Evening Star Newspaper, July 6, 1937, Page 11

Labor Failure to Observe Act Seen C. I. O. Procedure in Strikes Held Contrary to Wagner Law. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. P THE American people are ever going to find a way to end do- mestic war growing out of labor disputes, it is obvious that they are going to do it only by reducing to its simplest form the issues that divide employers and employes and bringing to bear public opinion, if © not the compul- sion of law, to effect peace. Three vital is- sues are involved in present - day i disputes, some of ¥ them actually growing out of attempts by law to write defini- tions governing : the relations of & employers & nd EE employes and some arising out of the failure of the lawmakers to take into account certain contin- gencies that arise whenever privileges are given to one group and not to | another. These three questions are: First, is an employer obliged to enter into a written contract with his em- ployes with respect to working condi- tions and can such an understanding be oral and yet binding? Protection of Individuals. @econd, what protection is afforded to an individual who does not wish to join & union and who wants to work when a strike has been declared by either & minority or majority of his fellow employes? Third, how can working men be protected in their free access to jobs | when the Federal law now permits an | employer and a majority of his em- ployes to make a voluntary agree- | ment which closes out all who do not | belong to the union prescribed by the majority? To answer these questions, it is natural to examine the existing law, the Wagner act, and the rulings of the National Labor Relations Board, which interprets that law, and finally the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, which interprets | whether the various provisions of the law and the rulings of the National Labor Relations Board are in con- formity with constitutional rights as expounded in previous decisions. Questions Still Undecided. Offhand, it will be said that, of course, the Wagner act is now the 1aw of the land because the Supreme Court of the United States has up- held it. But this is a superficial | statement. What the Supreme Court | has upheld is one aspect of the Wag- ner law, that which relates to collec- | tive bargaining, and it has not yet | passed upon all the controversial ques- tions that have arisen or may arise in | specific lawsuits growing out of the everyday operation of the law. Already emplayer representatives and employe spokesmen are assuming the decisions just rendered by the | Supreme Court support their respec- tive positions. ‘Thus some employer spokesmen are counseling corporation executives to be guided only by this paragraph from the opinion of Chief Justice Hughes in the Jones & Laughlin case on April 12, 1937, commonly referred to as the principal case in which the Wagner act's constitutionality was upheld: “The act does not compel agree- ments between employers and em- ployes. It does not compel any agreement whatever. It does not prevent the employer ‘from refusing to make a collective contract, and hiring individuals on whatever terms’ the employer ‘may by unilateral action determine.’ On the surface this seems to be a eomplete answer to whether the inde- pendent steel companies were right or wrong in their recent refusal to sign a written contract or make any other kind with the C. I. O. Careful reading of the other parts of the opinion and the relationship of the foregoing paragraph to other state- ments made leads to the conclusion that the issue is not as simple as it Books nor is it disposed of by the flat statement that he law “does not compel agreements." As a matter of fact, language quite similar to that which the Supreme Court used can be found in the Senate debate before the Wagner bill was passed, in the report filed by the Senate Committee on Labor, and in briefs filed by the Department of Justice itself in an important case. But just as many of the employers were surprised when they found that the Supreme Court had upheld the Wagner act, so they may be due for | 8 surprise when they find the highest tribunal in the land some day pointing out that the issue presented in the quoted paragraph is not on all fours at all with the situation in which the independent steel companies fina themselves today. Inland Steel Case. As a matter of fact, the Inland Steel Co. has at the moment before the National Labor Relations Board a case which when appealed to the courts will determine the precise issue that his been raised. The employer position is to take literally the language quoted from the Supreme Court’s decision in the Jones & Laughlin case. ‘The employe or labor position is based on rulings by the National Labor Relations Board, as well as on another decision of the Supreme Court, rendered just two weeks before, and, incidentally, by a unanimous vote. The reasoning adopted by the labor board is important to