The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-11-18
BY RODNEY BUTCHER Democrat Washington
 C0FreGnondentl


 Washington, Nov. 19-Behind the fuss, fury, and ballyhoo over Maj. George Berry's NRA convention of labor and industry Dec. 9 IS obscur- ed the one real explanation of what the show is all about:
 This administration, though un- willing to admit 1t publicly as yet, wants a national 40-hour work week, child labor legislation, and if possible--a minimum wage law.
 Purpose of the Berry conference is to drum up articulate support from industry for such program in the next congress. In cafn- paign year 1t isn't considered good medicine to seem to be showing such legislation down industry's throat.
 Insiders are uncertain whether @ majority of the industrial repre- sentatives at the meeting can be persuaded to support industrial legislation of this type.
 MIRA is dead and as good as gone. There's no thought of trying to revive 1t. But the big problems MIRA was supposed to solve remain.
 Unemployment, the biggest, Is accentuated by everybody's realiza- ton that if 1929 production levels are regained within a year -- as some dministrationists expect -- six or eight million people still will be out of work.
 Such a labor surplus is sure to hold down wages and mass pur- chasing power while continuing the relief problem.
 Code labor standards have been generally smashed except where strong labor unions could preserve them, and output per man per hour, meaning technological unem- ployment, increases rapidly. Roosevelt Wants Laws
 What Roosevelt would like Is an admission by industry of the necessity for labor legislation. He doesn't want to kiss NRA goodby without leaving something in the statutes that will tend toward cur- ing the unemployment disease and that can be amended later as need seems to require.
 Unsympathetic with organized labor's demand for a drastic 30- hour week, he nevertheless feels the principle of 40-hour week should be conceded by any reason- able industrialist and that e short- eliing of hours is still vital need of the industrial system.
 There are plenty of industrialists who agree with him--and there's reason to believe they're being or- gunized for the December meeting. But they seem to be outweighed by the mass production industrialists who want no industrial legislation, led by automobiles, steel, chemicals, electrical equipment, and allied fl- nancial interests.
 Outcome of the session is unpre- dictable as yet and 1t may just be Q cat-and-dog fight between indus try and labor. But the foregoing is what it's all about.
 Still Flowing Elm Under
 The department of agriculture experimental farm at Beltsville, Md. hatches 1900 chicks . week for It's breeding experiments.
 It used to sell them, receiving some return on the expense.
 Now 1t kills them and blows them under.
 Private poultry interests ob- jected to the competition. Not the First TurndOwn
 If you read how the New York. New Haven & Hartford railroad was turned down by the Interstate Commerce Commission for another REC loan and consequently was forced into reorganization, you probably also read that this was the first instance of its kind.
 That isn't so. Several other roads, some of them large, have been turned down informally and with out publicity by the ICC, with the result that they went into bank xuptcy.
 Among the roads which have gone into reorganization fin the last year or so are Chicago & Great Western, Northwestern, Missouri Pacific, Western Pacific, and Dem yer & Rio Grande.
 Most such roads tried to borrow additional money from REC and were refused by ICC informally. (RFC Is barred by law from lend- ing government money when earn ings fail to justify it)
 The big thing the ICC had in mind in promptly making public its decision as to the New Haven