Capital Comment
STOUT, JONATHAN
Capital Comment By JONATHAN STOUT American Foreign Policy-Words vs. Deeds WASHINGTON, D. C —There is evident . curious difference between American foreign polity in speech and in action. In...
...This full participation is due largely, no doubt, to the fact that the conference is government-sponsored...
...more than a hundred pro-government journals in Yugoslavia and not a single one for the opposition...
...Even the small publicity given abroad to Dr...
...In speech, President Truman in his Navy Day address enunciated t return to the principles of the Atlantic Charter pint a iletermination to back this up with all the pewer oi the United States: In action, this week, our Uplonui' showed such an anxiety to woo the Russians eat of their sulks, such a readiness lo make concession...
...Various other measures, obscure and rather hopeless, offered under the guise of public interest, would serve to divide labor by the so-called "right to work" principle and to intensify hysteria and prejudice against unions...
...This report was based on official statements guaranteeing abolition of censorship of outgoing dispatches, democrstic republicanism, secret and free elections, and a more conciliatory attitude towards Britain and the United States...
...The new American line is due not wholly to breast-beating love of democracy, a love not manifested in Brazil or Paraguay, but to oil, public utility rates and the new world-wide drive for American monopoly of the airways of the globe...
...V|IAT can labor expect from this conference...
...kidnapping or murder by unidentified 'bandits' with whom the police somehow never rstch up...
...One was the United Nations Food and Agricultural Commission meeting »» '.Hiebec...
...The NAM, which still carries on its roster some of the country's best-known union labor antagonists, found that too heavy fare to digest...
...Labor, it would teem, feelt fairly thong entering this 'matting vit-a-vi* the powerful aggregations of employers it will meet...
...Nobody even breathed the truth—that under American impetus the delegates in advance agreed to postpone the meeting a week in hopes that the Russian...
...In the steel industry, for example, the return to the 40-hour week will cut earnings between 25-30 percent...
...Still, it would seem that labor's current show of militancy has helped to scare the NAM off it...
...About freedom of the press: "Article erne of the law on the press guarantees itt liberty, but eighteen other articles proceed to restrict it...
...The conference's "order of the day," limited to plans designed to "minimize labor strife" and to the improvement of conciliation and arbitration techniques, seems rather disappointing at a time when the country is keyed up to the msjor issues and rugged realities behind the widespread movement for higher wages...
...The devices which this bill offers, nevertheless, deserve serious consideration...
...This Mi Malum Thomas bill, which has thus far been barely noticed in the press, if, of course, far from perfect...
...A constructive labor-industry program coming from this mixed conference might contribute a good deal toward evening up the score...
...It wis difficult to cover up the abjectness of the aret meeting of the Allied Advisory Commission on Japan...
...to Russian demands as, in effect, to negate the President's words...
...At the height of the war, when wages reached their peak, average weekly earnipgs were: All manufacturing industries $47.52 Highest paying industry (locomotives) ______............._______$65.fi5 Lowest paying industry (workshirts)__....................$21.57 "With the end of the war, anil the elin-ination of overtime and night premiums, weekly earnings of those fortunate enough to hold on to their job* have taken a downward plunge," the Outlook emphasized...
...Whither Labor-Management...
...For instance, the diplomatic view in the State l)c-pertinent this week was that the immediate critical question was whether the Soviets would send representatives to Washington for the initial meeting last Tuesday of the Allied Advisory Commission on japan...
...The dynamite contained in that issue might well have wrecked the conference at its start...
...Why this should be remains a mystery...
...labor-management conference is due to open in Washington next week...
...WARTIME WAGE EARNERS AVERAGED $2,000 Washington <i.pa)- Wsg« earners employed throughout the year during the war averaged about $2,000 a year, according to the CIO Economic Outlook...
...With that policy aew in collapse and with the resumption of big-atickism, the political extremes in Latin...
...23, 1945...
...Latin America other bases on Latin American soil are arousing new fears of American imperialism...
...But it does illumi-aatt the reason (or American weakness in diplomatic negotiations with the Russians...
...The agenda of the meeting, at first glance, appears rather inadequate...
...We must cleanse our Party of all traces of Browder's bourgeois liberalism...
...The Nation has justified repression of criticism in Stalin's sphere (which now includes Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, as well as Yugoslavia) on the ground that it will arouse Communist resentment and make conditions worse...
...William 7...
...But corporation profits after taxes were taken out increased 147 percent from 1939 to 1944, the Outlook stated...
...Foster, Daily Worker, Sept...