examine be- cause it undoubtedly will be the basis of the argument when the Inland Bteel case does reach the Supreme Court. ‘The labor board starts with the premise that the Wagner law com- mands collective bargaining and that this means a compulsion to negotiate. ‘The obligation of employers to nego- tiate or treai with employes, it con- tends, cannot be evaded by a pre- text or circumvented by some trumped up reason which has the guise of le- gality. Since the Wagner act lists as an “unfair labor practice” the “re- fusal” of an employer to bargain col- lectively with his employes, the board has ruled that a refusal to bargain David Lawrence. “in good faith” is a refusal to bar- gain at all ‘Tomorrow I shall attempt to de- scribe the basis of an employe's right to protection, as against improper in- fluence from any source when the question of unionization arises. THE EVEN G STAR, WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1937 — e ey e g Ao PAY, JULY 6 19 % AU erE opinions of the writers on this page are their own, not What’s Back of It All C. I. O. Held Similar to Alleged Movement of Communists to Seize Labor. BY H. R. BAUKHAGE. VER the holiday, Washington watched John L. Lewis, wondered if he were really out on a limb, with some of his cohorts busy with saw, hammer, and maybe sickle, trying to cut him eff from his C. I. O. Suddenly somebody thought to inquire: “Who started this industrial union business anyhow?” The answer came Wwith a shock, for memories are short If we are to believe the testimony of his own United Mine Workers of America, as embodied in Senate document No. 14 of the Fifty-eighth Congress, first session, Mr. Lewis lifted whole chunks of his C. I. O. program right out of the alleged attempt by Com- munists {o seize the American labor movement. (This is the title of workers' expose, which s a bitter attack on Com= munists and their methods.) * K K Kk Much of the material contained in the brochure, in the light of what didn't happen, reads like one of those mystery plots by Oppenheim. But pertinent paragraphs stand out. ‘Turn to page 2, for instance, third paragraph down: “The major points in this rev- olutionary program of the Com- munists as aimed against the United Mine Workers of America and other legitimate trade unions and the people of the United States and Canada are * * *" Let’s skip the first seven points since they proved false alarms. But look at No. 8: “Conversion of all craft trade unions into single units of workers within an industry known as ‘industrial unions.’ " Now jump to page 6, paragraph 5, discussing the Trade Union Educa- tional League, headed by William Z. Foster and “cultivated and promoted by the organizers and agents of the Communist and Workers' parties.” This paragraph. reads: “Through this organization the revolutionary leaders in America are making a Nation-wide attempt to obtain control of the American Federa- tion of Labor, reorganize the craft unions on the basis of ‘one big union’ in an industry,” and so on. * ok K % The United Mine Workers were, of course, at the time, January, 1924, extremely loyal to the American Federation of Labor. If, in the following quotation from their description of Communist activities, we read “William Green” instead of “Samuel Gompers,” history would seem to repeat herself with a slight touch of irony in her voice. Says the document: “A separate organization, fashioned® as a national labor movement, intended to work within the unions as a part of them—employing the process of ‘boring from within'—was put into the field. Samuel Gompers, they hoped, would be over- whelmed by it, for it was apparent that with his unyielding opposi- sition the American Federation of Labor could never be seized or controlled by them as long as he remained in it.” This highly pungent sauce, served with the Communist goose which the affrighted mine workers were trying to cook back in the good old days, doesn’t seem to be sauce for C. I. O. gander today. Industrial unions, which were poison to Mr. Lewis then, taste the same to Mr. Green today. Other times, other customs, x k% % As the Senate fight over the court bill begins, the public printer is hoping for another boom in his present best seller, the adverse report of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Roughly, 100,000 copies have been printed to date, but orders are still coming in. Seventy thousand of these were ordered for the use of Congress. They are paid for by the taxpayer. The other 30,000 was cash business, 10 cents per copy. singly, some- what less in large lots. They are paid for by private individuals or by organizations opposing the bill Further orders from similar sources are expected. Republican stock has gone up At least as quoted on the Boy Scout Jamboree exchange. It happened this way. An en- terprising Boy Scout from a Mid- western State wanted to get some kind of souvenir which he could trade in for a Texas horned toad, asking price 50 cents, or what have vou? So the