THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW AROOM full of top-flight Americans, 16 of them leaders of organized labor and the other 16 spokesmen for industry, wrestled in Washington this week with the all-important issues...
...It has been estimated that, unless checked, the annual wage and salary bill in private industry will shrink by over 20 billions of dollars...
...Names And Notes In The News Hitler's End...
...After a long silence, a Japanese replied : "The American soldier best in world...
...agement and labor, conducted with "a firm resolve to reach an agreement fairly...
...Kent Case...
...The time has come for labor and management to handle their own affairs in the traditional, American, democratic way...
...The corner grocer is going to feel it, as well as the department store, the railroads, the theaters, the gas stations—and all the farmers of the nation...
...Members of the Truman Cabinet joined in what seemed like a fruitless drive to force the bills out of committee for passage...
...UNRRA...
...Civilians burned up cigarettes at the yearly average rate of 100 packs for every man, woman, and child during the first eight months of 1945...
...Congress Sit-Down Hit Mr...
...No, no," answered the impatient GI's...
...Archaeologists have uncovered evidence in Iraq to place the beginning of civilized mankind between 5000 and 6000 B. C, 2000 years earlier than previous findings had shown, according to a London dispatch to the New York Times last week...
...Three Broad Proposals The President warned the representatives of labor and management that industrial strife "cannot be allowed" to slow the drive toward high peacetime production...
...Higher Wages Urged A week before the launching of the Labor-Management conference President Truman went to the country to outline his fundamental approach to the question of wages and prices during this reconversion period...
...Current strikes, Wallace said, have their roots in "lack of confidence in our ability to create and maintain a condition where workers and employers will have enough opportunities to earn their livings whether in the form of wages or in profits...
...I am in favor of th...
...Fortunately there is room in the existing price structure for business as a whole to«grant increases in wage rates...
...An official report prepared by the British and apparently concurred in by Russian and American intelligence authorities declared last week that Adolf Hitler and his bride of one day, Eva Braun, killed themselves in the Berlin Reichschan-cellery Apr...
...Complaint...
...The President's expression of "supreme confidence" in the success of the deliberations was not shared by seasoned Washington observers, most of whom gave the conference a fighting chance to emerge with some constructive achievements, but were not too optimistic that an over-all solution to the present controversy would develop...
...Wrangling, jealousies, and misunderstandings between the Army and Navy were sharply criticized by a majority of a special Army-Navy investigating committee in a report completed in April after 10 months investigation but suppressed until last week...
...If we now begin to let down the bars, there will be no stopping place...
...Let us hold vigorously to our defense against inflation...
...Business is in a very favorable profit position today, with excellent prospects for the period that lies ahead...
...The report showed that cigar smoking has declined greatly since World War I. Americans now smoke an average of only 36 a year, or less than half as many as in 1917...
...Full Employment Bill because it is ar essential first step in creating and justi fying the confidence that is essential to the- successful operation of our private enterprise system...
...Truman as an approach to the problem of remedying industrial ills: 1Open-minded collective bargaining between man...
...Secretary of the Treasury Fred M. Vinson accused the House Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments of "filibustering" the Full Employment Bill and he denounced the "Union League Club objections" to the measure...
...That's impolite...
...President Truman launched the momentous conference on its way with a speech in which he charged the delegates to find "a broad and permanent foundation for industrial peace and progress" without the use of centralized Government controls...
...It has been estimated that unless checked, the annual wage and salary bill in private industry will shrink by over 20 billion dollars...
...On the other hand, management too often has looked upon labor relations as a stepchild of its business, to be disregarded until the controversy has reached a point where real collective bargaining becomes difficult—if not impossible...
...30 and their bodies were burned immediately...
...The Truman Administration is planning a Senate fight to strike the free press amendment from the measure...
...Truman used the occasion of his radio address on reconversion to denounce Congressional delays on the Full Employment Bill and the measure to liberalize unemployment compensation...
...Outright failure of the conference would shatter the hope for peaceful settlement of the multitude of wage controversies now pending, and would almost certainly lead to a renewed campaign in Congress for enactment of repressive anti-labor legislation...
...Nevertheless, throughout industry and in every branch of industry profits are and have been very good indeed...
...Labor has a particular interest in this matter— for nothing is so destructive of public confidence in the motives of trade unionism as a jurisdictional strike...
...Smoking...
...Civilization...
