Evening star., 1942-09-30

ing bill, the right to continue to in
fate wages and payrolls.
Looking back over the record,
the biggest single inf1ationary force
in the present high costs of the
Governments war program is the
4o-hour week. There never has been
and there is not now any reason why
work week longer than 40 hours
cannot be worked, but the insistence
of the administration that the tax
PAYERS shall pay for time and half
on all overtime has increased the
payrolls of America to fantastic
heights.
Now, when manpower shortage
looms, not a single word has come
from the administration indicating
that it wants America to work 48-
hour week for the same hourly rate
of pay as the 4O-hour week. On the
contrary, as the work week
lengthens, the cost of the war pro-
gram will be increased and the
Government will find itself search
ing for larger and larger amount
of revenue from a minority of the
population so as to meet the stagger-
ing war costs.
Farm Bloc Resentful.
The reason why the farm bloc
Senators and Representatives are SO.
resent full of the criticism leveled
lately by the thiek-and- thin sup
porters of the administration is that
the impression has been spread that
the farm groups alone are respon-
sible for imitation by demanding 110
per cent of parity, when the truth
is the administration has forced up
the costs of the things the farmer
has to buy and has put into dis
tribution billions of dollars of pur-
chasing power that is not being
siphoned off by taxation.
II the administration is to permit
special privilege to one group. it
will find other groups demanding
the same thing. The farmers,
through their representatives, are
pointing to the fact that. unskilled
laborers are getting from $50 to
Sl0o a week, including overtime pay
ments, on some Government projects,
and that this is happening in areas
near farm districts so that the
farmer is finding 1t increasingly diff
cult to get labor.
The administration consistently
has promoted the idea of higher and
higher payrolls during the war
period. The War Labor Board has
stimulated demands for increased
wages and finally, through the
formula in the Little Steel" case,
ordered wage increase. There has
not been single instance of wage
decrease since the war started.
though. to be sure, some requests
for increases have been denied
Now the President has been given
power by the House to correct gross
inequities," but it is not probable,
Judging by the record, that any cut
In wages will be ordered. Certainly
the President has consistently re-
sisted all efforts to put America on
a 48-hour week with straight time
instead of overtime for all work
between 40 and 48 hours week.
Labor Vote Strongest.
The men In the armed services
do not get overtime pay for their
sixth days work or double time for
the seventh, yet the administration
through its spokesmen this week
has been endeavoring to give the
impression that to stop imitation is
to back up the men at the front.
There would be far more support
for the administrators fight against
the demands of the farm group if
there were any sign that the large
city populations, where the admins
trations principal political support
comes from, would be treated just as
firmly as the farmer.
From a political viewpoint. the ad-
miniStration can forfeit all of the
farm States. In the 1910 election,
as in the 1886 election, the Presi-
dent got enough votes from nine