The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1944-02-24

How many ever stop to analyZe care
fully the extent to which labor has be-
come subject to law? Well it has gone
pretty far
The war, of course has pushed the
avalanche of law and regulation much
beyond any point that would have been
| reached had there been no war.
But there is something else: Because
of the war, it will be harder to slip
the moose of law and regulation when
peace comes.
1t is much harder to slip from under
a huge bulk than it is to get out from
under a smaller bulk. War has given
us a much bigger bulk.
The bulk becomes bigger as the
months pass. Labor law grows, just as
all law grows, through piling prece-
dent upon precedent, decision upon de-
cisiOn More law is made by decision
than is made by legislation. Think that
over for while.
1t would be a mistake to get off on
Ille WEOuS lOOt dllt looh uI lllt
ton as partisan matter.
Political partiSanShip doesn't have
much to do with it, though some people
try diligently to make it look that way.
Principally we have got into this
situation because industry today is So
intimately tied to war needs and is so
vast and complex that it just can't be
allowed to go its own way. There must
be control of greeds, if nothing else
and that there still is greed needs no
proof.
But the matter about which to be
concerned is the future rather than the
present The war will be won and it
will be won with the federal govern
ment in pretty solid control of. most
thingS-Of most relations. After the
war we shall face a new peace-time
world We need NOW to think about
that and to think effectively and de-
finitely.
A whole lot of postwar planning is
being done. Some of it is being done by
men of capacity, much of it is being
done by faddists and by persons who
hope to tie themselves permanently to
Il payroll.
the kind of relations that shall exist
between government and labor we have
Il horse of another color.
Here is a field which simply should
MT be tackled piece-meal, or on an ''as
and if basis. Here is a field in which
there can be a program and plan.
Time was when labor's biggest boast
was that it was Il voluntary aSSOcia-
ton of men banded for self-help and
that it wanted no interference by laws
to tell it what it might do. 1t sought
a legal picture in which the rights of
the group were equal to the rights Of
the individual.
OF course the "old days" are dead
and gone, never to return. 1t does no
good to look backward with nostalgia
longing to good old days, because,
first they will not return and, second
they were none too good anyway.
But if legislators do all the planning
for the relations of the days to come,
then we may look for every legal re-
straint and ham-String they can con-
trive, for most of them are lawyers
and lot of them just don't like labor,
even if they do like labor's votes.
Labor today appears affected with a
public interest, but that shouldn't mean
that it must live in Il legal straight
jacket.
What it does live in, as the years
come along, will depend partly upon
how much good planning is done.
Labor has as much ability to plan
as has any other organized body The
field is large and all-important. Default