...Tyler Kent, former code clerk in the American Embassy in London, has launched legal proceedings to obtain his freedom from a British prison where he has languished for more than five years...
...The evidence is not complete," the investigators concluded, "but it is positive, circumstantial, persistent, and independent...
...The U. S. Department of Agriculture reported last week that Americans are smoking 50 per cent more cigarettes than before the war and show little evidence of tapering off...
...Jealousy...
...This is not going to do anybody any good—labor, business, agriculture, or the general public...
...There is no evidence whatever to support any theories which have been circulated and which presuppose that Hitler is still alive...
...There can be no justification for such tactics at the present time, or in the future...
...Intentions...
...It happens all too frequently that in the actual process of collective bargaining, delaying tactics are practiced, with the result that there is no real bargaining...
...All such stories which have been reported have been investigated and have been found to be quite baseless...
...Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wal lace went before the House Committee to warn that "we simply cannot afford to muddle along and take a chance on another collapse...
...Both Sides Scolded Both labor and industry were scolded by the President in these words: "Business simply cannot stop, and there can be no moral or economic justification for stopping production while rival [labor] organizations contend with each other...
...Life Span...
...I hope that I can give up the President's wartime powers as soon as possible, so that management and labor can again have the full and undivided responsibility for providing the production that we must have to safeguard our domestic economy and our leadership in international affairs...
...2If bargaining fails, both sides should use impartial ? machinery to reach settlements "on the basis of proven facts and realities...
...The House of Representatives voted last week, 339 to 17, to appropriate an additional $550,-000,000 to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, completing this nation's $1,350,-000,000 commitment for relief of the destitute of the world...
...Prices: "Whenever price increases would have inflationary tendencies, we must above all else hold the line...
...Kent, an American citizen employed by the U. S. Government, was imprisoned on charges of violating the British Official Secrets Act by decoding and communicating secret messages between the late President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill...
...THE WEEK IN REVIEW AROOM full of top-flight Americans, 16 of them leaders of organized labor and the other 16 spokesmen for industry, wrestled in Washington this week with the all-important issues of industrial relations, whose settlement would have a profound effect on the course of U. S. reconversion to a stable peacetime economy...
...Asked a clear-cut question at his press conference regarding his intentions for 1948, President Truman last week declined to show his hand...
...The country is worried, the President said, "and has a right to be worried" about industrial relations...
...Before passing the bill, however, the House approved, 186 to 168, after bitter debate, a provision which would prevent funds from being spent in any country that refused to admit U. S. press representatives to report on UNRRA activities...
...You have it in your power to stop that worry," he said...
...Hitler, the report said, shot himself, presumably through the mouth, and his wife took poison...
...That is not true of all countries...
...Two high-ranking Government leader s—Labor Secretary Lewis Schwellenbach and Commerce Secretary Henry Wallace—sat with the 32 spokesmen for industry and labor, but they were on hand to serve, not to participate in policy-making, nor to vote in any of the Labor-Management conference proceedings...
...In reply to a query as to whether he intended to be a candidate in '48, the President said that, standing on his individual rights, he didn't think he had to testify against himself at this time...
...Three broad suggestions were offered by Mr...
...Presiding over the sessions as impartial chairman was Chief Justice Walter P. Stacy of the North Carolina Supreme Court...
...Said the President: Wages: "Wage increases are imperative—to cushion the shock to our workers, to sustain adequate purchasing power, and to raise the national income...
...A Japanese woman replied at last: "American soldier always eating...
...He was eager, he said, to remove all wartime controls as fast as possible, and this goal would be reached far more swiftly if labor and industry agreed on procedures which did not require Government intervention...
...A. group of American GI's in Japan asked some Nipponese "What's wrong with the American soldier...
...This action drew fire from Tory members of Congress who expressed resentment at the public spanking, and Washington correspondents reported that the chances of passage had not been improved...
...What's wrong with him, not what's good about him...
...George Bernard Shaw told newspaper correspondents last week that he was not depressed by the coming of the atomic age...
...3There must be "responsibility and integrity" on ? both sides in living up to agreements once made...
...He predicted that man one day would discover the secret of living 300 years...
...Trading verbal punches with conservative members of the Committee in his all-day appearance, Wallace emphatically denied that the bill smacked of Communism or totalitarianism, or would put the Government in competition with private industry...
Vol. 9 • November 1945 • No. 45
