Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1944-02-11
UDA Head
FIays Sam
Rayburn

Charging that the House of
Representatives P ost w a I
Planning Committee appointed
recently by Speaker Sam Ray
burn was window-dressing be-
hind which Congressional reac-
tionaries were working toward 3
return to the "normalcy" of the
Harding period, the Union for
Democratic Action declared today
that Rayburn had forfeited all
right to serious consideration as q
Democratic Vice-Presidential can
didate."
In statement issued by DR..
James Loeb, Jr., executive secre-
tary, the U. D. A. demonstrated
by a summary Of roll-call votes Of
the last four years that two
thirds of the eighteen committee
members had voting records of
hostility to labor and social legis-
Iation, and that the chairman,
William NJ Colmer of Mississippi.
poll-tax Congressman, has shown
anti-Administration bias as con-
sistent as that Of Hamilton Fish,
whom Rayburn appointed as the
committees ranking Republican
member.
Text of Statement
The text of the statement, copies
Of which were sent to President
Roosevelt, Philip Murray, Presi-
dent of the CIO and William
Green, President of the AFL,
follows:
Speaker Sam Rayburn has just
forfeited all right to serious con-
sideration as a Democratic Vice
Presidential candidate by appoint
ing a House Postwar Planning
Committee composed overwhelm-
ingly of reactionary Congressman
Of both parties who have consist
emily displayed a stubborn anti
labor bias and whose voting record
is one of hostility to the most
moderate measures for social con-
troll.
Having scuttled the National
Resources Planning Board, which
had prepared and submitted to
Congress a thoroughgoing pro-
gram for assuring full employ
ment and social security in the
postwar world, both the House and
Senate have evidently felt the
need to provide some form of win
dow-dressing to defend themselves
from public criticism. The result
in the Senate was ator
Georges postwar planning COM
mittee, which has so far been res
markably quiet on the crucial
problems of transition from war
to peace. The result in the House
is even more ridiculous.
Rayburn Appointed Fish
"As ranking minority member
Of this peoples board, Speaker
Rayburn has appointed the notori-
ous Hamilton Fish, whose record
on these important bills is as un-
sullied as Mr.. Colmer's: eight
votes against the people and two
absences.
"Of the eighteen members only
six, or one-third, can be said IA
have shown any consideration for
organized labor's rights: Demo-
cratic Representatives Fogarty of
Rhode Island, Lynch of New York,
O'Brien of Illinois and Voorhis of
California, and Republican Repre-
Sentatives Welch of California and
Wolverton of New Jersey.
"It is obvious that the only
the Colmer-Fish Com
nittee will do is the charting of
the quickest course back to those
lays of 'normalcy" in which free
enterprise, unhampered by govern
nent restraints, demonstrated its
concern for the people by produc-
ng the chaos and depression which
faced the Roosevelt Administra-
ion in 1888. Governor Bricker,
Who aspires to be the Harding of
World War II, has just announced
hat he advocates such a course.
rhe Democratic Party would be
veil advised to think twice be-
ore giving the Vice-Presidential
nomination to Mr.. Rayburn or to
my man whose conception of plan
ing runs so clearly counter to
he general welfare"