Montana labor news., 1934-09-13
The Washington Scene


WASHINGTON-CFP)-Th Mid
west has had the hottest and driest
summer in AZ years; 60 per cent OF
the nations farm lands have been
scared; 70 millions of our people are
affected.
Business, on the other hand, hasn't
been so hot.
These are the reports IN the White
House desk which give President
Roosevelt that typical blue after-va-
cation experience.
Last spring business was telling
Washington; "Just get Congress to
go home, give us a breathing space and
business will pick up" Roosevelt sent
Congress home, then he went on a
vacation which took him farther out
of reach than any previous president
in history and he ordered all his subor-
dinates to do the same. Yet business
collapsed. Now he faces an insistent
demand from every direction that the
administration give US a plan by which
industry, labor and the government
may cooperate to restore business"
as President William Green of the
American Federation Of Labor recently
put it.
R~oosevelt's business advisers tell
him there has been an upturn in real
wages (what the workers actually get
in food, clothing, etc. and in corpora
ton profits. The figures show:
Increase in profits of 1853 corpora
tons, $50 per cent.
Increase in real wages, 2.8 per cent.
The profits figures cover the first
six months of 1884 against the year
previous, as reported by Moody's, and
the wages are for June, 1884, as COM
pared with June, 1888, from the Ma
tional Industrial Conference Board.
The campaign to get heavy indus
try to employ several hundred thou
sand more workers has Topped. Steel
production is under 20 per cent of ca
pactiy, only a little above the low point
of the whole depression, for example.
The whole durable goods group of in
dustries is operating at a point slightly
above the 1900 figure in physical vol
ume and at the lowest point since
1900, with the exception of a brief
recent period. Those industries are at
about half of recent normal and in
the five years of depression have pro-
duced 60-odd billions less than nor
NAL.
The physical volume Of retail sales
continues at a point we'll below last
year, even dollar sales have fallen be-
low the 1888 mark despite the price
increase. So well do the spectators
understand these happenings that
they are bidding up the price of food
stuffs on the Chicago pit to the highest
point in years while they are selling
stock on Wall Street down to the low
est point since 1882. To Washington
that means low payrolls and high food
costs this winter-and if you spell that
one out it looks like Trouble.
4 +
The capital is waiting eagerly to see
whether Roosevelt will now call the
fat boys in, saying in fatherly fashion
"Now papa gave you plenty of time
to make your promise good that if you
were left alone business would pick
up. You failed. I'm going to take
these hungry millions off the relief
rolls by really starting the public
works there has been so much talk
about.
you'll see 1000 farm cities under
way instead of the 48 we have just an
nounced. We're going to stop plow-
ing under cotton and wheat and whole
industries and communities. We're
going to start raising crops of food
and clothing and autos and cotton mat
tresses and canned goods and electric
power-for the hungry of our coun-
try"
Those who still insist that Roose-
welt is a liberal and a humanitarian,
that he is deeply grieved by the con-
dition of the suffering farmers and
workers, insist that he will soon an
nounce some such program. Other
wise they see nothing ahead but des-
perate suffering this winter.
4 4
Others point out that General John
son is still in the saddle with his labor
hating speeches; that w. w. Hus-
band, r%eactionary Hooverite, has been
called back to the Department of La
Dor; that troops in many states are
being given special riot training; that
nothing is done about the Hartman
Blue Eagle s%ellout; that the NRA is
still cracking down on hot dog stands
exclusively.
The Roosevelt administration is still
drifting along planlessly, torn between
the Juggling and pulling of a dozen
social PHILOSOPHERS but with neither
philosophy nor economic plan, they
say. They predict that worse blowups
than San Francisco are in the not too
distant future unless a miracle of
changed policy comes to Washington.
#*s*******%e* **a*@--s*es.s