The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-09-09
Peaceti1ne Controls
BY ARTHUR KROCK

BY ARTHUR KROCK
WASHINGTON, Sept. - Reconversion-
which means all the dimensions and circum-
stances of American daily life from now on
has become the great political battlefield of
washington. Because of the magnitude of the
problem and the effect of solutions on the
countrys future thinking as we'll as on the
careers of those now in office who want to
stay there, it is natural that the theories and
practices in dispute should come to grips in
the area of politics.
Trying to stay in the middle, where he does
not enjoy being but where many other politi-
clans have found assured tenure, is the Presi-
dent. Yet so embattled are the disputants that
he is finding the position very difficult to
maintain, while at the same time getting the
positive results that must come if the country
is to be carried over to a sound peacetime
footing. Mr. Truman is represented as at least
hopeful that he can work out the dispute and
the problem by constructive compromise -
a method with which he has had previous
successes But to his differing counselors the
basic issue cannot be compromised.
Within the administration one group, COM
posed of New Deal economists and politicians
and many labor leaders, distrusts private en-
terprise and its management, or is ideologi-
cally opposed to the system, or makes a
career of hostility against these. This group
will hamper the return to full production. and
has usually resisted their releases. holding
that certain major controls and activities of
MISUNDERSTANDING will be needed for a
long time ss club on business.
Also within the administration are influen-
tial persons who oppose the club-in-the-c closet
theory and urge that private production be
given every opportunity to prove that heavy
unemployment and deficit financing can be
quickly eliminated by the full operation of the
system of free enterprise. These are the chief
advocates of one-man direction of surplus
property disposal and broad relaxations of the
disposal statute, which, as it now stands,
bristles with obstacles to the accomplishment
of it's own stated purpose Since the hamper
ing provisions were inserted largely by labor
union pressure which still exists, this situation
is one illustration of the intra administration
cleavage.
The President has agreed with the second
group in so far as the issue over surplus prop
erty disposal is concerned. In this huge stock
pile there are, particularly, vast quantities OF
tools and plants which the government owns
and industry needs quickly if it is to undertake
full production and employment. But the first
group has not been slow in complaining that
Mr. Truman seems to be taking the side OF
business against the worker in this instance,
him anxious to disprove the implications that
20 with the complaint.
That will probably serve to modify his nor.
NAL attitude, which is to trust business and
give it all legitimate latitude during the period
OF reconversion. If this is the result, he will
be slower to restore the full play of free enter
prise Political considerations enter strongly
here, because Mr.. Truman is very intimate
witness Of the strength Of organized labor in
the 1914 Democratic convention that put him
in the line of Presidential succession, and in
the last two national elections. Until or unless,
therefore, organized labor accepts the recent
counsel of Secretary Schwellenbach, and labor
and industry find a ground Of economic part
nership instead of dealing with each other as
social enemies, Mr.. Truman is unlikely to
overrule the unions very often.
A great temptation to unstable compromise
and delay of reconversion issues already ex-
lists This is the prophecy, first prominently
made by Mr.. Baruch, but shared by many
other economists, that for some time to come
three, five or even seven years-the nation
is in for boom, whatever government may
do or not do. The next Congressional elections
are only a little more than a year away
If the President seeks reelection, that date
is only three years hence. According to most
of the forecasts, the piper will still be playing
his pleasant tune in those times and the ques-
ton of payment will not have to be met until
later. 1t will require great political courage
and rare sense of responsibility to the future
to deal firmly in that period with economic
problems which, If the prophets are correct,
can be shelved or compromised without more
visible immediate consequences than the out
cries of unheeded analysts of the American
future
Mr.. Baruch accompanied his prediction OF
the postwar boom with a warning that it.,
however, certain measures were not taken by
the Government before, during and after it..
the social and economic fate of the United
States and the world soon thereafter would
be appalling The measures are in the field
of the intra administration dispute over recon-
version in which the President is trying to
find as many middle" solutions as he can,
or, failing these, to grant to each group sat
isfying share of decisions.
The world, which should be all blacks and
whites, is well known to contain much that
is gray, and therefore it is not probable that
Washington's identifications of the warning
group leaders are wholly reliable. But to the
first it is disposed to assign the New Deal
reminder, among others, and to the. second
Chairman Krug of the WPB and Director
Synder of the OWMR-New York Times