Evening star., 1942-05-03
President Now Leeds
A United Nation
By O1Uen L. Scott.

the hump in its war effort Business
as-usual is dead. The production of
arms exceeds all expectations. Our
Army and Navy and their air forces are
| strong today and growing steadily
spending to treatment
It is this overall situation that ap-
parently accounts forsthe greater cheer
| fulness recently shown by President
! Roosevelt. He is able to look ahead with
a great deal of confidence that the
forces now in motion will assure victory
| for Thea United States and its Allies
within the foreseeable future.
The President, as result of this turn
of events, is emerging as unchallenged
leader both at home and among the
| Allies. He is head Of a Nation that
! soon will be turning out volume of
| weapons that no other nation or COM
bination of nations can match. Even
now. this country's war production
makes that of Britain look small by
comparison. 1t is beginning to outstrip
the combined production of Hitler's Eu-
rope and Japan in aircraft and tanks
These weapons and the men who use
them have been tested in action against
both the Germans and japanese and,
weapon for weapon and man for man,
they have more than stood the test.
The remaining unsolved problem is
to get these weapons and, to lesser
degree, the men who use them, to the
battlefields. That problem is a very
difficult one and it is not responding to
treatment as well as expected, but it
should be solved in part before this year
is ended.
At the same time, the United States
has moved to war in a big way with
minimum of wear and tear at home.
President Roosevelt refused to be stam-
peded during the period of preparation
that extends back to June. 1940 On the
one hand, he refused to drive business
men toward conversion to war at the
speed which many of his advisers asked.
The problem of conversion he left to
business leaders themselves. On the
other hand, he refused to sacrifice the
New Deal as businessmen demanded.
AS a result, industry is moving into
full war effort with far less shock to it's
structure than anybody expected. And
labor is not only retaining the rights
and privileges it gained during New Deal
days but Is getting others as well.
Yet, during the process of adjustment,
both industry and labor overplayed their
hands in dealing with the President.
Labor went ahead with strikes as usual.
It's leaders demanded the world with a
fence around it and then authorized
strikes to further those demands. The
result has been a wave of public resent
ment on a scale that would sweep
through Congress laws to restrict the
rights of labor unions. If Mr. Roosevelt
gave the slightest nod of approval, Con-
gress would place unions and their
leaders in a legal strait jacket BY
refusing to give that nod, the President
keeps the union leaders under obligation
to him and thus he is able to induce
more of their cooperation.
1t Is somewhat the same with indus
try. Industrialists made demands for
curbing the New Deal They fought
against any gains by labor during the
war period. Then they made their mis-
take by not keeping their own house in
perfect order. Investigations by Con-
gress disclosed cartel agreements with
Hitler's Germany. Other investigations
showed salaries for many corporation
executives increased not 10 or 20 per
cent, as in the case of workers, but many
hundreds per cent. Profits in some
cases reached such levels that industry
itself made voluntary restitution to the
Government.
The result is that industry, as we'll as
labor, is in vulnerable position with the
general public and must accept guidance
from the President. An alternative is a
wave OF profit limitation and wage limi-
tation laws that would put industry and
its executives on limited pay basis.
Mr.. Roosevelt today is in q position to
restrain Congress from hitting hard at
both industry and labor
The Presidents handling OF affairs on
the world scene is almost equally bril-
liant. His problem in this situation
was as complicated and difficult as his
domestic problem. The reason is that
when japan struck at this country the
American people insisted upon regarding
the Japanese as public enemy No. l.
But to throw everything this country
had against Japan in the Pacific could
not bring any early decision in that
part of the world after Pearl Harbor be-
cause OF the distances involved. Yet, to
throw an important part of the country's
strength against Japan and another i'm
portant part against Hitler would be to
divide that strength and to hurt neither.
Mr.. Roosevelt sized up this situation at
once and correctly, as events turned out
He recognized that Japan was in a
position, after its first successful blow
against the United States, to make ter
ritorlal gains in the Pacific But he also
recognized that Japan could not exploit
those gains for many years to come. On
the other hand, there was Hitler in Eu-
rope, within bombing range of England.
HIS armies had been badly hurt by
Russia and might be even more badly
hurt If Russia could be given a real
helping hand.
The result is that this country after
getting over the first shock of initial
defeat by Japan, concentrated its effort
upon getting material to Russia and on
building up the supply lines to Great
Britain for support of an air offensive
against the industries and transport
facilities of Europe. Once Hitler had
been dealt with Japan would be easy.