Evening star., 1940-03-23

any amendments %% Y
to the law. The . N
House Labor 16&
Committee has (M
yielded to labor
board conten- David Lawrence.
tions and has ignored the testi-
mony before the special House COM
mittee headed by Representative
Smith of Virginia, Democrat, which
revealed an amazing amount of in
efficiency and abuse of power.
But-so long as the Labor Board
can control influential House mem
bers' votes and keep the impression
alive that President Roosevelt will
veto any substantial changes in the
Wagner lava majority of both
houses of Congress can be frustrated
In their attempts to secure a re-
vision of the labor relations law.
The President, by the exercise of
the veto power, is more powerful
than two-thirds of the Senate and
one vote less than tWo-thirds of the
House of Representatives. Advocates
of revision of the Wagner law in
sist that they want action at this
session and that they desire a fair
instead of a one-sided law
Driven into Corner.
The labor board and its principal
ally, the c. I. o., have announced
that the Smith committee which
investigated the board wants ito
emasculate" the law This is not
true but it draws smokes screen
across the whole issue and leaves a
majority of both houses of Congress
virtually at the mercy of the LABOR
board and its allies unless President
Roosevelt joins the drive to change
the law and really make it fair to
all sides.
But Mr.. Roosevelt has not re-
vealed his desires. He conferred
recently with Representative Smith
of Virginia and there is no indica-
ton of how he feels about the Smith
committee amendments. He has
let it be known that he thinks some
action should be taken-possibly
what are described as mild
amendments. Under the circum-
stances there is no course left to a
majority of the House Of Represent
atives except to examine closely the
current appropriation for the LABOR
board
Appropriation Trimmed.
The House Appropriations Com
mittee already has cut the pro-
posed expenditure by the board but
there would be every sound reason
vhv the House should postpone al
together any consideration OF the
labor boards appropriation until the
attitude of the President and the
New Deal sponsors OF the LABOR
board is fully known.
This correspondent more than
wear ago took the position that 1t
was wrong to hamstring the board
bv cutting its appropriations and
insisted that the fortnight way to
tackle the dissatisfaction with the
Wagner law was to bring in a bill
to amend the law. 1t is plain now
that an entirely new board is
needed and the House has no al
tentative but to use its power OF
the purse to prevent the majority IN
Congress from having their legis-
lative desires tl1warted.
The other day the adminlstra-
n-controlled House Labor Com
mittee refused to eliminate the pres
ent members of the board whose
maladministration is written IN
hundreds of pages of sworn testl-
mony and official documentary evl-
dence The committee insisted on
merely adding two members. but
retaining the present personnel OF
three, which means, of course, no
substantial change in personnel at
all.
The whole board has been shot
through with bias and zealotry, &C
cording to the records Of the Smith
committee. 1t is natural that the
country should want board which
has such extraordinary power over
the employee employer relations of
millions of workers and industries
involving billions of dollars in pri-
vate property to be above suspicion
either as to impartiality or eff
cheney.
Conception of Duty Warped.
The present board has had a con-
scientious purpose viewed from the
standpoint of partisanship, but this
has led to warped conception of
public duty. The board members
have felt that the law gave them
a mandate to unionize America, even
when workers did not want their
satisfactory relations with employers
disturbed. Likewise the board has
favored industrial unionism as
against craft unionism in many de-
eisions-a discretionary power that
never should have been vested in
the board by Congress. If the board
were not so insistent on preventing
Congress from making needed
changes and If it had not engaged
tn lobby to perpetuate its drastic
powers over labor and industry, it
would have more friends today.
But the Congress probably will
find that only by withholding new
propriations-they are not needed
until July next anyway-can the
Labor Board and c. I. O.. allies be
brought to a realization that legis-
lation is most effective in economic
life only when it is adjusted to
ma jority and minority viewpoints on
the principle of fair play. After all,
the labor board itself applied the
"power of the purse" when 1t per-
suaded the r. F. G. and other agen-
cies of the Government to withhold
loans or contracts, even though
charges of violation of the Wagner
Act against employers had not been
proved.