Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1945-01-01

The Montgomery Ward
Seizure

oNxGOxN
president ROOSEVELT has ordered the
i military forces Of the nation to seize the
properties of Montgomery Ward for the second
time within year. broadening the seizure this
time to include retail stores in seven cities.
The reason given for the seizure is that the
War Labor Board had issued directives to Mont
gomery Ward covering wages and maintenance of
union membership as condition OF employment
and that the company had refused to comply, con-
tending that the board has no authority in law for
such dictation Of policy.
The President holds this attitude of the COM
pany to be sin reckless disregard of the govern
ment's efforts to maintain harmony between
management and labor"
LIE HAS therefore invoked his war powers to
IL deprive Montgomery Ward of its properties,
saying
at Is up to us to uphold and strengthen
machinery for settling disputes Without Interrupt
tions of production.
eve cannot do this in a total Dor IL De permit
defiance to go uncholienged."
President Roosevelt must have said this with
nervous glance over his shoulder.
The thing that must HAUNT and MOCK
President Roosevelt is what he said and did in
uAsimilar situation quite recently involving
GJAMES c. PETRILL0 and the American Fed
Grafton of Musicians.
AIR PETRILLO'S Nnion had likewise been
wi ordered by the War Labor Board to do cer-
tain things, and had refused to comply.
But President Roosevelt merely asked Mr.
Petrillo if he wouldn't PLEASE be nice about it,
and Mr.. Petrillo said NO.
And that was the END OF THE MATTER.
Here surely there was reckless disregard
of the governments efforts to maintain harmony
between management and labor -
Here, too, was defiance" permitted to 60
A
Why does President Roosevelt pose as a
tower of avenging might over Montgomery Ward
in one set of circumstances when he GROVELED
before James c. Petrillo in an exactly similar set
of circumstances?
VIZ HAT are the American People to conclude,
w except that they are living under govern
ment of alternating favor and discrimination?
President Roosevelt is not invoking his war
powers according to what they permit and re-
quire him to do, but accordingly to what ne
WANTS to do and what it PLEASES him to do
That is not government by law, but govern
ment according to the whims of ONE WILLFUL
NAN
1t is not government in the interests of i'm
partiality and Justice, but government to the ad.
Skantage of the favored and to the detriment ana
destruction of the unfavored
It is not democracy, but DICTATORSHIP
DaEsIDENT ROOSEVELT is entirely RIGHT
l when he says, as he did in attempted justifl
cation of the Montgomery Ward seizure, that:
Strikes in maritime cannot be -condoned,
whether they are strikes by Oorkers against their
employers or strikes by employers against their
government.
But he DID condone the Petrillo strike
which was strike by workers against their en-
ployers in wartime and in addition was strike
against and in defiance of the government.
He HAS consistently condoned wartime
STRIKES by workers against their employers"
There were THREE HUNDRED AND
SEVENTY FIVE SEPARATE STRIKES of
such a kind DURING NOVEMBER, some of
them involving and Gripping vital industries,
and they resulted in the accumulation of SEVEN
HUNDRED AND TEN THOUSAND MAN
DAYS OF IDLENESS.