Midwesterner hurried to his Congressman and asked for a souvenir. The Congressman, seeing nothing else handy, gave him a card of admission to the gallery. The boy went back and presumably got his lizard. Then things started. The nert day 300 Scouts discovered they came from the same Congressman’s district. He gave out 300 tickets and the market began to hum until the rest of the Scouts likewise discovered that they had Congressmen. Of course, Republicans are so scarce that the trading value of their passes shot up immediately. Progressive and Farmer-Laborite passes are £o0 high that there is almost no trading. (Copyright 17 | method he employed in deciding whom | W. P. A was created to tide the needy | ects, would cause grief to some worthy necessarily The Star’s. Such opinions are presented in The Star’s effort to give all sides of questions of interest to its readers, although such opinions may be contradictory among themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s. W. P. A. Official’s Arrest’ Imprisonment of Stein in New York Office Seen Sign of Government Weakness. BY MARK SULLIVAN., ELIEVE it or not this happened in the United States, within the past 10 days. It was all in the newspapers; it is from newspapers that the account here given is condensed. As everybody knows, W. P. A. is the agency through which the Fed- eral Government gives work to per- sons who say they are unable to get jobs in private industry. W.P. A, has many branches. One branch in New York takes care of unemployed writers and artists, It has sub - branches called the Federal Art, Music, Writ- ers’ and Historical Records Survey Projects—let us, to shorten the name, call it F. A. M. W. H. R. 8. P, or shorter yet. F. A. M. The Government official who acts | as business manager of this group of projects is Mr. Harold Stein. To Mr. Stein recently came orders from Washington that by July 15 he should reduce by one-fourth the number of persons receiving relief. This was part of a uniform reduction being made all over the country. Mr. Stein's task was, in effect, to run his pencil down the pay roll of F. A. M. and put a cross after every fourth name. And after that to put a pink dismissal slip in the pay envelopes of those marked for discharge. What Mark Sullivan. to keep and whom to dismiss is not | known. It seems, however, that he went to considerable pains not to do | injustice. In none of the newspaper | accounts of the sensational events that followed was mention made of any | charges that he had been arbitrary | or unfair. Disagreeable Task. Mr. Stein's task was a disagreeable and thankless one. On all W. P. A, projects are people who deserve sym- pathy and help. Some are on work | relief not because they are lazy and | shiftless; not because they are in- different to the onus which W. P. A, puts upon them: not because they shirk getting jobs in private business, but for other reasons—sickness, loss of savings, hard luck—reasons which do not reflect discredit on them. They, | as much as anybody, understand that | unemployed over from depression to recovery, and that it is a duty owed by | every person helped by W. P. A. to get back into a job in private business as | quickly as he can. Inevitabl Stein, in letting out one of every four of the persons employed by his proj- people. But W. P. A, including F. A. M., | contains some persons of a different type. It contains, no doubt, some who are chronically unwilling to work as hard as private jobs demand. It con- tains some who frankly hold, as a theory of government, that the Fed- eral Government should give work to everybody at all times. It contains | Washington to do what the commit- some who, according to persons in contact with the situation, are Com- munist agitators. Also, some on W. P. A. are exploited by radical leaders, who foment dissatisfaction with the persons on relief, and use this dis- satisfaction as a means of discredit- ing the existing form of Government. As so0n as reduction of F. A. M. was decided upon, it was known to the radical leaders. These at once devised ways to oppose the reduction and ex- ploit it. The first thing they decided on was to send 5,000 persons to picket City Hall. The next was a “hunger strike,” to get publicity that would suggest the misery of W. P. A.