The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-12-09

Aoo AASclcS COuU- ty, Calf; Usher L. Burdick, Will liston, N. D.. farmer and lawyer, Howard Johnstone McMurray, a KansaS-born Ph. D. who has been an insurance statistician and air transport executive in Milwaukee: :: and Vito Marcantonio, New York City lawyer. It is 8 heterogeneous group. Burdick is Republican, Marcantonio is American Labor Party. the otheB are Democrats. Big purpose of the group is to organize 8 bloc in Congress that will serve as 8 pressure group to represent the consumers, whose still small voice, pretty largely unor. ganized, is lost in the roar of the established Washington lobbies.
 LOBBYING FOR CONSUMER
 The consumer viewpoint is a tough thing to materialize. Last June, this same 40 fighting con- gressmen" made a preliminary ef- fort to bring together @ number of private organizations interested in consumer problems. They called a conference in Washington, and actually rounded up 296 delegates and 42 congressman. About half the delegates were representatives fo labor unions, but among the non-labor groups represented were the League of Women Voters, Am erican Home Economics Associa- tion, National Association of Par ents and Teachers, and other outfits of similar stripe.
 This first conference was held right at the tmie when Congress was casting repeated votes to ban subsidies. The lobbying eRect of the pressure group was negligible, although Congress did vote to Sus- tain the Presidents veto of the subsidy ban and a resolution was showed through just before Congress recessed for the summer, extending the use of subsidies uu through the end of this year.
 With less than two weeks of con- gressional working time left be- fore the extension expires, the sub sidy issue is perhaps the most i'm portant business now before Con- gress. The House has again voted to ban subsidy payments for 1914, and in the past few weeks, the parade of witnesses before Senate Agriculture and Banking commit tees has been made up of the people who don't want subsidies the Am ercian Farm Bureau Federation, the Grange, and dozens of national and regional livestock and dairy indus try pressure groups who openly want price rises and not price rollbacks.
 LABOR BACKS CONFERENCE
 In this situation, there isn't much that any consumers conference can do. Nevertheless, the Congress sional committee for the Protection of Consumers sent out its call for another meeting in Washington on Dec. 9 in o last desperate effort to save something out of the wreckage..
 Backbone of the support for this consumers conference is, of course, the organized labor movement. It is Ale c. I. O., the A. F. of L., the Railway Brotherhoods and all their consumers unions who spark plug the entire effort. For labor figures 1t has the most to lose in case the subsidy ban should be made to stick, and a rise in the cost of living results.
 The subsidy battle in Congress thus narrows down to a fight be- tween the farm organization against subsidies and the organized labor which ravors them. And about all the labor group can do is hope to muster enoungh strength to sustain another presidential veto, then put through another emer- gency or compromise extension of the administrations subsidy pro- gram.
 There are about six million farm families in the United States, about 10 or F million organized labor families, and about Cor 9 million other families. The representatives of the six million seem to be calling the turn on this issue because there is no real lobby for the lmor- ganized consumers.