...The President has met with one reversal after another in Congresa on labor issues—the liberalization of idle pay, the full employment project, the I- KIT, the federalization of employment services...
...and the other was the United Nations Educational Commission meeting in London...
...The bill, if enacted into law, may become" an instrument which will exert a legitimate pressure on both sides in labor-industry disputes to exert every effort to reach an understanding...
...About free elections: "'People's committees' are empowered to draw up voting lists...
...WlLL this conference be able to reconcile the conflicting snoods and interests and clear the atmosphere of tension that is currently pervading the industrial scene the country over...
...The, earlier wave of adverse public sentiment whipped up by the outbreak of strikes appears U be receding...
...Thirteen deputies, including the Croat moderate and former minister Subasich, have already filed protests with parliament concerning trie manner In which these committees are operating in Zagreb...
...high perch...
...That refusal apparently has overawed some of our ffiplomats who consider it their job to obtain Russian participation in international cooperation at any price...
...Except in terms of Russian unwillingness to participate in international cooperation for peace, none was able to explain concretely why this was "critical...
...The second article in 7 he Nation of September 8 is entitled "Yugoslav Democracy, Limited...
...It is safe to assume that the Administration will bend every effort to achieve some tangible results...
...a bashf for a tentative program foe i annual industrial peace...
...Milan (irol't resignation from the Vice-Premiership brought fervid denials of "totalitarianism" and hasty recognition of the oppotition't right to speak its mind in the parliament...
...The Schwellcnbach-Truman conference, however, will be attended by delegations from both the NAM and the CofC...
...In his earlier article, Lehrman wrote that Yugoslavia was "the one country in Central and Eastern Europe where foreign correspondents are restrained only by discretion and professional integrity...
...Whither Labor-Management...
...Thia bill furthermore would create a new and independent agency in the executive branch of the Government to he known as the "United States Board of Arbitration," composed of three member s to be appointed by the President with 'he advice and consent at the Senate...
...I did not believe the stories which assailed me on my arrival here about the preaecution of Yugoslavs who do not regard Britons snd Americans ss enemies of the nation —until proof exploded under my note...
...The lesult of efforts to impose a puppet American regime i« Argentina will merely increase distrust of the United States everywhere to the south, and at the same time it wilt st lengthen the Nuzjs and reactionaries on one hand, the Communists on tht other, and puts the democratic element* of the country under a stigma of being pawns of an outside power...
...Labor'* insistence on - higher pay only if aecompanied by 'the retention of current prices...
...This studied elimination of the burning problem of higher wages from the agenda of the conference was perhaps s wise move on the part of its initiators...
...Correspondents need passes for travel more thsn a few miles outaide of Belgrade, and only Soviet correspondents sre able to get them...
...After two days of vain attempts to see the police authorities, or the prisoners, or st least learn the charges, Lehrman,was finally informed that the youths had been accused of association with the Chetniks...
...One State Department official said...
...Basically, therefore, this labor-industry meeting, with the government acting as moderator, will be charged with the duty »f presenting to Congress a scries of return mendationH, based on the principles of voluntarism, that would serve to avert strikes, would give greater weight to conciliation and mediation pie strike moves, and would establish arbitration as a cardinal principle in the .settlement of stale mated labor industry disputes • • • Till- Hall-Burton-Hatch hill, presented to Congress same months ago without consultation with labor, has met with solid opposition 'from the trade unions chiefly because it introduces the element of compulsory arbitration, to which the trade union move* intnl will never agree...
...The Russian tactics in each case was to refuse to officially participate...
...Lehrman reports that two Belgrade youths who spoke at a Yugoslav- Amer-ican friendship meeting were arrested at 2 A. M. the following morning by tha O/.NA, Tito's secret police...
...For as time P**»e», Russia grows stronger, both industrially and ¦ repairing the ravages of war...
...so does Secretary Schwellenbach, whose remaining at his post may very well depend on the outcome of this conference...
...Till...
...This refusal of the Russians to play was part of •he pattern the Russiaas exhibited in two other meet-lags of international cooperation...
...Now he writes: "Belgrade rumbles with rumors of terror in the provinces...
...It has already split the Radical Party and brought part of it into support of the government...
...I am told there are three methods for disposing ef suspects: mobilization and shipment to remote areas whence no letters return: arrest by the OZNA and disappearance...
...I cannot confirm or deny these reports— because 1 have been unable* to go and see...
...Crimea againat the state, by incriminating anyone threatening the 'people's authority," gives the government carle blanche for the prosecution of all critics...
