THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW ORGANIZED labor's two great federations, the American Federation of Labor and its lusty offspring, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, dominated much of the home-front news...
...Hillman urged labor leaders to begin now to prepare for 1946...
...Green, officially unperturbed by the much-discussed activities of the CIO's Political Action Committee, asserted that the AFL would not change its traditional policy of non-partisan political action...
...Names And Notes In The News Appointment...
...1, 1941 level...
...Instead he picked men of nondescript character, two of whom are political lame-ducks...
...Early this week the WLB did act—on a demand of the steel workers for increased wages—but its action was far from conclusive...
...The first major step under the new "appeasement policy," reported the Sun, was an attempt to get David E. Lilienthal, energetic chief of the TVA, to resign that post in favor of a berth on the new Surplus Property Disposal Board...
...He said: 'That's good, son...
...A voter for every job, and a job for every voter...
...Showdown Over Wages Delegates to the CIO convention were aggressive, and in fact, belligerent, in demanding a change in the Roosevelt Administration's wartime wage policy which, in the terms of the "Little Steel Formula," limits wage increases to 15 per cent above the Jan...
...But the United Nations partnership must go on and must grow stronger...
...Sen...
...The President called Lilienthal to the White House, offered him the SPDB post, only to have Lilienthal "refuse to fall far the bait," the Sun said...
...We cannot go out to the workers much longer and sell them on the idea that the President is the greatest man in the world unless the President moves to equalize conditions of all classes of society...
...A White House Compromise President Roosevelt last week'made one of the administrative compromises which have long characterized his conduct of Government affairs...
...I do not know former Gov...
...I emphasize the importance of this subject, and I hope the erring ones will return...
...In a 5 to 4 decision, the U. S. Supreme Court upheld the Treasury's contention that campaign funds spent by political candidates are not deductible for Federal income tax purposes...
...Congressional elections...
...Harry Byrd and Tennessee's Sen...
...Expulsion...
...Another question which was warmly discussed at both conventions was labor's role in politics...
...Edward Heller of California, wealthy banker now stationed in Boston as a finance officer for the Army...
...Tell Irma'— that's Mrs...
...Hurley, for instance, was involved in investigations of war contracts and loans of the Narra-gansett Machine Company of Pawtucket, R. I., carried on by the House Military Affairs Committee in September...
...Taxable...
...The President appeared to be striving to appease Sen...
...In the next election, he said, the PAC will participate actively in the primaries, so that "we no longer will have to make a choice of the lesser of two evils...
...Reaction...
...After pointing out that no one had worked harder for a fourth term for the President than he had, Thomas said: "Here is an issue which I think the President must move on, and move quickly...
...Guy M. Gillette, Iowa Democrat, who was defeated for reelection this year and whom President Roosevelt unsuccessfully sought to purge as a "reactionary" six years ago...
...Eobert A. Hurley of Connecticut, who has just been defeated as a Democrat...
...The 73-year-old Tennesseean, the President said, would remain in close touch with him, acting as an adviser on foreign policy...
...to the extent of permitting a minimum of 65 cents an hour for workers of the nation, the CIO bitterly complained that "after one full year the WLB continues to fumble, procrastinate, and delay, reflecting its own weaknesses, fears, and lack of courage to meet its grave responsibility to the nation...
...Apologizing for his membership on the War Labor Board, Thomas said he accepted membership on it "under the false pretense" that the Board would give an even break to labor...
...THE WEEK IN REVIEW ORGANIZED labor's two great federations, the American Federation of Labor and its lusty offspring, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, dominated much of the home-front news during the past week with their annual conventions at New Orleans and Chicago respectively...
...Hurley," he said, "but there have been some ugly-rumors circulating about him...
...The PAC, he said, will steer clear of third parties, and "will neither capture nor be captured by any of the major political parties...
...In what was undoubtedly his most urgent plea for unity since the split in labor's ranks eight years ago, Green said: "Just as sure as the sun shines, labor will have to pay the penalty after the war for the disunity and division in its ranks...
...The three appointees to the agency which will dispose of more than 100 billion dollars worth of surplus war materials, 15 billion in war factories, and 8,000,000 acres of Government-owned land, are: Sen...
...Roosevelt to effect a* reconciliation with such Tories as Virginia's Sen...
...Gillette will be chairman of the new board...
...Capehart—'I got that gallon of honey she wanted.'" * * * Casualties...
...One postwar project advocated by AFL officials would be to raise $1,000,000 to "put free, democratic trade unions back on their feet" in the nations liberated by the Allies...
...His appointment, it was alleged, was made chiefly for the financial-credit effect and preceded the issuance of a loan of $2,000,000 from the Federal Reserve Bank in March, 1943, with a 100 per cent guarantee of the War Department...
...Hull resigned because of ill health...
...U. S. combat casualties of World War II now total 528,795, including 117,453 dead...
...I called up my Dad and told him I'd won...
...Faced with demands by the Jesse Jones-Will Clayton Tory clique that he appoint reactionaries to the new War Property Disposal Board, and with pleas of New Dealers that he appoint proven progressives to this vital agency, the President accepted the advice of neither camp...
