Evening star., 1944-01-17

the jungleS at $50 a month, isn't II
also constitutional to order a man
to work for SIPS an hour in q fac
tory? But the analogy doesn't &c
far enough. The private in the
ranks is in the Government service
He isn't helping some one make a
profit. If the worker under the la
Dor draft is to 60 into Government
service then management will have
to go into the service as well, and
that can only mean 100 per cent
control of all profits.
he Roosevelt administration has
long contended, for instance, that
nobody in the United States should
be permitted to retain more than
5000 per year net after taxes, and
Congress specifically repealed such
a salary limitation when presi-
dental order was promulgated that
had put this ceiling on salaries. II
was an open secret at the time that
the President was influenced by the
CIO demand that salaries be linn
tied to a net of $25 900 a year. II
universal service laws are to be
forced upon the labor union leaders,
it is a foregone conclusion that the
price of their acquiescence will be
an equally drastic limitation, If not
a more severe cut, in managerial pay
as well as in stockholders dividends.
The main reason perhaps why
business sentiment favors the uni
versal service law is because, as the
President himself argues, it would
presumably stop strikes. But there
are many other ways to stop strikes
that do not at all involve the placing
of labor and management In the
moose of state socialism.
The truth of the matter is that
Mr.. Roosevelt again has outma-
nuevered his conservative opposi-
ton. He has drawn an effective
smoke screen over the whole strike
issue, He has laid the universal
service proposal on the doorstep
of Congress, knowing all along
doubtless that the measure would
fail unless business and labor got
behind it. And if the bill doesn't
pass, then presumably the Presl-
dent can argue that he must be
absolved from blame. Yet the rec
ord of the administration in han
ding the coal strike is one that
cannot be brushed aside or sub
ordinated by the larger issue OF a
universal service law.
The President primarily Is re-
sponsible for the coal strike problem
and its aftermath. He never sur
rounded himself with labor advisers
who knew labor. He listened to the
advice of those who told him labor
wouldn't strike If Mr.. Roosevelt is
sued personal appeals. But the
President has been taught now that
labor unions do not permit their
men to break down strike discipline
for anybody. 1t has been painful
lesson, but Mr.. Roosevelt could have
learned it from some OF the men In
the administration who have dealt
with labor problems all their lives
the career men.
Another lesson which Congress
might have learned-and that's why
its culpability is as great if not
greater than that of the President
is that when Mr.. Roosevelt threat
ened a veto and forced the legisla-
tive conferees to eliminate penalties
from the Smith h-Connally antistrike
bill, the legislators did not escape
responsibility for having been thus
influenced. The simple answer to
the strike problem is to put teeth
in the Smith, -Connally law and at
the same time to reconstitute the
National War Labor Board with
more administrative machinery and
more authority and with the powers