The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1942-11-13
HALFWAY MEASURES

HALFWAY MEASURES
The businessmen Of our acquaintance show
ina q commendobe tolerance toward war measures
which in many instances threaten to cripple destroy
the enterprises which they have devoted their lives.
There is ample evidence that American business is
prepored to pay the price of winning this with
minimum Of whnperne.
This oppIes, however, only to the unavoidable
cost Of victory 1t does not that men who have
shaved since youth to acquire little competence
willing to lose everything merely to government
Officials the trouble Of planning the unpeosontness
Of octne.
Small business-ond some larger ndustry-is suf-
! ferino unnecessarily because Washington insists upon
approaching major problems like q Cospor Mil
quetoost stalking non-eoting tiger. II American
soldiers fought the Jops American offcioIdom at
tocks domestic dsocotons, this would be irrevoc
ably lost already.
Consider for example the typical plant Of q rather
small netol-ndustry executive whose soes go more
than 90 per cent to Army and Navy and their sup
pliers and the rest to priority essential civilian
production
The prices he pays are frozen; the prices he can
charge are frozen the wages he pays frozen. He
is sitting pretty with assured source Of n,ote
rioIs an eoeer Market fixed margin of profit. He
should be hopPy
But is he? No-for from it.
This mans pay scale is good enough SO that union
organizers never have been able to sign up his en-
pIoyes But his scale below that for other industries
which want to get his employees So his help slowly
is walking out into other industries He is forbidden
to roise wages though he is willing and able to do
to reasonable extent. He can't keep his own work.
ers and he can't ottroct enough requirements in
petition with war plants which, when the woge freeze
come along, had higher scales.
The government needs this mans business But
here as in SO many other instances, Washington went
only half woy 1t froze wages to avert the disaster Of
initiation. 1t did not take any simultaneous step to
prevent workmen from moving out Of essential but
lower paid industries into the higher wage foctories
We do not Judge the evil from this mans
Perience. On the contrary, use his quondory as
convenient illustration Of an evil any wide-owoke OBJ
server can see all about him.
Two-thirds of our industrial and economic troubles
arise tocoy and have arisen since war production be-
oon from the absence Of any overall federal Plan
nino and from the inodequocy Of the step-by step,
troI-ond-error approach
We cannot win totoI war by halfway measures
TYPEWRITER sTRATEGIsT1
Criticism Of United Nations conduct has been
rather scoffiney brushed off by high authority the
product Of typewriter sroteeists, with on inference
thot critics would keep still if they knew better The
jibe occosoned in large port by second front oe
lotion.
Then came Jan Christion Smuts, premier Of the
Union Of South Afroo British imperial field marshal.
urging an immediate second aggressive.
Is Marshal Smuts too, typewriter stroteeist?
TIGHTENING UP
The new nationwide gasoline rotonine setup is
much tighter than that which had been effective in
ne cost From it will be much more difficult
10 onybody to get &C" rotons.
&s RI effect. these will be limited exclusively to driv
- mt Is necessary for the prosecution Of the