The Nome nugget., 1946-02-27
INVITATION TO ACT
(Daily Alaska Empire)

(Daily Alaska Empire)
 Recently published results of Gallup Poll taken the Nation the question of approval of Pres dent TrumanS proposed fact-fnding, cOOngOf period procedure in management-labOr disputes show strong endorsement of the projected legislation in every major occupational group.
 Business professional and white collar classes ap- proved by 80 percent Farmers 83 percent m favor while 73 percent of manual workers held with the Pres idents plan Large maorties in all groups thought the proposal would help in reducing strikes Especially noteworthy is the vote of labor union members-7O percent approval IA percent undecided and only 10 percent disapproval.
 Here is another invitation to the Congress to move ahead resoutely with strikead justment legislation. It is that union leaders hotly denounced the Pres- dents proposal when 1t was made. But In thlS matter they apparently speak for only small minority of their following The rank and file IS, Of course, eager for higher wages and better working conditions - but would like to obtain these benefits without resortlng to strikes.
 What Congress needs most in dealing with this prob- lem to shake itself free of organized pressure from both employers and unions and to egslate in the gen. era interest. That comprehends is clearly indicated by results of the po the interests of organized as well as unorganized workers and consumers
 That the general interest is at stake is slgnlfed by analysis of the pattern of strikes that have already taken place. in progress or threatened. With captions, they in vital industries Ii not Tn what we customariy call public utilities.
 Steel production is not 'public utility in the mar row sense. But on it depends the manufacture of whole host of things, including equipment for other es- sental industries. Telegraph and telephone communi- cation, and the manufacture of equipment for those utilities obviously industries vested with unmis takabe public interest The provision of meat IS diff feren matter; yet it very close to the others in its relation to the orderly operation of national life
 In word the industries already paralyzed or threat ened with paralysis predominanty those in which the interest of the whole people greater than that of the employers workers directly concerned.
 This is not at all exaggeraton One can add up the Tho telephone companies and form notion of what they have at stake Then estimate the economic cost of paralysis in the Nations communications and make rough approximation of the bill which the American people would have to pay There is comparison. The public interest is immeasuraby greater than the pri vate interests in jeopardy.
 The clear implication of these stoppages is that we must seek by law to provide alternative to economic attrition method of reconcng the differences of employers and workers in essential industries.
 There is here no contention that President Trumans proposal offers the only likely way out-though few others of any worth have been put forward. Congress sonal opinion ranges from ultraconservatVe to the Moscow party line But the whose decisions shape