The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-03-27
BEHIND THE SCENES WASHINGTON
White House Is Convinced That Strikes Are Not Too Good Fer ROOsevelt's Su- preme Court Plans.
-@v ROONEY BUTCHER
Democrat Washington Cerre.
 spOndent

Washington. March 27, 1937-The decision for a White House confer ence to discuss possible legislation to meet the epidemic of sitdown strikes followed weeks of confiden- tial debate over the question whe- ther the strikes were helpful or hindering the president. The idea gradually has been sink ing in that the effect on the middle class" section of the public mind has not been so good. especially with reference to the Roosevelt su- preme court plan. Most politicians talk and act as if the court proposal were all that mattered nowadays, and White House reactions are al- most exclusively conditioned by fac- tors pertaining to it.
 Optimistic New Dealers - or
 some of them-flgured for awhile that the sitdown strikes and the
 mental disquiet they caused would
 lead public opinion to support of
 She presidents plan. Some such
 plan would be needed, people were
 expected to think, to let congress
 enact such labor legislation as the Wagner act and other advisable measures.
 That argument has gone over very well in labor ranks. The decisions of the supreme. court have been cited, even by such an opponent of the plan as Senator Borah of Idaho, as an excuse for sitdown strikers. On the other hand, the OppOsi- ti0n appears to have been making
 headway among white collar ranks
 with the charge that the admins
 trati0n's amiable attitude toward the Michigan sitdowns had indi-
 cated such a radical, prO-labor at-
 titude that it had become imper-
 ative to balk it i'm any further reach for power.
 New federal conciliation machin- cry probably will be set up. But there are no signs yet of any meas ure which will be distasteful to or- ganized labor. Organized labor is the chief pressure group behind the presidents court plan and Roosevelt isn't skipping any of his friends on the wrist-not until this fight is over, at least.
 Always One Idea
 You can depend on at least one new idea popping up in every con- gress and Representative Alfred N. Phillips, Jr., of Connecticut, has seen to it that the current session doesn't disappoint in that respect.
 Phillips proposes that all poison ous snakes be killed and stuffed. He means the ones in the zoos, pointing out that some of the worlds most venolnous reptiles are separated from us only by a pane of glass.
 We are Subjecting the people of
 this continent to an unnecessary
 future hazard in importing pois-
 OnOus reptiles and allowing them
 to live i'm North America" he says.
 ''In case of earthquake, flood, war
 or other unforeseen disaster, these
 creatures might escape and breed.
 They would be just as valuable if
 they were stuffed as they are
 alive"
 In time of great disaster, Phillips believes, nobody is going to take the trouble to run out to the ZOOS and kill the snakes there.
 Phillips doesn't like snakes. More for Work Relief
 Likelihood that more than the $l ,50O, ,O00, 900 limit desired by Roose- welt will be appropriated for the next fiscal years work-relief pro- gram is chiefly due to increased un- willingness of municipalities to care for their able-bodied employable cit- izens cut off rolls of curtailed WPA activities.
 Roosevelt once promised a federal program which would take care of all the nations needy employables. The promise hasn't been kept, but there might be little pressure for it's observance if local taxpayers were not complaining that the expense of caring for destitute unemployables is all they can stand.
 Copyright, 1897, NEA Service, Incl