The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-10-08

Ctbl1 AtC WAb1AOub labor unions as people are living without them in Germany, Japan and Italy.
 Admiral Moreell, being chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, is responsible for the Navy's entire construction program. And it may be that in his official capacity he has had so much grief with the building trades of the A. F. of l.. that he was justified in giving them a piece of his mind in salty, blue air, sea dog style. But it so hap pens that the Navy has been under such criticism from the labor orr ganizations themselves that the Navy has been gradually overhaul ing its policies on dealing with the unions.
 Rear Admiral c. H. Woodward was put in charge of special office | to improve labor relations and Ed win A. Lahey, a free-Swinging labor reporter from Colonel Knox's Chi cago Daily News, was brought in as adviser, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard announced establishment of personnel divisions l in shore establishments to handle | all questions of industrial relations. Just as beneficial results were being noted from these various moves, along comes Admiral Moreell's speech, in marked conflict with every announced administration la Dor policy.
 POINTING THE PROBLEM
 Leaving aside questions of the tactfulness and the rightness or wrongness of the Moreell threat, there is raised the point of how the admiral could make this speech and get away with it.
 In the Office of War Information there is set up what might be known as the Office of Oratory Control. It is headed by John R. IFleming, an ex. .newspaperman whose job 1t is to scrutinize the manuscript on all speeches to be l delivered by cabinet officers and ] the heads of government agencies 1 to make sure that the ideas there in expressed are in the groove, and in close harmony with adminlstra- tion policies.
 But young MT. Fleming's author ity Is limited to the top men only. In the Navy Department, Fleming can review the text of Secretary Knox, Under Secretary Forrestal and assistant secretaries Bard and Gates, but he can't touch the speeches of a single admiral or lesser officer.
 The only check there is on the remarks of a naval officer is two sections of Navy regulations which prohibit officers from divulging 111- l formation of security. Navy officers may submit the manuscript of a speech or an article to the Bureau | of Public Relations for clearance if he wants to. But the Off1ce of War Information has nothing to do with it.
 The second case of confusion also concerns the Navy. In 8 special press conference at the Navy De- | partment, Lieut.. Comdr. John Smith Thatch stated that no major battle ship of the enemy has been sunk by horizontal bombing in this war, 1m- plying thereby that Capt. Colin Kelly of the Army did not sink the battleship Haruna, in spite of all the evidence which the Army has that he did. This officially sponsored Navy statement certainly added fuel to the flames of discussion on the relative merits of land based heavy bombers versus carrier based, short-range dive bombers.
 UNCENSORED SPEECHES
 In the order creating the Ofi1ce of War Information, among other things OWI was charged specifically to "co-ordinate the war informa- tional activities of all federal de- partments and agencies for the pur- pose of assuring an accurate and consistent flow of war information to the public"
 But the way this works out is that while OWI has authority to prepared statements to see that pass on all the press releases and consistent flow of war information no control over what may be said orally. And as in the case of Ad- miral Moreell. it has no control over the public statements of off, clals below cabinet and sub-cahinet rank.
 From these examples it can be seen that OWI doesn't have the control over war information that was perhaps intended. There are loopholes and dodges which the va- rious government departments can and do use to put out ideas which may not be exactly orthodox.