The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1943-12-16
Today And Tomorrow
BY WALTER LIPPMANN

The conflict between the organized farm,
groups and organized labor is undoubtedly
the main fact in our domestic politics Let
us try to understand it,
Since the summer of 1910 the demand for
almost all farm products and for industrial
labor has been rising sharply. Congress, while
it enacted military conscription. has rejected
compulsory national servire fer men who
though tit to work. were exempt from or
unfit for the armed forces. This meant that
civilians had to be induced by money pay
ments to do war work. The inducements have
taken the form of higher prices. various types
of subsidy and higher wage rates.
The monetary inducements to wage earners
have been relatively higher on the whole than
those to the farmers or to any other large
group in the nation. For in the absence of |
compulsory service, men had to be lured out |
OF the less essential occupations to which they |
were accustomed into the vital war industries
to which they were not accustomed. Women |
had to be induced to enter factories. Families |
had to be induced 10 move from their homes |
to the new and overcroWded centers of war
production. To make the inducement suffi-
cient the rates of wages became abnormally |
high. and these nigh rates for the new labor
force that had to be lured were naturally ap- |
piled, under union pressure, to the old labor
force in the war industries. Where this did |
not happen, as in the case of the coal miners |
contract, there was bitter resentment which |
Mr. John L. Lewis reflected and acted upon.
The net result of the national policy of in |
ducing war work rather tnan of requiring it
as a national service has been that wage
earners are for the time being the newly rich. |
The farmers nave also mad very substan-
tlal increase Of money income-but not so
much of an increase as they would have had
in uncontrolled market. They have had
as managers of their enterprises to changing /
war conditions. Though absolutely they have
on the whole done well, relatively they have Il
not done so well as the war workers and they /
have been told by their leaders and by poll /
ticians cadgng their votes thst the govern
mental controls as set up in the interests of
organized labor deprive the farmers of profit 1
that they could otherise earn.
This conflict has come to head in Congress
in the movement to prohibit so-called con-
sumner food subsidies and IN general assault
on the whole system of price control. The
movement is undeniably inflationist; the farm
bloc throughout American history has favored
soft moncy-usuallv to reduce the burden of
its Indebtedness to its creditors in the Cities
in this case to lower what it regards as the
unduly high real wages of industrial labor.
In the conflict between the farm organiza-
tons and the labor unions both parties in
Congress have become entangled Neither of
them has been able to rise above it and make
itself the guardian of the national interest
The Republicans have allied themselves with
the farm organizations Their calculation is
that they can take for granted the bulk of
the employers, considerable mass of those
who are generally dsgruntled with the Ad-
ministraton, and that labor NAV be divided
by the factionalism of men like John l.. Lewis
be in part disfranchised by change of resi-
dence or by being in the armed forces.
Thn uyiro Of tho ,ortx
has also allied itself with the farm organiza-
tons which speak for powerful interests in
the Southern states. Moreover the South,
which is entering new and undoubtedly great
era of industrialization. is represented in poll
tics by men who dist1ust the new status of
the wage Garner. This dstrust is exacerbated
by the fact that so much potential labor in
the South is Negro -abor
wise man once said Beware of too much
explaining, lest we end by too much eXcuslng.
In this conflict even if we explain everything,
making catalogue of all the grievances and
resentments that just men might feel or dema-
gogues arouse, the fact remains that failure
of Congress to stand high and firm above
the farmer-labor conflict is inexcusable. Even
if the farm leaders and the labor leaders
really spoke for all farmers and laborers,
which by all objective tests Of opinion they
do not, it is still the fact that these are
special interests ccntending for special adj
vantages.
At the climax of this great war and on
the eve of the terrible ordea through which
our fighting men have still To pass, it is
sorry spectacle to have the Congress of the
United States demeaning itself to this struggle
instead of insisting that it be composed For
these lobbyists to whom they bend their quak-
ing knees, are quarreling about money While
men are dying and the world is on fire.
If the politicians must play politics, not be-
ing willing to risk their seats while other men
risk their lives, then let them realize that
they are not playing good politics. The first
to play stupid politics was the Administration.
Any experienced observer could have told the
Administration, and many of them have re-
peatedly told it, that if it did not insist upon
universal service, if it had instead to initiate
the wage rates to man the war industries,
then elementary prudence required that it in
sist upon regulating the power OF labor unions
as it had regulated corporations, stock ex-
changes and banks. The combination of an
excessive demand for labor and the unregu-
lated power of the Unions bound to pro-
duce bitter reaction in the rest of the COM
munity.
But the Republican politicians in Congress
are playing no less stupid politics. They have
forgotten the housewives the pensioners the
Government employees on fixed salaries the
bondhodrs and the insured, the families Of
men dependent on soldiers allowances and II
the soldiers themselves whose savings at home
are threatened, who when they are demohj1-
;zed will be the first to suffer if the inf1 ,
4;.,,;c+s break I'D the control of prcar ;