Imperial Valley press., 1933-10-17
ISSUES 7
PUZzL|NC To !
NRA LEADERS
Retail Code, Recognition OF
Blue Eagle And Labor Trou-
bIes Present Problems.
MAY DROP COST PLUS IDEA
Agricultural Pressure Causes
Johnson To Adopt Compro-
mise Attitude.
By JULIUS FRANDSEN
United Press Staff Correspondent

BY JULIUS FRANDSEN
United Press Staff Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Oct. Ire
covery officials today pondered de-
cisions on three issues likely to
have a profound bearing on the
governments rehabilitation drive.
The questions revolved around:
l. The master retail code, af-
fecting nearly 100000 stores, A.
100000 employees and the whole
consuming public Indications point
ed toward a compromise which
would merely ban sales at less than
cost, instead of the present cost
plus 10 per cent provision. s,
2. Blue eagle enforcement and
the question of stimulating popu-
lar support for stores operating un-
der the MIRA symbol.
3. Enforcement. of the national
labor boards orders in its efforts
to compose differences between
capital and labor.
On the retail code Administrator
Hugh S. Johnson, in recent weeks
a staunch supporter of the cost plus
10 per cent provision as means
of checking ruthless competition,
appeared to be about ready to-.
abandon the 10 per cent. Agricul-
tural relief officials and some eco
nomists within the NRA brought
heavy pressure against the cost
plus 10 per cent provision on the
ground that it would increase the
disparity between farm and retail
prices and perhaps also curtail city
purchasing power.
Recovery officials who have sup-
ported the 10 per cent provision
most strongly were still hopeful that
President Roosevelt would side
with them in the final decision.
However, Johnsons disposition to
compromise made this doubtful.
Some officials expressed belief
that the code might go to the White
House by nightfall.
Blue Eagle Disregarded
AS for the blue eagle, high NRA
authorities frankly expressed con-
Germ over reports of marked de-
cline in public attention to the
symbol. They cast about for pos
sible means of again directing at
tention to what they regarded as
the necessity for support of estab-
lishments living up to the agree
ments for which the eagle stands.
The immediate enforcement prob
lem was eased by change of front
on the part of employers who re-
fused at first to take down their
eagles when so ordered. Protests
continued to come in however from
scattered establishments which de-
clared they could no longer afford
| to continue under their re-employ-
ment agreements because compe-
titors were violating them. Local
| compliance boards were ordered to
put increasing pressure on the vio-
| lators.
The national labor board faced
] the necessity of making good at an
early date on its promise that 1t
! would require" employers to sub
nit to it's Jurisdiction in labor dis
putes. The immediate case at hama
was that of nine western Kentucky
coal operators who ignored and de-
fled summonseS to hearing last
week on charges that they were
discriminating against union labor.
The board settled one difficult
case yesterday when it obtained an
agreement under which strike q
several thousand men at the plants
Of the National and Weirton Steel
companies of Weirton and Clarks-
burg, w, Va. and Stuebenville, O,
was to end today. t.