The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-06-12

conference, being the only building in the world large enough to hold all the factions that will have a Say-so on the treaty, or that it might be big enough to shelter the second bonus army.
 POLITICAL COURAGE
 When Senator Harry s. Truman's special committee Investigating the war effort gets into it's hearings on labor efficiency some time soon, one of the topics which will be gone into fully is railroad "featherbed- ding'-the hiring of extra crews on electric and Diesel locomotives which is said to waste 600 million man-hours of labor and costs rail- roads $400 million a year. Decision to probe this practice took consid- erable political courage on the part of Senator Truman himself
 Coming from Missouri, with it's large rail centerS of St. Louis and Kansas City, Truman got consider able election support from the rail- road brotherhoods. But he consid- cred the featherbedding practices so reprehensible in wartime that he ordered committee investigators to D ahead with preparations to call in leaders of the railway operating unions so as to bring the issue into the open and force showdown on the brotherhoods' demands.
 
 Another commendable example of political courage from Truman con- mittee members came in their re- cent report in which they took a di- rect slap at the farm bloc as well as at labor leaders.
 "The committee, said the report, "does not believe that leaders who advocate policies which would re- suit in uncontrolled imitation cor rectly represent the views of the rank and file of either labor or the farmers. These selfish me first att tltudeS on the part of some groups III our nation must give way before a patriotic determination by everyone to place the winning of this war above all considerations"
 Senator Truman, as well as Sen ators Ball of Minnesota, Burton of Ohio and Connally of Texas all come from states in which the farm bloc throws lot of political weight. LIBERTIES" ARE CHEAPER
 One of the biggest gains to the country in the increased efficiency in shipyards through use of sub assembly and production-line meth ods has been in the decreased cost Of ships themselves, despite higher costs of labor and materials and better design of the ships. Steel cargo vessels at the beginning of the defense effort were costing around $2O5 a ton to build. Today, that fig ure is down to $l82 ton and, as $1O of that is armament. the net cost is around $172. Maritime Com mission now believes this cost will be reduced to $16O ton.
 Translating those. figures into completed ships, it means Liberty ships which were costing over $2.1 million at the beginning of the war are now being built for around SIG million, a saving of half a million dollars vessel.
 The new amphibious jeeps which the Army finally got around to an- nouncing few days ago have in reality been in production for months. They did legion service in flood rescue work in some areas near Army camps during the win ter, and from time to time pictures of them have leaked out where the tricky vehicles appeared in local parades and reviews. But Army cen- sorship clamped down against any general publicity or any identifica- tion of the amphibs until they had actually been in combat action against the enemy
 Details of the construction still can't be given, but they are natur- alS in sWampy, loWland operations Need for such vehicle was demon- started in the Louisiana maneuvers Army has no intention to replace the standard jeep with the new more specialized and more expen- sive war buggies, which it has been suggested be christened the "platy- DIS "