Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1944-09-24

pointed In its expectation that
labor will always continue to do
its share Of the job we now face,
and do 1t periodically and effec-
lively and unselfishly."
America Is Not Disappointed.
Today we know that America
has not been disappointed. In
his order Of the day when the
Allied armies first landed in Nor
mandy, Gen. Eisenhower said:
Our home fronts have given us
overwhelming superiority In
weapons and munitions of war"
I know that there are those
labor baiters among the oppo-
sition who, instead of calling at
tention to the achievements of
labor in this war, prefer to pick
on the occasional strikes which
have occurred strikes which
have been condemned by every
responsible national labor leader
every national leader except
one. And that one labor leader,
incidentally, is certainly not
conspicuous among my supper
tiers.
Labor baiters forget that, at
our peak, American labor and
management have turned out
airplanes at the rate of 100000
per year; tanks-57 900 per year;
combat vessels-573 per year;
landing vessels-3l, 900 per year;
cargo ships 100000 tons
per year and small arms ammu-
nition-23, 600, 900 900 rounds per
year.
But strike is news, and gen.
orally appears in shrieking head
lines-and, of course, they say
labor is always to blame. The
fact is, since Pearl Harbor, only
one-tenth of l per cent of man.
hours have been lost by strikes.
Campaign Contributions.
But even those candidates who
burst out in election-year affec-
ton for social legislation and for
labor in general still think you
ought to be good boys and stay
out of politics. And above all,
they hate to see any working
man and woman contribute a
dollar bill to any wicked political
party Of course, it is all right
for large financiers and indus
trialists and monopolists to con-
tribute tens of thousands of dol
lars-but their solicitude for that
dollar which the men and women
in the ranks of labor contribute
Is always very touching.
They are, of course, perfectly
willing to let you vote-unless
you happen to be a soldier or
sailor overseas, or a merchant
seaman carrying the munitions
Of war. In that case they have
made it pretty hard for you to
vote-for there are some political
candidates who think they may
have a chance if only the total
vote is small enough.
And while am on the subject
Of voting let me urge every Amer
lean citizen-man and woman
to use your sacred privilege of
voting, no matter which candi-
date you expect to support. Our
millions of soldiers and sailors
and merchant seamen have been
handicapped or prevented from
voting by those politicians and
candidates who think they stand
to lose by such votes. You here
at home have the freedom of the
ballot. Irrespective of party you
should register and vote this No
vember. That is a matter of
good citizenship.
"Words Don't Change Record"
Words come easily. but they do
not change the record. You are
old enough to remember what
things were like for labor in
1882.
You remember the closed banks
and the breadlines and the star
walton wages; the foreclosures of
homes and farms, and the bank
ruptcies of business; the Hoover
villes," and the young men and
women of the nation facing a
hopeless, jobless future; the
closed factories and mines and
mills; the ruined and abandoned
farms; the stalled railroads and
the empty docks; the blank
despair of a whole nation-and
the utter impotence of our Fed
eral Government.
You remember the long hard
road, with its gains and its set
backs, which we have travelled to-
gether since those days.
Now there are some policiti-
clans, of course. who do not re-
member that far back, and some
who remember but find it con-
venient to forget But the rec
ord is not to be washed away
that easily.
The opposition has already i'm
ported into this campaign the
propaganda technique invented
by the dictators abroad. The
technique was all set out in Hit
ler's book-and it was copied by
the aggressors of Italy and ia
pan. According to that techni-
que, you should never use
small falsehood; always a big
one, for its very fantastic nature
will make it more credible-if
only you keep repeating it over
and over again.
Chides COP on Depression.
For example, although rubbed
my eyes when 1 read it. we have
been told that it was not a Re-
publican depression, but Demo-
cratic depression from which
this Nation has been saved
that this administration is re-
sponsible for all the suffering
and misery that the history
books and the American people
always thought had been brought
about during the IL Inflated
years when the Republican party
was in power.
Now, there is an old and some
what lugubrious adage which
says: Never speak of rope in the
house of one who has been
hanged" In the same way, If I
were a Republican leader speak
ing to mixed audience, the last
word in the whole dictioporv thot