malb W in w oi...

...The strategy of the opponents is already becoming clear...

...There is a strong emotional esse ¦ for holding the trials...

...and their inflexible standards of justice thi free countries, with all their sins of omission and cea mission, do not have on their consciences ariytkia, as bad on a grand scale as Dachau, Belsen or th Solovietskv Islands...

...In the conference room th* UAW committee is up against a wall of luetics, inattention and acorn...

...President Truman is equally interested in forestalling interruption of a basic industry at this time when ao much depend* ·* a steady supply of materials...

...A batch of forty alleged war criminals was arrested in Japan and < .en ci.W Yamashita is already on trial in Manila...

...Unfortunately the record of ibis war, as of most oilier wars, ' «*hV ales lhat it is not aggression per se that fails...

...2—There should be no proscription of whole classe* or group* under the pre., test «I deal toying war criminals, f.»* should be determined on strictly mriu idrasV grounds...

...In nun · than one case operations have been held up to the great loss of both employers anit employed because two, three or even four unions have been fighting for jurisdiction over a few hundred or few thousand men...

...A well-thought-out national policy might end the ait-down of most recalcitrant employers...

...I heir are not many uflsuiii of a victorious arat who would frankly uocover the seamy sides of taei own country's record in an effort to say what littl could be said on behalf of a loathsome speciales»« the defeated enemy...

...Honest, straightforward checking "up with all the facts on the table ia what is required...

...His argument for a 30 percent raise for the workers of the General Motors Corporation msy or msy not be 100 percent conclusive...

...The war criminal trials will perform some useful social sanitation insofar aa they uncover and remove from circulation individuals whose crimes and cruelties were so depraved that the perpetrators are clearly a menace to society...

...Just which groups of workers should receive advances, just how great those advances should be, how much increase of its payroll any particular industry will he able to bear without a boost of prices—these are the problems to be threshed out over the conference table...

...It is tin- lack of universal standards of evenhanded fustier that greslly weakens ihe Moral Inrcc of the wer trials...

...All lhat can 1m- anticipated is a reasonably qualified and intelligent meling nut ol revenge ami ?,intuition There will be no justice first oi »II bemuse these are trials of vanquished by victors...

...even of the most nolnrioo*, criminals, should be meticulously fair...

...I—Irials...

...These will be crucial battles in a major war...

...An excellent model to follow was the behavior of Major Thomas Win-wood, appointed to defend the commandant of Ihe Kelsen camp, who brought out the reels that concentration camps had been set up by ihe British during the Boer Waa and were not unknown in British centroabaji Territory in the Near East...

...A second reason why one should nut look fur jus-lice, in the proper sense of the word, in the projected trials nf war^uctsninals, is that Irue justice must be universal and must be administered in accordance with a gcneraarT-aTi'cplt-d code of law...

...Without it we (have not even reached the beginning of civilized labor relations...

...Kolh those conditions are lacking in the projected trials...

...Making every allowance for exaggerations in individual cases, there can lie no reasonable doubt that Nazi brutalities against civilian noncombatanla, especially against Jews, in occupied countries and Japanese maltreatment of prisoners went beyond the bounds of what might be called permissible f rightfulness in war...

...In steel and...

...To treat aggressive war as a crime, to show lhat crime does not pay arc attractive ideals...

...Aa excellent model to avoid was the (rial «l' Pierre Laval...

...If there is any...

...It is only aggression which is not becked up by suft-cVnt'fojtce,- ·: ·· -.· ¦-, . ^.-sr—-rt,,„>vW%i Whet logical answer could be made if one of the defendants should ? real I thst the Soviet union launched an aggressive war against Finland in ???9, in violation both of the Kellogg Pact and of ils own voluntarily concluded non-aggression treaty with Finland...

...The moral authority of the courts which will sit in judgment would have been enormously strengthened by (he inclusion of qualified German and Japanese liberal jurista and representatives of neutral countries like Switzerland and Sweden...

...Yet it would be an illusion to expect that justice, in anv proper sense of llie word, will be vindicated in these trials...

...But Ihe picture that comes out of Detroit is of no ¦uch rational procedure...

...To reach the right answers, we mi'** know all the figures that stand for costs, profits, interest, taxes, as well as those which tell the tale of the vrorkingman's budget...

...Listet of war criminals should include only individuals whose offenses have bee* bo shocking and inhuman that decent pub...

...One imi-t admit that after the invention of the atomic bomb it is pretty dicSull to sav wbsl those bounds are...

...The wholesome deterrent effect of the Irials on potential aggressors is somelinV* advocated as a point in favor of holding them...

...what voice will Ire raised to demand similar punishment for Soviet authorities who meted out equally brutal and outrageous treatment lo kulaks «ml other groups which fell under the displeasure of the dictatorship...

...If ihn treatment of the Jews by ihe Nazis in Germany before the outbreak of the war is lo lie treated as a brutal and outrageous crime, which it certainly wss...

...Plans are well advanced tor a mass trial of leading Nazis...

...We hsve haa plenty of wildcat strikes...

...lie opinion in the defeated countries will recognize that I hey deserve special punieb, ment...

...In the case of Ule Steel Workers it is an open seiret that Benjamin Fairless,_Jhe leader of the employers, has long awaited the opportunity to fight the union without regard to th* rights or wrongs of any demands...

...The unanimous condemnation of such a truly international court (and condemnation could have scarcely failed to be unanimous in the cases when overwhelming proof of bestial cruelty and sadism was presented) would have carried infinitely greater weight in the defeated countries and in neutral lands than the foregone conclusions of a victor's court...

...What appears most glaringly evident up to now is that leaders on the employer side are in a belligerent mood, determined not lo yield an inch, opposed to negotiation, to real collective bargaining...

...But it is equally demanded in the interest of the natfonal economy...

...No expert is required, to foresee that with millions out of work and the others employed at reduced wages, purchasing power will sag to such an extent as to offer inadequate support lo the market for consumer goods...

...Keadeis of The New Leader are well acquainted with Walter Reuther'a talent for ranging facta to that they spell out their meaning and lead to a con...

...elusion...

...automobiles tha preliminary tactical moves are being made by two of the nation's most powerful unions in opposition lo two of the most solidly entrenched employer groups...

...The Sitdown Against Genuine Bargaining WHAT we have seen thus far in the way of strikes and picketline battles is nothing in comparison with what is in prospect...

...Th* carefully worked out cane for a %'l advance presented by Philip Murray anil his experts was received in silence by the employers' group, and then—after 12 day* of waiting the demands were turned down flat in a formal letter which gave, practically no information or answering aigument...

...It is a case of a deep prejudice, an ancient hale...

...A realignment of wages upward is desirable from the point of view of workers who find their pay reduced by the cut in hoars and the ending of overtime...

...The obvious limilstions of the trials from the standpoint of spplying universal justice will be 'mitigated if the organizers adhere lo th* following elementary rules of equity: 1—No German or Japanese should be treated as a war criminal for actions which could be represented as patriotic duty if committed by Americans or British, Frenchmen or Russians...

...The New Leader has not been slow to criticize the ways of some groups of workers...

...If leaders of great industries are so deficient in sense of responsibility, the only recourse of the workers and of the public is to government officials...