The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1933-07-14


Johnson ministrator) has
Gets Action been moving with
so much speed that
he now has between thirty and forty
major Industries in agreement respect
ing principles and practices which
each group shall follow in getting In
dustrial machinery into motion, labor
employed and buyers buying again.
He has accomplished these things by
sheer driving power coupled with the
full force of publicity. Industrial lead
ers have had to stand hitched, have
had to make concessions and have had
to abandon a lot of their own ideas
In order to reach the agreements, but
Ira has brought them together because
the bulk of them were afraid of the
spotlight of publicity If they failed
to cooperate.
Developments under the Industrial
recovery act, the program which the
President drove through congress as
a means of making partners of bust
ness and government, have begun to
ed the President by that law. They
reveal likewise the enormous pressure
than can be exerted in the name of
the government of the United States
and the Subordination to which even
additionally Independent and free
Americans will subject themselves in
time of stress. But simultaneously, OBJ
servers here have noted the undercur-
rent of anger among those same in
dustrialists at the use Of the powers
of the government in the way they
are being used. In other words, I
think it is no exaggeration to say the
majority of the Industrial codes were
worked out under duress and fear and
that the majority of those agreeing to
each code had their fingers crossed
and their tongues in their cheeks when
they signed on the dotted lines.
General johnson has a term-pine-
apples-by which he describes the
knotty problems constantly recurring
in his negotiations with the various
Industrial groups. 1t is freely pre-
dicted both among the industrialists
who came here for their conferences
on the new codes and among WISE
acres in the government that there
will be surplus of pineapples along
with some other crops this year.
Ira had hardly been under way a
week with conferences in which the
codes worked out by the industrialists
for governing their industries were
being aired when up came the age-old
pineapple of capital versus labor"
Capital can not be criticized too much
for desiring to protect itself. and Ia
Dor cannot be criticized too much for
demanding what it considers to be its
rights. Yet the feeling here seems
to be that each must 60 along within
reason under present conditions, or
else each will be put in the position
of cutting off its nose to spite its face.
Ira was pretty hard boiled" on this
program and full head of steam was
developed that resulted in an newt
able blow-off.
The blow-off came with startling
suddenness. Like lightning out of a
blue sky came Miss
Came the Frances Perkins, the
BIow-0H secretary of labor,
some solid demands in hearing be-
fore Ira. She said that capital was
trying to take advantage of labor, that
it was sliding out from under the
terms of the law which created Ira's
job, and that Ira was moving with
such speed to get recovery under way
that labor was going to suffer. Miss
Perkins did not say it that way, yet
my language is no stronger than hers.
That was an unexpected pineapple,
indeed Ira had been face to face with
several of them. This, however, was
the first shot from what had been
looked upon as neutral in the war
between the capital and labor troops.
Correspondents who attended that
hearing were given the impression that
Ira did not enjoy the labor secre-
tary's speech one bit Some of his as
sociates surely did not like 1t all,
but they were less restrained than was
Ira, himself, and the gossip around
Washington is that Ira's staff will be
happy to see Miss Perkins remain In
her office which is some seven blocks
from the colossal department of COM
merce building where General John
son has headquarters.
Washington is actually overwhelmed
with codes these days. Ira has his
crop of new codes of principles and
practices for industry, Secretary Of
Agriculture Wallace is developing a
barnyard full Of codes in attempting
to carry out the so-called farm parity
bill with its processing taxes. options
to the farmers to buy hold-over cot
ton. and acreage reduction for vari-
GUS crops, and Agricultural Relief Ad-
ministrator George N. Peek and Farm
Credit Administrator Henry Morgen-
than, Jr., have their codes. Each
one has Its definite purpose and each
one fits into the picture which Presf-
dent Roosevelt 10 frvinO IN mt foOoth