The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-04-28


 just as confused as a taxpayer.
 This sad observation is made to- day after watching Sidney Hillman for the fourth time appear before @ congressional committee to tell the story of his job as associate director general of the Offlce of Production Management.
 Tn all four acts, Hillman had to go through the same routine ex- plaining with superhurnan pa- tience things which every con- gressman should know but obvi- ously doesn't. It's enough to make you cry.
 SHOULD
 DRAW PICTURES
 What these congressman have trouble in fathoming is the simple fact that OPM was set up by the President as a purely advisory board and that 1t has no judicial or ex- ecutive powers, Equally incompre- hensible has been the fact that ale though the OPM has a labor divi- sion which Hillman heads, the func- tion of that labor division is prin- cipally to insure an adequate sup- ply of labor for defense industries and not to settle labor disputes a function assigned to the Concilia- tion Service in the Department of Labor, and to the National Defense Mediation Board
 Inability or unwillingness to re- tain this picture is most apparent in the questions which Hillman answered repeatedly. Why hadn't he personally moved in to settle the coal str;Se or the Ford strike or any other strike? The obvious answer that he had no authority to do so had not standing what ever before the committee.
 Hillman was head of the labor di- vision of OPM and OPM was run ming the defense effort. wasn't 1t? Therefore Hillman should have doen something about 1t. The infer cnce was that Hillman was person. ally responsible for all this and 1t was up to Congress to set things right. No wonder precipitation pop ped out on his forehead and @ roll of his neck stood out above his coat collar as he patiently, smilingly argued 1t out without once losing his temper.
 ALL GET
 THE SAME
 Every other key witness before these committees has had a similar experience. John D. Biggers was consistently asked about labor and priorities, though he is the expert on production. Secretary of War Stimson and Secretary of Navy Knox were both asked about pro- duction and so was William H. Da- wis, vice chairman of the Mediation Board. Irrelevant and unnecessary questions fly all over these commit tee rooms and what good they do is something impossible to tell.
 An obvious explanation would be that congressman are perhaps woefully uninformed on even the things that get printed in the newspapers - the fact that Ford strikers offered to let the men on defense jobs keep on working, the fact that the coal miners offered to keep on working the mines If terms of settlement were made retroactive to April 1, the fact that A. F. of L. building trades have already outlawed jurisdictional strikeG. And so on, unendingly. More purposeless questions have been asked in these investigations, based on lack of information, than you will hear in any sixth-grade schoolroom.
 Lack of information on current affairs is not the only reason for this waste of effort. As stated be- fore, the government has become too complicated for anyone to keep Up on and congressman are too busy with political appoint mentS, job seekers and affairs of their own district. Too many men are sent to Washington just be- cause they can get elected.
 The result is that we have a Congress ruled by emotions and not by facts. Everyone is all ex- cited about labor trouble now and some new legislation will be passed n an effort to do some- thing about 1t. What is over- looked is that Bethlehem Steel has already been cited by the Na- tional Labor Relations Board 67 times, and that the time to have settled the Ford strike was four years ago, when trouble first be- gan.
 And the fact that the two worst strikes of the defense effort have taken place in states which had compulsory cooling of" periods, Michigan and Wisconsin, goes for