Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1944-05-15
BEHIND
THE News
-ByPa
MaIlon
WASHINGTON May IS

WASHINGTON May Is
w Digging behind most major
domestic news developments
lately, you will find the CIO
and its political action COM
mittee.
Behind the Senate poll tax
consideration. the defeat of Con-
gresham Starnes in Alabama.
the presentation of two new
labor cases 10 the Supreme
Court, actions of the War
Labor Board. as well as the
celebrated Montgomery Ward
case, is this aggressive labor
movement working on the one
hand with its regular business,
and. the other underhand with a
political business to get Mr..
Roosevelt elected for a fourth
term, and itself in the political
saddle.
While the nation was once
shocked at John l.. Lewis lend
ing-spending 100000 to re-elect
Mr.. Roosevelt the second time,
it seems likely the Go will
spend a far greater sum-
THE man who defeated Demo-
Il cratic Rep. Starnes in Ala
bama, for instance. was Go
attorney. and thus on their
pay roll.
In two cases now presented
TO the Supreme Court (lnde-
pendent mill workers-Utah-
Kennecott copper and Redwood
clothespin). the Go is trying
through the National Labor
Relations Board to get a re-
versal of union elections which
il lost
In the Montgomery Ward
case. il won the election. but
when it loses. apparently, it
brings the election into ques-
ton before the labor board and
courts in such a way as TO raise
doubt as TO whether it can ever
lose.
HAND in hand with this war
IL time organizing agitation
through the government labor
boards to the Supreme Court,
its Sidney Hillman is far more
active in political campaigning
than the Democratic national
committee. taking the radical
and Communist line. issuing
weekly paper with pictures
showing Mr.. Hillman directing
Negro organizers, not for the
union but for Pelities--and, in
deed, pressuring even Mr..
Roosevelt himself directly
through Phil Murray to upset
the governments Little Steel
formula.
Never in all the history of
this democracy has there APP
peared such a dual business and
political movement openly seek
ing. spending and pressuring to
dominate the politics. the de-
cisionS and even war economics
of the country.
DY CONTRAST also there has
- been little unusual political
activity and no apparent agita-
ton from the AFL.
Democratic party matters
have reached such a state that
Senator Bailey of North Caro-
lima announced if Hillman land
his Go and Communists"
dom inated the Democratic
party, he will resign from it.
Senator Mcclellan also has
charged "CIO is half Com
muniSt."
Clearly, II is not only in the
union and political, but in the
social reform business.
Practically all the leading
Southern senators attributed
the current poll tax discussion
TO pressure from Hillman's
CIOPAN The group has caused
the Senate to waste a weeks
time in what Democratic Leader
Barley conceded at the outset
was a futile argument.
INDEED, no one except the
l. Go. its political action and
the Communist groups, seem
any longer interested in the
poll tax. 1t is an out-dated issue,
made even more obsolete by the
Supreme Court ruling upsetting
the southern primary system.
No one seems TO want the poll
tax anyway.
Apparently, these groups
thought they could force the
Senate to filibuster and thus
make the usual political hay for
themselves. but the southern
senators decided TO keep their
long-winded in the back
ground, and Senators Connally,
George. Bankhead. Bailey and
Mcclellan led off the debate to
argue the case on its merits.
Some Republicans had served
private notice that they might
Join the Barley cloture move
If the bellows boys were let
hose. but the leading southern
ers were willing to undertake
the useless argument anyway on
a straight basis because of the
threat of the CIOPA constitu-
tional government - and their
party as well.