-ers after losing their jobs. Crowd Invades Office. On Friday, June 25, at 4 in the afternoon, Mr. Stein’s office was in- vaded by a crowd of 600 persons, described in newspaper reports as “artists, writers and musicians,” be- longing to a radical organization. Crowding about Mr. Stein's desk they demanded a conference. Mr. Stein said that if they would withdraw and name a committee to represent them, he would listen to what they had to y. This was done. Five persons were delegated by the crowd to talk with Mr. Stein. The others withdrew to the corridors and other rooms of the building. They placed a barri- cade outside th¥ door to Mr. Stein's office and stationed guards at the en- trances to the building. Mr. Stein told the committee he had no power to deal with them. They demanded that he telephone Wash- ington. He did so, under duress. Under duress, he transmitted to Wash- ington three questions which the com- mittee formulated “Because private re-employment in the arts is scarce, will an exception in economy cuts be made for W. P, A artists? | “Has the President's purported policy that no needy W. P. A. workers will be dropped been abandoned? “Will the W. P. A. set up an appeals | board to order reinstatements on a basis of need?” Remain in Stein's Office. ‘The replies from Washington not being satisfactory to the committee, they announced they would remain in Mr. Stein’s office until their demands were granted. | Meanwhile, & police captain, ac- | companied by five officers, attracted to the building by the commotion, | shouldered his way to Mr. Stein's side and offered to act as a guard if he wished to leave. He replied that he thought a riot would result if he attempted to go out. He said. “I believe I am not allowed to go.” Thereupon the police withdrew. Mr. Stein was kept in his office until 8 o'clock the next morning. At that hour he was released after agreeing to do all he could to get tee demanded. I have said this happened in Amer- ica. It could not happen in Rus-| sia—if any crowd attempted to bully & public official there the leaders would be shot the following morning. Yet the Russian form of government is what many of these persons want for America. It could not happen in Italy—Mussolini would ecrack the heads of all 600 of them. Nor in We, the People No Major Calamity Foreseen Should Wagner Run for Mayor of New York. BY JAY FRANKLIN, AM NOT among those who think it would be a major calamity to have Senator Bob Wagner accept Tammany's nomination to run against La Guardia for the office of Mayor of New York City. At first glance it looks like & device to remove two liberal figures from national politics, for Tammany could probably squeak back into the municipal building on Wagner's coat tails, thus subtracting him from his influential position in Washington and knocking the liberal La Guardia out of the picture, It is this which has made New Dealers reluctant to accept the Wagner candidacy. But if there is one thing which is evident in national politics, it is that Bob Wagner has just about shot his bolt. The Wagner labor relations act is the climax of & career devoted to policies in the interest of or- ganized labor. Now he is pretty nearly through. He is an elderly, tired man, and the job of Mayor of New York City pays more than does a United States senatorship. It would make a comfortable berth for a man who has done more than most to justify the existence of Tammany Hall to the Nation—for “Bob” has been a loyal Tammany man through and through—in Albany, on the bench and at Washington. * % x % If Wagner were Mayor of New York it would vastly simplify Jim Farley's immediate patronage problem and would help set the stage for Big Jim's campaign to make himself Governor of New York State. Furthermore, it would take Wagner out of the Senate at a time when he might have to vote to enlarge the Supreme Court, thereby making himself ineligible for elevation to that august tribunal. How- ever, if he were Mayor of New York at the time when the Supreme Court vote is taken, there would be no legal nbstacle to his nomina- tion for one of the ertra associate justiceships by Roosevelt or his successor. This all adds up, assuming that Wagner, a German Catholic, could defeat the flery little Jewish-Italian who now runs the city of New York, and who has given it its best administration in 50 years The reason I would welcome this development is because it would remove from Washington a man whose best work is behind him and make room in the Senate for Florello La Guardia. For the result of a deal by which Tammany borrowed Wagner to drive the Little Flower from the City Hall would be to leave two United States senatorships to be filled at the New York elections in 1938. * *x Perhaps Gov. Lehmann could be induced to give La Guardia a tempo- rary appointment to the vacated Wagner post, but in any case there will be Senator Royal 8. Copeland's seat as well as Wagner's to fill next year. Copeland or any one like him would be a pushover for La Guardia, since Tammany has only one Wagner and in the coming fusion of liberals, progressive Republicans and New —_— Deal Democrats La Guardia holds a key position. So the effect of Wagner's an- ticipated decision to run for the office of Mayor of New York may be to make it possible to send to the Senate a man who represents “the new immigration” which consti- tutes so much of the East's popu- lation; a man who has, moreover, a long record of service as & progres- = sive in Congress; a man who could pick up the torch from Wagner's failing fingers and carry on the fight against intrenched privilege This seems to me to be a logical and desirable development in the national politics of the New Deal. La Guardia is a New Dealer in every- thing but the party label. He was a New Dealer in Congress long before Roosevelt, and despite occasional blunders of the sort which wreck lttle men, he has come through as a practical reformer and a progressive politician, with none of the “goo-goo” taint which usually damns “reform administrations” in municipal politics. He is now big enough to return to the national picture as Senator, if not more. (Copyright. 