Evening star., 1934-06-16
BY HUGH S. JOHNSON.

The first year OF N. r. A. has
demonstrated that we are on the
right track-American business, labor
and Government have, acting in con-
cert, raised purchasing power and en-
ployment, stimulated production on
sane lines.
The year. with all its accomplish
ment, has laid a firm groundwork for
execution of the idea with which
Franklin D. Roosevelt and his sup
porters In industry and labor started
out. We have no time to spend pat
ting ourselves on the back, for right
now and in the months ahead the
task confronts us of consolidating
the national gains that have been
scored, of refining and perfecttng
codes and their administration.
But the record of N. r. A. to date
is one for Americans to take pride
in. Once the confusion stirred by
the yapping and hullabaloo of die
hard critics is pushed aside, we have
cold. hard facts to point to:
Substantially all industry has come
forward voluntarily to cooperate in
the enterprise Of economic restoration.
Four hundred and fifty codes are oper-
ating. The remainder will soon be
done.
Three Million at Jobs.
Private pay rolls have increased
by billions of dollars over a year ago;
an absolute minimum of 5000, ,000
more workers are employed, and
hundreds of thousands of these owe
their jobs to nothing in the world but
the shortening Of work hours by codes
The principle that a working man
or woman is entitled to a decent wage
that labor Is not commodity to be
purchased at the hardest bargain to
be driven-has been established, ]
firmly believe, for all time.
The abolition of child labor-an
objective which alone would have
justified the effort which Government
and industry have poured into the
N. r. A. plan-has been accomplished,
and our Nation will not again see a
day when children have to slave in
mills and factories to exc out the
starvation earnings Of their parents.
These are things no one can chal-
1enge-they are victories for Ameri-
can good sense, freed of time-worn
and ineffective restraints, and direct
ed into channels Of cooperation.
Small Man Helped.
On another score, N. r. A. codes
have served the Nation as no force
before mustered could have served
despite the fulminations of Clarence
Darrow and his review board, the
codes have reversed a process by
which small business men were being
driven to the wall, and out to the
breadlines by the thousands every
year.
We have. over and over again, in
retail trades and in manufacturing in
dustries, set up bars which kept big,
powerful firms from smashing their
small competitors. Many a small
merchant whose business Is picking
up now owes his continued existence
to nothing but the restraint the codes
have put upon his stronger competi-
tors.
N. r. A. will not try to claim the
whole credit for the long way this
country has come from the misery
and chaos of early last year. Its own
job could not have been accomplished
without the huge beneficial effects OF
the Presidents sane monetary policy;
the farm program, the p. w. A. and
C. w. A., with its emergency employ
ment of four million men, and the
many other acts with which the Gov
ernment met the depression.
Permanent Work.
But ours is not only an emergency
Job. We are looking forward to the
permanent inplanting of sane COM
petitive ideas in industry; to develop
ing the true conception of partnership
between employers and their workers.
In these days the country is burdened
by labor strife, almost entirely be-
cause of misunderstanding both by
employers and workers Of what the
industrial act and N. r. A. codes
offer to them for cooperation and for
obtaining their just share Of the fruits
of industry.
But, troubling as this spectacle is
and dangerous to the well-being OF
both industry and labor. our first year
has brought outstanding examples of
advance In labor relations.
I point always first to the bitumin-
GUS coal industry, periodically torn in
the past by brutal labor warfare. This
time last year operators from various
sections of the country hardly would
meet in the same room; they were Bit
ter enemies fighting by every means
for the dwindling business
that existed. Without q strong labor
from top to bottom OF
that industry, it would not have been
possible to develop the single national
code under which the coal mines OF
the country are operating today. The
for the first time in years,
obtained by that code real wages and
their grievances now are adjusted as
they should be, tn negotiation across
the table.
The same machinery Of conciliation
and compromise has just prevented
an unnecessary strike in the textile
industry; an even worse conflict in the
automobile industry was averted
earlier In the Spring. and there are
countless instances which never made
headlines or caused concern outside