...There are...
...The main objective of American diplomacy towards "^ow is (1) To woo the Russians into an agreeable frame of mind for renewing the project of writing E»t»pean peace treaties...
...Writing from Yugoslavia's capita] on August » (Na-tion, August 18), Lehrman reported "Progress in Yugoslavia...
...Sponsored by Secretary of Cabot Schwellenbach, with the blessings of President Truman, this conference steins directly from the "labor-industry charter" signed last March between the leaders of the CIO, I lie AFL, and the United States Chamber of Com-nierce...
...The NAM may not like the company it will l>c obliged to keep in the next couple of weeks but, obviously, it is a party it cannot afford to miss...
...It is now fairly clear that inter-Americanism and the good-neighbor policy were chiefly wartime efforts to keep South America in line while the battle waa going on< The propaganda we flooded southward was ho badly handled that it scarcely reached the mass of the people...
...The success of the ronferace depends on the attendance of Russia, naturally," The plain inference appeared to he that the United States, Great Britain and China writ- not adequate for the task of administering defeated Japan...
...For instance, our present official and unilateral brow-beating of Argentina, which has been resumed as soon as we got Latin America to sign on the dotted line at San Francisco, is not likely to promote good neighborliness or strengthen sound inter-Americanism, That policy, already pursued for a year and a half prior to San Francisco, hail already been revealed to be quite futile...
...President Truman needs a victory on this vital domestic issue...
...This bill would empower the President to appoint special hoards of inquiry to hear farts respecting any labor controversy and report back to the President, so that if and when he deems it desirable, the facts may be made available to the public...
...The Russians are quite content with that attitude and *e trading on it, and if that means it will be a long "me before international cooperation will be achieved P* « all right with the Russians, who apparently P* *•« view that time is on their side...
...Truman's radio speech last Tuesday, in which he lent the full weight of his support to the wage-raising movement while allotting to the conference the task of working out processes of settlement of labor disputes after normal collective bargaining efforts fail, has presented to the country the major outlines of the conference^ work...
...Though chielly a good-will pronouncement, the March "understanding" specifically endorsed labor's "unabridged right to collective bargaining...
...labor's interest in jobs for all including veterans, and the railing of tkf curtain on th* fantastic profits unseated by industry during the war year*, are making a deep imprestion...
...The National Manufacturers Association paid tepid lip-service to the "charter" at that time but stayed out of it — for good and weighty reasons...
...One bill recently dropped into the Senate hopper by Senators McMshon, Hayden, Thomas and Tunnrll, however, may well be taken up by the confeience as Tito's "Limited" Democracy Two articles In The Motion, by Hal 1 ..-tu man, reporting from Belgrade, provide a striking illustration of a foreign correspondent's education...
...would relent and consent to honor the meeting with a representative...
...In the in-«¦ i ¦ in British imperialism n'aa>« hay...
...The award of this board of arbitration would be final and conclusive...
...About free speech: "And tho law on...
...What may the country as a whole, considerably scared and unnerved by the strike wave and the strike votes in the automotive and steel industries, anticipate from this parley between the country's strongest industrial groups and labor forces...
...Here almost every accusstion sgainst Tito's regime made by The New header is confirmed...
...It will militate against the setting up of unreasonable claims and will give the public a fairer picture of what is involved in a given dispute...
...Lehrman answers this appeasement line with facts: One measure of hope liet in the re-gime's sensitivity to foreign opinion...
...The Census Bureau estimates the present population of the United Slates at about 139,700,000, an increase of 8,000,000 since 1940, which is almost aa great as the increase of the previous decade...
...A lot of more or less confused people are wondering whether this meeting, which for some occult reason is being lagged as a "peace" conference, is destined to be a sensational step in labor-industry relations or a disappointing dud...
...America will be given ever greater impetus...
...About representative democracy: "Other partiea have many posts and the semblance ef newer, but the Communists possess it in reality because they hold the key positions...
...2) To induce the Russians |» '"ke part ia Big Threa cooperation for international Itece...
...Meeting in Room 474 of the State Department, the delegates from Britain, China and America agreed thai they needed more time to study some documents *nd to finish a couple of detective stories they were wading...
...Both the suggested board of inquiry and the board of arbitration lack the tri-partite feature, at least to the extent that the permanent members to serve on them should lie selected from industry, labor ami the public...
...But the most startling and hopeful thing about Lehrman's article is his view on criticism of Tito's dictatorship...
...There are no such divided counsels among the Russians...
Vol. 28 • November 1945 • No. 44
