The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1944-07-20
On The
Capitals Cuff
BY TRAVIS X. HEDRICK

Wasnington.-Behind the moves and
battle here there appeared July IA a
dim outline of what is back of some
of the forces.
Basically, the same people who first
opposed conversion to war are now
bitterly fighting against planning for
gradual and immediate conversion to
civilian production
And the folks i'm industry who were
willing to go along with enlightened
labor in converting auto plants and
factories to war output are now up III
front urging planned conversion to
peace where it will not hurt the war
effort.
1t also appears there are the usual
tory reasons for resisting change and
growing major factor that is entire
ly political.
Those whose actions are politically
inspired are the people in Ford, In
Chrysler and General Motors who
know that cutbacks this fall to throw
million or two million idle workers
onto the country might have a real
effect on the November elections.
Not only that, but they feel that this
action would help them wreck the
power of organized labor.
+
Another cute plan revealing the
thinking of the top automotiye folks in
Detroit apparently has been wrecked
| on the rocks of priOrities.
This scheme, centered in General
Motors and Ford, was to break up the
big Detroit plants into smaller, di-
versfied units scattered in the south
and low wage areas
Inside dope here is that the motor
moguls were chewing over this plan
| for some time as means of escaping
| from what they feel is high priced
| labor and the strong unions in the
Detroit area. But they were not able
| to get the priorities to move into ac-
tion. And they forgot, apparently, that
| the New England textile interests had
exactly the same plan and moved
south to escape the organized might of
the labor unions back in the 3O's.
The unions, fortunately, moved south
with the machines and the same thing
would occur in auto
If any one thing could make the
auto interests start acting on n recon
version plan and shake them loose
from these dreams of idle workers and
busted unions, it would be competition.
Perhaps the only source of competi-
tion is the aircraft industry, which
isn't doing too much original thinking
for itself
But if couple Of major aircraft
manufacturers, say Lock h e-e d or
Kaiser, would move to go into auto
mobile production as IA way out of
their production problem, this corners
guess is that Detroit's motor czars
would rush pell-mell into recOnversion,
cooperate with labor and the govern
ment i'm handling the issue.
1t will take that to get their minds
off the thought of beating Roosevelt,
the unions and their labor costs all in
one blow by simply baking at intelli-
gent planning.
Perhaps the first American corpora
tion TO advance large credits 10 the
Soviet Union is General Electric. GLE
has agreed to loan the Soviets - mil
lion dollars year for 10 years max
ing Il total of $3.50 million dollars.
Most of the money will go into re-
building the great hydroelectric dams
destroyed i'm the Nazi invasion.
DUPONT is also working on Il gigantic
credit advance for Soviet industry.
ADD REASONS TO VOTE FOR
FDR: The Dies committee probably
will be dropped If Roosevelt is re-
elected, but continued if the Republi-
cans win" The author of that quote?
Mr.. Martin Dies at New Orleans.