1937) Germany—Hitler would do the same. | moved into the park, as compared with What is the meaning of the fact 5183 cars and 19.239 people during that it could and did happen in the same holiday week end in 1936, America? Is it merely that America | P S S RENO is an easy-goinz. tolerant count! 5 With an'eam-going, tolerant, Governe RECORD SET ment? Possibly, but there is a point | = where tolerance shades into weakness. | 210 Marriage Licenses Issued ¢Copyright, 1937.) Over Week End. EAATE Ik o RENO, July 6 (®.—This divorce PARK RECORD BROKEN ‘cupiul set a record for issuing mar- riage licenses over the holiday week end, . YELLOWSTONE PARK. Wyo., July County Clerk Elwood H. Beemer 6 (A.—All travel records for the!said 210 licenses had been issued be- Fourth of July holiday were shattered tween Saturday morning and noon At Yellowstone Park yesterday. | yesterday, compared to 172 granted West. Gate rangers registered 2 r,u.rl‘ in the biggest previous week end, last & minute Sunday, as 5.566 vehicles Labor di IT'S SWELL TO FEEL SWELL! To guard your health demand Zzzs4 cigarettes They BOTH Fool Swall. . . Young Miss Mary Perry of Cleveland, Ohio, old Mr. W. C. Perry of Indianspolis, Indians, granddaughter aad grandfather, Both delight in FRESH Old Golds. Both ssy, “It's swell to feel swelll O, G's are easicr on throst and merves!t AN OUTHR JACKET OF “CELLOPHANE" OPENS FROM THE YOU CAN'T STALE OLD “BBIGHT jes’ as well An American You Should Know Dr. Morrison Receives Plant Explorers’ Discoveries. BY DELIA PYNCHON. ROM plant explorers in the fag corners of the world come vege etables, shrubs, trees. Rare or utilitarian, the plants fit into the vast climatic soil needs of our countny. State and Federal stations » o test them for ef- E ficiency and breeding purpos- es. When the % National Arbore- P tum gets under f way a permanent home for world plant life will be available in Washington. On the receive ing end of new stock is the Die vision of Plant Exploration and Introduction, Bue reau of Plant In- dustry, Department of Agriculture. Dr. B. Y. Morrison and a staff of 135 receive the tender young immigrants and introduce them to their new teste ing homes. “Reintroduction of wild stock is vale uable,” Morrison says. Plant life may | well become too refined. too cultivated after a time. From India have come virile new stock from the pumpkin squash family, citrus fruits of the mountains, cold-resistant type; peache es at home in hot climates. From Mexico, Central and South America arrive new tobacco seeds. From China come soy beans, the Chinese elm of great beauty, a crested wheat grass of merit in the dust bowl for a cover crop. From Japan and South America come blight-resistant chestnuts, alfale fa, peanuts. Each country has its contribution to awaken slumbering stocks, inject the necessary virility for }\hnr far-flung American homes. | Morrison has many asides. He bes | longs to garden clubs and horticule | tural societies all over the country, He wants to keep alive demands for better plant strains. Though born in Atlanta, Ga., Mor- | rison has Jived in Washington ever since he can remember. A graduate | of the University of California in 1913, with graduate work at Harvard in | landscape architecture, he spent a year in the Orient on a Sheldon traveling fellowship. a year in the Army, and returned in 1920 to the Bureau of | Plant Industry, where he has been ever since Of intense interest to Morrison, to Washington and to the country at large is the National Arboretum. Mor- rison calls himself the “stepfather” of the movement, which proposes to be | an open-air museum for trees. shrubs |and plants. Three hundred and ty lush acres. with 800 the aim, await a planting design on the Ana- costia River. Ground is cleared, and 30 different varieties of soil are ready and waiting. Congress passed the bill to establish the National Arboretum in 1927 by appropriating $300,000. Small yearly appropriations have been only enough to clear the ground. More is needed. It will be a laboratory to | develop new strains, a mecca for sciene tists, & beauty spot, where the eve may be held, science satisfled, utility served. B. Y. Morrison. INNER JACKET OF “CELLOPHANE™ OPENS FROM THE TOP BUY A GOLD smoke a parcel o’ hay!” Grandpa used to grumble, whenever I lit up a cigarette. But he quit being pernickety, the minute he tried one of my Old G olds. “I got to admit,” he confessed, “this here cigarette is fresh an’ tasty as berries an’ cream! Fact is ... 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