Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-07-01

advance three or four cents a can,
without warning, but very soon.
All the housewives in town, save
a few who would be very hard up,
would be at the grocer's next morn
ing laying in a supply. Very provi-
dent ones would ask the price of a
case. And incidentally such move
ment, if sufficiently widespread,
would have the effect of pushing the
price of canned milk up anyhow,
even if the rurnor had been entirely
false at the beginning.
Close Parallel
This last is a very close paral-
lei to what has happened on gold.
AS matter of fact there was no
intention whatever of reducing the
price of gold when the rumors first
began to circulate in foreign CAPT
tails. Some one figured out that
America really didn't need all this
gold, could not afford to 60 on Dor
rowing money, on which interest
would have to be paid, to buy it.
So he began commenting on the
possibility of a reduction in price
by Washington.
The word went round the world
like wildfre, and gold began pour
ing to the United States. 1t had
been coming steadily before, but
now it became such flood that the
British government stepped in, at
the request of Washington that
something be done about it, and be-
gan buying.
The trouble really is that all the
precious metal dealers in the world
and they are credited with being
a pretty shrewd crowd Of operators
Remembered the American silver
fasco. How the same administra-
ton now in power started to put
the world price of silver up to $1.29
an ounce, starting when it was
around As cents. How they ran it
up, by big purchases, to nearly
80 cents, and then, suddenly, got
cold feet. Whereupon the price of
silver dropped right back to As
cents, with Uncle Sam still holding
all the silver bought at higher
prices.
They expect the same thing again,
and it is not difficult to understand
why.
Big Fight Ahead
Compulsory arbitration of labor
disputes, with government officials
as the referees, will be the issue in
the next big labor campaign, high
New Deal officials predict. When it
comes all the present labor leaders
will be in the opposition, and will
part company for the first time
with a considerable element of the
New Dealers.
The fight will not come, New Deal
ers admit privately, until the pres
ent campaign is over, with victory
perched on the banners of organized
labor. Some of them think this will
take two years, some figure it will
take longer, but they do not expect
the opening of the compulsory ar
bitration fight until the entire coun-
try is on a closed shop basis.
A hint of this, and that the proba-
bility is realized by New Dealers and
labor leaders alike, was manifest in
the recent Consumers Power strike
in Michigan. John L. Lewis rushed
lieutenants to the spot by plane,
stressing in his public statement
that the men did not know an agree
ment had been reached. He obvi-
ously did not want discussion as
to the right of the men to tie up an
industry, and punish hundreds of
thousands of innocent bystanders, in
order to hurry the negotiations.
But Governor Frank Murphy had
just wired a demand that power be
furnished without any such apology.
It was Immediately after hearing
this that Lewis statement was is
sued. There was a suspicion at
c. I. O. headquarters that Governor
Murphy's demand would have been
made regardless of this agreement
having been reached.
That was disturbing thought. 1t
involved not the obvious difficulty
about unauthorized strikes, insubor-
dination in labor ranks, etc., but
whether labor has the right to
strike when such a strike would
bring hardship and suffering
stead of merely advanced costs-to
the general public of any commu-
nifty. It is the sort of issue in
volved in the general strikes so
much discussed few years back,
and tried unsuccessfully in England,
Sure to Come
Compulsory arbitration is coming.
There is no doubt about that. But
it is not coming quickly. 1t may
not come for several years. But the
feeling even among strongly pro-la-
Dor New Dealers is that someone
simply must be supreme, and this
someone must have political respon-
sibility-be responsive to the pub
lie.
But there will be no real move
with any chance of success, the New
Dealers say, until labor has won
the present campaign. Until then,
they think, the government should
bo m tho Sido of Labor.