Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1933-11-17

'%'jell." A lot of the froth, in the
shape of wild doctrines and loose
talk, has been SKINNED off and
what was fluid and formless less
two or three weeks ago is begin
ning to assume shape and some
thing resembling solidity.
What the mass needed was pee
tin. Anyone who doesn't know
what pectin is had better talk to
some housewife who has tried to
make Jelly without it. And the
pecrin in this instance. the precipt-
ant that started things to settling
down. came from two sources out
side the Administration circles.
One was Henry Ford and one was
Gerard Swope.
Ford, as everyone knows, re
fused to sign the Blue Eagle Code.
He also refused to join the Ma
tional Automobile Chamber of
Commerce. which is the trade as
ISOLATION set up for the automotive
industries under the Recovery Act.
General Johnson threatened and
fumed. He expressed the idea the
public would breakdown" on
Henry for what seemed to him some
thing like treason. He even swap
ped his official Lincoln car for a
Cadillac, because Ford owns the
Lincoln company. He tried to get
a Ford dealers bid for trucks re-
'ected by the Army, even though
it was the lowest bid. 1t looked
like hard shedding for Henry, to
hear the General tell it.
The Sbowdown
Then all of a sudden, it turned
out that Henry Ford had been
right and General johnson wrong,
all The time. Henry hasn't signed
the Blue Eagle agreement, but the
high legal officials of the Admin
~istration are agreed that he doesn't
have to if he doesn't want to, nor
does anyone else have to. 1t is
purely voluntary agreement.
Neither does he have to join the
Trade Association of his industry.
That, again, is a matter of choice.
All Henry has to do, it turns out,
is to pay wages as high as rheI
set forth in the code.
work as short hours as the codel
calls for, and let his employees
baragin with HIM collectively.
1t has been acceded from the
state that Henry was okay on hours
and wages, but the Federation of
Labor thought they had him on
the collective bargaining PROPOSE
iron. Hadn't there been strikes at
his Edgewater plant and elsewhere?
Weren't a lot of Ford men out?
Where did collective bargaining
come. in?
The Labor Administration in
vestigated and gave Henry a clean
bill of health. There never had
been any objection raised to Ford
employees acting as a unit in a de-
mand for different working con-
ditions. They had demanded and
Ford had refused. He had made
an offer and they had refused it.
And Senator Wagner, spokesman
for Labor, had to admit that there
was nothing in the law to compel
any employer to agree to the col
lective demands of his workers, any
more than the workers could be
compelled to accept any proposal
they didn't like, from the employer.
Labor Also Learns
That, in effect, was a swat in the
eye for the Federation of Labor
leaders who have been proclaiming
from the rooftops that the Recov-
cry Act is their meat. They were
going right out and organize every
body into unions. For that mat
ter, nothing is stopping them ex-
cept the fact that in the manufac-
turing industries most Of the big
companies have beaten them to it
and have encouraged company
unions, which are functioning with
out the aid of the Federation.
The Ford episode and its outcome
have gone a long way to dispel
some of the genuine fears of indus
trial and business leaders. 1t is
clear now hat nobody has to sign.
any of his rights away or disclose
trade secrets to his business rivals,
so long as he adheres to the funda-
mental provisions of the Recovery
Act. And it is clear that business
is not going to be turned over in
"a block to the Federation of La
Dor, which is what more business
men feared than any lother one
th;no. except nerhans the fear If