Evening star., 1944-08-25

goguery. A Ass' 1sE
Nevertheless. Frank r. Kent.
1T would be enormously stimulating
and refreshing to find just one ma
jor candidate in either party who
instead of following the accepted
political rule of buttering the larg'
pressure groups with laudatory ad
jectives and greasy statements
would tell the people the plain truth
about them - particularly at this
period about organized labor.
The time is ripe for this and the
need is great. Some newspapers
have printed the facts and some
writer's have emphasized them. But,
in the main, the press has not dwelt
strongly on them and the campaign
has created more apologists and de-
tenders of the recent labor record
than there are critics.
All of which makes it the more
disappointing that Gov. Dewey, in
his special Labor Day proclamation,
should have ignored the opportunity
and adhered to the candidatorial
and political routine which ordains
that on the first Monday in Septem-
her our public men-eSpecially those
after votes-should vie with each
other in fulsome eulogy of the per-
formances of labor Especially has
this been the nauseating custom
since the war began-nauseating be-
cause the eulogies conflict so Violent
ly with the facts and are so clearly
insincere.
Gov. Dewey, from whom some
thing different might reasonably
have been expected. fell into step
and In his proclamation echoed the
extravagant eulogies of administra-
ton spokesmen from the President
down. He spoke of the special pride
he took in the great patriotism of
labor since Pearl Harbof though
that very day the Government had
been forced to seize 10 machine shops
where indefensible strikes were i'm
peding war production at the most
critical period in the whole struggle.
He dwelt on the fact that there
had been no single major strike in
New York, but passed over the fact
that there have been literally thou
sands of strikes in the Nation-and
that almost every week sees new ones.
He touched on the superb co-opera-
ton" of labor with industry in max
Ing weapons for our fighting men and
strongly urged that the restrictions
imposed on labor during the war
period be removed as quickly as
possible
Now Mr.. Dewey did not have to
make this kind of Labor Day state
ment. 1t ignores the record and it
mln1m1zeS the facts. 1t is the sort
of thing which helps boost the labor
bosses toward the day for which
they are working when they will
have unrestricted and unregulated
power in the country.
1t is the same sort of stuff on
which Mr.. Roosevelt has fed them
for IL years-and still is feeding
them. 1t Is the same sort of Labor
Day statement which, under sug-
gestion, high War Department
officials have regularly put out since
Pearl Harbor, though at the time
they made their statements public,
their own department production
was being badly crippled by strikes
which had the tacit approval of the
very men to whom they addressed
their statements.
The Republican candidate could
have declared himself-and sincerely
the true friend of organized labor,
expressed his belief in the wisdom
OF collective bargaining and his ap-
probation of the real patriotism of
the great masses of American work.
lngmen and union members. And
1t is unnecessary to maintain that
the lnduStrialistS are either pure or
perfect or that there are not plenty
of greedy and selfish men among
them.
But he should not have ignored the
fact that the record shows close to
10000 strikes since the war began:
that the labor bosses. calCulatinglv.
have used the war and their political
link with the White House to force
gains to which labor is not entitled; !;
that the "no-strike pledge" so
widely advertised, has been wholly
lneffectual: that in some cases the
strike leaders have defied orders of
the War Labor Board; that even
while he is publicly commencing the
labor record Mr. Roosevelt has been
seizing plant after plant because of
strikes; that, great as has been our
production, but for the strikes 1t
would have been far greater and
we would have had tar sooner many
more airplanes, ships, tanks, arms
and ammunition; that to the extent
these have been delayed, the war
has been prolonged and the cost in
men, money and material increased,
Those are the facts, and nearly
everybody knows them. 1t is cow
ardly, because of possible political
reprisals, to ignore them. It is
wicked to hold these shoddy labor
bosses up as great, unselfish patriots,
through fear that unless they are so
hailed the accusation of labor bait
ing or labor hating will be made.
For II years we have had an ad-
ministration that has been con-
sistently subServient and servile
toward them. ' Everybody in politics
and in the newspaper business knows
these things to be true. Large num-
bers outside both fields know and re-
sent them. Yet, when Labor Day