THE FACTS ABOUT THE RAILROAD CRISIS
Hanighen, Frank. C.
The Facts About The Railroad Crisis By FRANK C HANIGHEN Washington, D. C. WATCHING the proceedings of the railroad situation this past week, I was reminded of an act I once saw in a vaudeville...
...Lyle Wilson's story of last week in the United Press, a column by Drew Pearson, and other remarks in Washington news-letters reveal that Stalin took a peremptory stand for a cross-channel operation at the conference, and that Roosevelt and Churchill for once found themselves in rather sharp disagreement...
...For the press devoted much newsprint to describing how fat railroad presidents hastily struggled into colonels' uniforms and how the Army "seized" the roads—an operation much less dramatic than the headlines suggested...
...The actors, clad as acrobats, prepared as if for the most herculean and difficult of feats...
...More information which has leaked out here broadens this picture...
...They stretched their biceps, braced their legs, and stared wildly into space, uttering hoarse cries of "allez-oop," etc...
...Smuts ("Britain must have equal power in the Trinity of Great Nations") and whether Roosevelt will prefer the road to Moscow to the road to London...
...The audience roared and applauded...
...Machinery for settlement and conciliation, if the government had really wanted to use it, could have at least postponed a strike call and indeed could have settled the dispute long before the "emergency" arose...
...Painful Discoveries Due But, at any rate, the people probably feel assured that St...
...The Russians, after all, in the matter of Siberian bases, hold a very tempting card which they can play in luring the Americans into their camp...
...But the President, now returned to domestic affairs and obviously desirous of making a splash for domestic political reasons, wanted a flamboyant course and applause...
...Pessimism Over Burma Gen...
...It is possible, also, that Stalin, within whose Russian Embassy compound in Teheran Roosevelt stopped, deployed before our President's gaze prospects of Russo-American collaboration which might prove more tempting than the British picture of Antrlo-American cooperation hitherto so acceptable to Roosevelt...
...But, 25 years have taught new techniques of government, not all of them of strictly American origin...
...Despite the appointment of Mountbatten, Washington hears pessimistic reports of the progress he has made in preparing for an attack on Japanese-held territory...
...At the same time, the President has said nothing about increases in freight and passenger rates, which most certainly the railroad companies will seek to cover the increases...
...It seems that Stalin administered an even more severe and rude snubbing to Prime Minister Churchill than he did in Moscow last year...
...It is calculated that the President's proposition to the rail workers established wage increases aggregating about 15 per cent above the limit fixed by that fierce inflation-fighter, Judge Vinson, whose order was proclaimed as the absolute ceiling limit, above which the devil of inflation would appear...
...Louis Stark, labor correspondent of the New York Times, on Dec...
...But can they...
...By this time, it is getting around in Washington that the Teheran conference marked a possible revolutionary change in the relations among the three big powers—Britain, Russia, and the United States...
...When Woodrow Wilson took over the roads in the last war, he named Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo as the Director of Railroads...
...Meanwhile, the snare drums rolled faster and faster, and the fiddles rose to excited squeaks...
...Obviously, this helps to prepare for the "fourth-term," for which other moves are being made...
...H. H. Arnold, Chief of the Air Corps, in his new report says that when the Americans went into India, they found only 10 airdromes, all located, not to protect the Burmese frontier or to attack Rangoon, but to protect the Khyber pass...
...British reaction to all this is reported to be acutely painful...
...But, at the conference the Russians and Americans did work together against the British dilatory attitude, so well described by Lyle Wilson, and apparently achieved a decision, as the appointment of Gen...
...For, the economic facts, so artfully obscured under a wealth of window dressing, do not bear this out...
...The Army, mind you, was tohj off to do the "seizure" and not the less colorful, but more fitting and knowledgeable Office of Defense Transportation under the modest Director Joseph B. Eastman...
...The Facts About The Railroad Crisis By FRANK C HANIGHEN Washington, D. C. WATCHING the proceedings of the railroad situation this past week, I was reminded of an act I once saw in a vaudeville show...
...So far as breaking a strike was concerned, the Administration, like the comedy acrobats, simply went through a lot of histrionic motions...
...Coming months will show whether this strengthens the British attitude as recently expressed by Gen...
...Post-Teheran Reflections...
...I have a strong premonitory feeling that the menacing word will either soon disappear from the lexicon of government propaganda or will undergo a wondrous change...
...But, for the present, the fine attitude struck by the President in the rail "crisis," signalizes his return to domestic politics after months of absorption in affairs abroad...
...Hence, a stern-sounding proclamation of "seizure" struck the required note of authoritarianism...
...Hence, the Army, via Secretary of War Stimson, provided the proper martial note in taking over the roads...
...They are now practising on manuscripts in which the public will be told that a little "inflation" won't be a bad thing, and that the really big danger is "deflation," unemployment, low wages, etc...
...Suddenly, the base drum boomed once, and the music abruptly stopped...
...On that occasion, Wilson's course caused only a fraction of the fuss and feathers of the present episode...
...Yet the press neglected the nubbins of the situation which constituted the real story...
...That will come in course of time, as the folks painfully discover the truth about the magnificent gesture of Dec...
...30 presented evidence to show that the "strike" was really called off before the Administration "seized" the roads...
...The actors relaxed their muscles, broke up their formation and began to smile and bow to the audience...
...They were amused because the comedians were just where they had been when they started and had performed no acrobatic feat at all...
...In fact, some pessimists wonder it it won't b* the Japs who will attack first...
...George has struck to the vitals of the dragon of inflation...
...But even without this evidence, it should have been clear to any observer that the moderate, well-disciplined railroad unions never would have struck...
...Now about that word "inflation...
...A Political Splash The fact is that there never was any danger of a rail strike...
...Eisenhower to the command of invasion forces shows...
...Watch for the new devil-—"deflation...
...It may be recalled that the Khyber pass was vividly celebrated in Kipling's works as the place where Britain and Russia would clash...
...For, I hear on good authority that clever government scribes, who lately turned out^copy designed to chill the average citizen to his very marrow about the dangers of inflation, are now tooling up for quite a different, and indeed contrary, effort...
...This attitude stems, it is said, from the recent Moscow conference in October, when Secretary Hull appears to have convinced the Russian chief that Roosevelt and the American Army Staff has been fighting quite sincerely against British opposition for a cross-channel front—¦ Stalin's primary demand...
...Democratic politicians will employ this sort of copy in order to associate the Republicans with "deflation...
...Nor, as a matter of fact, has the President succeeded at this late date in winning the approval of 18 of the 20 unions originally involved in the wage dispute, and the controversies continue to hang fire at this writing...
...In the case of the rail "crisis," however, the audience didn't laugh because they hadn't seen the trick, thanks to a very bad job of reporting on the part of our fast decaying daily press...
...which so gallantly rescued the country from the awful fate of inflation, and transportation paralysis...
...At the same time, he showed unusual courtesy towards Roosevelt and the American military delegation...
Vol. 8 • January 1944 • No. 2