...Stettinius, who has been second in command in the State Department since Sumner Welles' forced resignation as Undersecretary, succeeds aged, ailing Cordell Hull, who has been Secretary of State since President Roosevelt entered the White House in March, 1933...
...Lend-Lease...
...President Roosevelt recommended last week that the nation's 45-billion dollar Lend-Lease program end with the war...
...In Chicago, however, the CIO was more politics-conscious than ever...
...If we stand as one, walk as one, and think as one, when the postwar period arrives, we can meet the common enemy on equal terms...
...It will expand its activities and seek to achieve a liaison with small business, farrtler, and labor groups "to work for legislation in behalf of the eommon man...
...After giving Sidney Hillmah, boss of the PAC, a tumultuous reception, the CIO voted unanimously to continue and to enlarge the Political Action Committee and to aim for a big off-year Congressional vote in 1946...
...If there was ever a time when labor in America and throughout the world should be united, it is now...
...McKellar, bitter foe of Lilienthal who is sure to oppose reappointment of the TVA chief when'and if Mr...
...Our goal behind Roosevelt and his 60 million jobs is to see that 60 million men and women vote in 1946...
...Former Gov...
...Homer E. Capehart, wealthy radio manufacturer, told last week how his aged father received news of his election on the Republican ticket as U. S. Senator from Indiana...
...Philip Murray, CIO president, blamed Congress, the public members of the War Labor Board, War Mobilization Director James F. Byrnes, and Economic Stabilizer Fred M. Vinson for the delay in making good on their commitments to keep the cost-of-living in balance by allowing wages to keep pace with prices...
...Following the lead of the CIO's PAC, the National Citizens' Political Action Committee, an offshoot of the original CIO-PAC, voted unanimously at Chicago to continue its activities in political education and action...
...PAC Plans Expansion The AFL's executive council, in its annual report, advocated higher wages, better medical care, and better housing for American workers, and a lasting peace to "rest on social justice and to include all people...
...It awarded the steel workers wage adjustments expected to average about five cents an hour, but it shunted to the White House the main demands of the CIO for a base pay raise and a guaranteed annual wage...
...Warned by top-ranking Federal authorities, including Lt...
...The inside story told how Hannegan had urged Mr...
...I have no knowledge as to the accuracy of these reports, but they indicate the necessity of holding a hearing and airing the whole question...
...Brehon B. Somervell, chief of the Army Service ForGes, and Paul V. McNutt, chairman of the War Manpower Commission, that armament production was lagging far behind needs of the military forces, the AFL summoned a special meeting of its international presidents to map plans for sending men into the critical industries...
...Vice President Henry A. Wallace told the delegates that to win economic security and 60,000,-000 jobs, the common man of America must prepare now for political victory in the 1946...
...It was charged at the House hearings that Hurley had been made a vice president of the Narragansett Company at $12,000 a year, although he spent as little as one day a week in the company's office...
...President Roosevelt.visited him Sunday at the Naval Hospital, where he has been a patient for more than five weeks, and the Chief Executive subsequently announced the resignation with great and deep regret...
...Supporters of Henry A. Wallace were bitterly disappointed that the retiring Vice President was not tapped for the post...
...Kenneth McKellar, and that the President "promised Hannegan that he would see what could be done...
...Edwin Johnson, Colorado Democrat and a high* ranking member of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, said there must be a thoroughgoing investigation of the Roosevelt appointees...
...Eleanor Packard, United Press war correspondent, was expelled from Yugoslavia last week because, as.she reported, the government '.'didn't like" a dispatch revealing there were many pictures of Stalin and Tito in Belgrade shop windows, but none pf President Roosevelt or Prime Minister Winston Churchill...
...President Roosevelt has allowed Robert E. Hannegan, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, to talk him into a policy of "appeasing" Congressional reactionaries, according to a special dispatch by the Washington bureau of the strongly pro-Roosevelt Chicago Sun last week...
...Criticism of the two appointments has been voiced in Congress...
...Appeasement...
...Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., former board chairman of the U. S. Steel Corporation, is about to become the nation's new Secretary of State...
...Settling down for a two-weeks session, delegates to the AFL convention heard their president, the venerable William Green, summon the CIO back to its parent's home —the American Federation of Labor...
...Demanding that the frozen wage scale be thawed out...
...Lieut...
...I publicly renew the appeal of the AFL to those who left us to come back to the house and home of labor and unite with us...
...Heller was in charge of the Army's war contracts for that area at the time...
...Lend-Lease and reverse Lend-Lease," he said, "are a system of combined war supply...
...The Federation's demand for increased wages to prevent a collapse in purchasing power when the cutback in war production begins was echoed a thousand miles north, in Chicago, where the CIO convention was being held...
...Labor, however, has not received fair treatment, he said...
...They should end with the war...
...Chairman William H. Davis of the WLB said the new order did not break the Little Steel formula—nor even "bend" it...
...The bitterest attack on the Administration's wage policy came from R. J. Thomas, president of the United Automobile Workers, biggest union in the CIO...
...Roosevelt submits the nomination to the Senate this Spring...
Vol. 8 • December 1944 • No. 49
