The Wilmington morning star., 1940-12-09
WASHINGTON
DAYBOOK
BY JACK STINNETT

- ANA y NAV~JS ~ ~
that even the noisiest congressional observers
can smell a new law coming. The distance
from the point where new legislation is in
troduced to the point where it is written on
the statute books is no straight line and even
if it were, it would be too great for mortal
eyesight.
But when bills directed at a single subject
begin to drop into the hopper like ticker-tape
on a New York hero and when speeches on
the particular subject begin to sizzle into white
heat, you can be pretty sure that Congress is
blowing a note you are going to keep hearing.
That is just what has been happening in
the House of Representatives, and the subject
has been: Putting a stop to labor strike in
defense industries.
Rep. Howard W. Smith, conservative Vir-
ginia Democrat, chairman of the committee
to investigate the National Labor Relations
Board, and author of the NLRB amendments
which passed the House two-to-one, is also the
author of one of the new bills designed to
eliminate strikes in defense industry.
Mr.. Smith was one of the mildest to take
the floor in the present round of denunciation,
but speaking of recent strikes in the alumni
mum and airplane industries, he did get work.
ed up enough to ask the House: Nov, does it
strike you as significant that this little handful
Of radical reds in these various key matters
have been able to absolutely stop the produc-
ton of necessary and essential materials in
two of the most important things this country
has to deal with?'
And he drew a generous round of applause
when he concluded with: II just urge the
Congress again to wake up and get out of
the class of Rip Van Wrinkle and let us do
something about it."
Others Speak Out
Judge Hatton W. Summers, chairman of the
judiciary committee, to which the Smith bill
will go for report to the House, is about as
quiet-tempered and dignified as representa-
tives come, but he startled his colleagues by
declaring angrily that the country is afflicted
with "a bunch of cutthroats" who are doing
"a dastardly thing and preaching force
and that they fought to be given a double
dose of their own medicine"
John Costello, whose bailiwick is Hollywood,
suggested that the business looked to him
like IAN organized program-possibly a plot"
Eugene Cox, of Georgia, shouted sabotage"
and Unreasonable conduct and Robert F.
Rich, of Pennsylvania, suggested a cure in
Concentration camps"
Clare E. Hoffman, Allegan, Mich, Republi-
can, wanted to know: us enc of the detectives
aid and comfort to Hitler by the slowing up
of our industries?"
What brought all this to a head was the
since-settled strike in the airplane factory in
California concerning which Jerry Voorhis, Los
Angeles representative, said the laborers were
justified in demanding higher wages. Voorhis
said, however, that he did believe the Cali
fornia strike had been unnecessarily prolong-
ed.
Still Smoldering
That's the battle to date and the controversy
still is smoldering. What will come of the
proposed legislation nobody at this date could
even guess. Unless some greater emergency
arises, it won't come up until after the new
Congress convenes in January.
The Smith bill provides a maximum life
Imprisonment penalty for sabotage and for
bids the closed shop in defense industries.
On the strike situation, its keynote is media
ton" with a preliminary "cooling-off period"
of 80 days. The chief weapon of enforcement
in this phase of the bill would be public
opinion, with, in the event of no settlement
through mediation or arbitration, the Presi-
dents issuing a statement, proclaiming the
offending party. 3