The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1943-12-10
FACING
The
F FACTS
With PHILIP PEARL.
With PHILIP PEARL

tributed among troops serving over
seas carry a considerable amount of
anti-labor material calculated to in
fame the minds of the men in the
armed services against organized la
Dor.
We decided that these complaints
were worth looking into. Instead of
accepting hearsay ev dence, we
thought il would be wise to go to the
direct source-in other words, to read
and study the publications involved.
On making inquiries, we learned
that the Army keeps a complete file
of the "Stars and Stripes" at the Pen
tagon Building, the vast War Depart
ment beehive on the Virginia side of
the Potomac. We were informed by
Major Raskin, who used to be labor
news reporter for the New York
Times, is assigned to the task of pro-
noting better relations between the
Army and labor and we found his
assistance exceedingly helpful.
First of all, we learned that STARS
and Stripes" the soldiers newspaper,
published in various editions, includ-
ing one in London, another in Algiers,
one in East Africa and new one in
Sicily. There may be others we don't
know of. The only ones we saw We're
the London and the Algiers editions.
How Labor News Is Handled
Most of the news published in these
papers is about military matters and
War Department policies directly af-
fecting troops. News from home, ex-
cept when it is of outstanding i'm
portance, is confined to small items of
two or three paragraphs. 1t consists
chiefly of Associated Press dispatches,
written concisely nd effectively
In looking over the October issues
of the Algiers and London editions of
"Stars and Stripes" we found daily
accounts of the proce ID n G S
of the AFL conven t n in
Boston, emphasizing the constructive
policies voiced there and convention
action relating to furthering of the
war effort by American workers.
These stories, although brief, were
certainly not of the kind to enrage
soldiers against labor. On the con-
trary, the only possible conclusion a
reader could get was that labor is
doing a good job on the home front
and is anxious to do a better job.
The Algiers edition was free from
items on picayune, inconsequential
strikes. 1t handled news of important
strikes, such as the coal mine shut
down, effectively and impersonally.
In fact, we found these stories much
preferable in their approach and con-
tent than those to be found in the
daily press at home.
However, the London edition of
"Stars and Stripes" does apparently
make practice of publishing every
other day or so brief stories on unim-
portant strikes-such as a walkout of
260 milk wagon drivers in Brooklyn.
We couldn't understand why the
men in the armed services should be
in reading of such petty af-
fairs which have no real effect on the
war effort and the representatives of
the Army to whom we talked couldn't
it either.
The Good With The Bad
They pointed out to US that the edi-
tors of these Army publications are
supposed to be guided by code pre-
pared by the War Department which
the following paragraph with
regard to labor news:
at is a reasonable presumption
that troops are interested in news of
labor, including reports of strikes, la
Dor disputes, etc, where such events
are of magnitude as to have national
or of such character as to
influence the lot of the fighting man.
But the good must be reported with
the bad. 1t would be false to presume
that the armed forces are interested
in unfavorable information, but de-
rive no benefit from that which is
positive and favorable"
Perhaps the editors of the London
edition of the "Stars and Stripes" in
terpret this to mean that they should
sandwich items on inconsequential
strikes between constructive labor
news stories. If SO, they are not carry
ing out the intentions and policies of
the War Department, we were as
sured
To sum up, our study convinced us
that the reports regarding anti-labor
in Army publications are
or grossly exaggerated. We
believe that these publications, on the
whole, are trying to do a good job and
a fair job, under trying conditions, of
keeping the men overseas fully in
formed on war news and domestic