The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1946-12-12
NAM Asks
Truman Stop
Cool Strike
BY MIRIAM KOLKIN

by MIRIAM kOLklN
New York (FP)--Demanding a
stronger government stand against
John l.. Lewis and the Miners,
President Robert X. Wason Of the
National Association Of Manufac-
turers Dec. A promised President
Truman the support Of the nations
industrialists if he could break the
coal strike.
The 4,C00 delegates attending
the MANS 3-day 5lst annual con-
gress at the plushy Waldorf As
toria hotel rose to their feet and
cheered as Wason spat out his
words Of denunciation Of Lewis
and the miners.
"The President lets the nation
freeze, while his CUTS culver, I"
Wason shouted. He compared the
coal walkout to the firing on Fort
Sumter, which led to the Civil
War, and declared that the 10000
manufacturers represented at the
NAM meeting would rally around
a government policy of no con-
cessions to the miners "just as the
public rallied behind Lincoln"
Wason assailed Lewis, CIO
President Philip Murray an d
President James C. Petrillo of the
American Federation of Musicians
as "labor dictators" who ruled the
nation and charged that govern
ment's sellout to labor in II years
of concessions at public expense
has created economic anarchy in
America"
Complaining that neither poll
tical party had moved far enough
to the right, Wason said: "No man
in government or either party sug
gests that industrywide bargain
ing and the closed shop, which
made Lewis, Murray, Petrillo and
other labor dictators powerful, be
taken away from such unions :.
Weeks pass. Congress is not called
into session and the President does
not act. Instead, appeasement is
offered Lewis at the mine owners
expense, to save the governments
face"
Earlier, Secretary of Commerce
w. Averell Hartman assured the
industrialists that the coming ses-
sion of Congress would pass legis
lation clarifying the relationship
between the rights of labor unions
in representing their members and
their responsibility to the public"
The power of labor leaders, he said,
"has grown to point where we
find one man defying the govern
ment and the nation"
Despite Harriman's concession,
the prospect of a strongly anti
labor 80th Congress and a. concila-
tory administration, Wason and
other NAM speakers made it clear
that they were swapping their pre-
election slogan of chad enough"
for mot enough"
GAS yet" Wason said, "there is
no assurance that the new party
in power will not again placate
labor and penalize the public"
Among his demands were Equality
with labor before law" for man.
agement, the pet NAM way of
calling for repeal of the Wagner
act.
The Wagner act was also attack
ed by NAM executive Vice Presi-
dent Walter B. Weisenburger, who
warned that it was bringing
America dangerously close to open
revolution"
Although government estate So
cialism" received its share of in
vective, labor emerged as the chief
scapegoat for all the nations ills
= past, present and future
the day-long series of
speeches. The housing shortage,
for example, was ascribed by
Wason solely to the high pay re-
ceived by AFL building trades
workers.
This theme was expanded on at
the afternoon ses on, where
spokesmen for the key steel, auto,
oil and machine tool industries
said the only thing that could keep
prosperity from America would be
strikes and demands for wage in
creases.