The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-01-21

Peter Edson showed that he could hold his own, could duck and dodge any of the questioning punches which the toughest sena- tors could throw at him.
 Highlight of the Petrillo testi- mony was his statement:
 "The recording companies are making all the money and the musicians are starving to death. The transcription companies get 1000 fees out of one record. Why shouldn't wet get 1000 fees2"
 They couldn't answer that one, and the senators finally declared that the record-manufacturing com- panies, the broadcasting companies and the juke box companies would be investigated just as thoroughly ase MT. Petrillo.
 The average home variety of Solomon might well give an opinion of the arm of his favorite living room chair that If the music com panies are making more royalties than they are entitled to, the rem- edy for that would not be to pay the musicians an equal royalty, two wrongs never making right.
 THERE ARE RAMIFICATIONS
 Apply that principle to some other lines of labor and see where 1t brings you:
 Should you have to pay 12 cents for your favorite newspaper instead of three cents, Ajust because there are four members of your family who read it?
 The author of book gets roy- atty on every copy sold, true. But he doesn't get and couldn't collect 1000 royalties on one, copy of a book read by 1000 readers.
 A carpenter or a brickmason gets paid once for the work done in building an apartment house. Yet in 1000 months. the apartment house owner hopes to collect 1000 rents. Should the carpenter and the bricklayer get paid 1000 times because of thatp .,
 By arguments just as tricky, Petrillo would have his laboring musicians collect on every com- mercial transcription of every re- corded piece of music. Tn support of that claim he has prevented his musicians from making any record ings of new music or any new re- cordings of old music since Septem- Der 3, and the ban will stick until Petrillo gets what he's after, or un- til he is restrained by court action or a request from the President himself.
 If ever there was one for the courts, this is it, and as a matter of fact permission has been granted the antitrust division of the De- partment of Justice to take the case before the Supreme Court. Assist ant Attorney General Thurman Arnold filed suit against the musi- clans union ad Petrillo last August but a judge in Chicago ruled this was labor case, not an antitrust case, and threw 1t out.
 It's a labor dispute all right, and one that needs settling quick ano for all. BIG BUSINESS AGREES
 Big business in this case-mean- ing the record makers and the broadcasters-finds itself in hearty accord with Assistant Attorney General Arnold. Arnold himself is right now at the crossroads of his turbulent career. He is the one as- sistant attorney general who has really tried to enforce the Sherman antitrust laws-not to destroy bus mess as has SO often been miSrep- resented, but to permit absolute capitalism, which is completely free competition, without restraint of trade.
 Needs of the war production ef- fort have stymied Arnold's activi' ties to a large degree. To enable competitors to pool their resource: for war production, the anti-truSt laws have had to be set aside ir over 100 cases. People whom Arnolc has investigated, prosecuted, per secuted" want Arnold himself se aside permanetly. That's why thu skids are being greased under hin now to ease him into federal cour of appeals judgeship, succeeding Wiley B. Rutledge, Jr., who ha' just been appointed to the Suprem' | Court.