The Wilmington morning star., 1946-07-24
Fair Enough
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, by King Features Syndicate, 1nc.)

war Wnef Tie NduIlteu ITO III PASoSC u
the bloated unioneers wss being honored in
the breach at the rate of about IS strikes,
big ana little. each week. many Americans
were naive enough to think that when 1.-The
boys'' came home they would, somehow, clean
house ard see 10 it that the officials of unions
which had been responsible for these strikes
were discredited and eliminated.
If it was true. as Paul McNutt so often
said in those days, that every man-hour OF
work lost from production for war meant a
corresponding delay in the winning of the war
and a corresponding loss of life at the fronts,
then It must follow that the thousands of
violations of the "plecge.' which never was
a pledge but only a political utterance, actual
Nv cost many lives in battle. Many a fighting
man now dragging a sick and battered body
through life or tumbling, s%ightless, t. train
his fingers to a pitifully restricted number OF
tasks must owe his condition to the ruthless
ness of men who called thousands of worker
off their jobs, many of them against their
will. for petty causes, or warned conscientious
Americans to take it easy.
The most dramatic example of this sort o.
doing was revealed on Nov. 4, 1943, at a
hearing before a Subcommittee OF the House
Committee of Naval affairs investigating the
failure Of production in the plants of the
Brewster Aeronautical Corporation which was
manufacturing planes for the Navy. Brewster
had failed horribly and the management ap-
parently deserved some share OF the blame.
The witness before tire Subcommittee on
Nov. 4 called himself Thomas V. de Lorenzo
and admitting that he had used "a half-dozen
names" and that he WIS q liar and an I'M
poster with a police record which, later, was
enlarged by a conviction on a charge OF as
sault. He said he had picked the name OF
Thomas Vincent de Lorenzo 'out OF a tele-
phone book or a hat because lit sounded
nice" His original name had been Harry
Posner.
CONGRESSMAN Edward Hebert, Of New Or
leans, brought out the fact that under the
democracy of the United Auto Workers
Union. as practiced in Local 1865, OF which
de Lorerzo was presiden+, 10 per cent Oh the
membership constitutes a quorum ana tnat SIX
per cent Of the whole membership could call
a strike at q meeting attended By a bare
quorum.
Mr.. Eebert said: "You are engaged IN war
production and your 5000 strike hours de-
stroyed 33 planes Il ours. When captain
Westerveu (f the Navy was on the stand
I tried 10 paint the picture to him to show
where raids on production centers IN Germany
are for the purpose of curling production and
that those SO planes which were not produced
would have been the same as if the Luftwaffe
had come over PHILADELPHIA with you in the
lead plane. He agreed with me that that was
substantially correct. Not a German soldier
life was risked in destroying those 80 planes
which YOU and your Organization did. Did you
ever make a statement like this our poncy
is not to win the war at any cost. The policy
OF our union is to win tire war without sacrl-
ficing 30 much of the rights which we have
at the present time?
did YOU ever make this statement: If l
had brothers at the front who needed the 10
or IL planes that were sacrificed would let
them die % Mr.. Hebert continued.
II made that statement said de Lorenzo
who sad this was his way Of fighting fasclsm
in the United States.
Illustrating the fallacy of the idea that "the
boys would take revenge on the unions or
even oppose them in any effective organi-
cation, Walter P. Reuther, who was elected
president of the United Auto Workers last
March, was invited to address the recent con-
vention of the American Veterans Committee,
Inc. in Des Moines. Mr.. Reuther's remarks,
as quoted in the official bulletin OF the AVC,
contain NO reference tc the strike record OF
his union in violation of the mo strike
pledge. the loss of production, the consequent
deferment OF We and VI days, the additional
battle casualties and ether sufferings inflicted
on the men whom ne now had the COM
posure to address as though he had been their
friend, or to the career and statements OF
de Lorenzo. Instead, as the bulletin said, he
coined a chorus OF attacks by convention
SpSdhCIo VII OllS
sions in national Legislation"
Mr.. Reuther was cordially received and a
group photograph was published of him, Hen
nv Wallace, another hcnored speaker, and
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., a member OF the
National Planning Committee Of the AVG
MI. Reuther's union adopted a policy state
ment' last April which repudiated h in
sistence during the long and highly detri-
mental General Motors strike last winter, that
rates of pay for workers should be in pro-
portion to the employers ability to pay. That
invited small operators and less efficient op-
orators - reduce wages, which, of course,
the union would not consider. The alternative
was the obliteration Of the small and less
efficient plants and the creation Of monopoly
in the hands of the big companies. Confronted
with this argument during the strike, Mr..
Reuther resorted to n1mble footWork and later
dismissed it all in the manner of Wendell
Wilkes mention of "campaign oratory,"
The policy statement contained a further
proposal, however, which illustrates the meth
cd of the wartime unioreers in their post war
counting OF the veterans without reference to
the restrictions and prosecutions inherent in
union government and discipline or the dis
graceful wartime record of which de Loren
EOS testimony is only a page in a black book
of enormous bulk and the most cynical tone.
:, This is the. demand for bonuses of not less
than Sl00 nor more than So, 500 for home
service veterans and from $500 to 81. 500 for
. overseas veterans. The AVG pretended to re-
nounce the bonus but the deception in that
, resolution was nailed in a minority renor+