Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1947-07-04
Another
War
BY BEN DOR
LPA COlumniSt

the American people began.
The first campaign was run
by the business representatives
in Washington, to get back from
you the few dollars that you
had saved up during the war.
You saw how this campaign
worked out. Price control was
destroyed and prices shot up.
Even with the wage increases
that he got, the average worker
saw his real wages go down II
per cent between 1914 and
April of 1947.
They declared war on your
bread and butter, and they won.
But they knew that the victory
wouldn't stick if they let you
keep your unions, so they de-
clared war on your unions, too,
Now they've won that cam
paign. They've passed a new
labor law that will keep your
union tangled in legal flypaper
from here on in.
Truman wouldn't sign the bill
because it reversed the trend in
labor relations. But they passed
it without his signature, because
turning labor back was exactly
what they wanted to do.
OF course, that's not what
Taft and his pack said that they
were doing. They explained that
they were trying to set labor
free.
EXPLAIN
But the boys who do the job
on the American people don't
always bother to explain what
they are doing. For instance,
take the railroad bill that the
Senate passed a little while ago,
Nobody has bothered to explain
that one at all. The newspapers
have been too busy explaining
what a good thing the Taft Hart
ley law is. Taft, who is such
a good explainer when he wants
to be, was even buster than the
newspapers, getting the Taft
Hartley bill passed. So he
couldn't take the time to ex-
plain this bill, either.
But Taft, as chairman of the
Republican Steering Committee,
wasn't too busy to get the rail-
roal bill a green light on the
Senate floor, so that it could be
passed by that busy body.
The bill Is very easy to ex-
plain. You see, there are
couple of cases working their
way up to the Supreme Court.
cases that will show that Court
what a vicious monopoly a lot
of the railroads have been run
ming. The Reed-Bulwinkle bill
would protect the railroads
against the antitrust lawyers
who are pushing those cases. 1t
would let the railroads go on
setting whatever rates they
want to, giving as little service
as they want to, and discrimi-
mating against parts of the
country they want to-all with
out having to worry about the
antitrust laws.
But not only the railroads
would get this license to mon
opolize; the bill would also give
it to buses, trucks, freight car
riers and pipeline operators as
we'll.
A lot of Senators said yes on
the labor bill, because the same
people-this time called the Gin
dustrial leaders of America
told them to. They said yes to
wrecking price control because
the same people this time
called the NAM-told them to.
They said yes on the tax bill,
because the same people-this
time called just the big money
boys of America-told them to.
NAMES
These people go under lot of
different names, but the one
they like best is free enter
prise" However, as the rail-
road bill has shown, while it
may be the voice of free enter
prise in Congress, it is the hand
of the monopolists that gets the
bills passed.
During the war, we were
told that the monopolies, par
ticularly the international ones,
were going to be broken up. We
were told the same sweet lies
during World War l, but they
were forgotten as soon as the
war ended. The monopolies went
on, and grew bigger and bigger.
The same thing is happening
after World War II. The prom
ises are forgotten.
What hope is there?
Let's face the facts. Let us
admit that a lot of the speeches
made in our union halls echo
the same empty slogans and re-
peat the same economic nom
sense that the NAM ads preach
to the general public. Our union
public relations programs are
hardly ever more than weak
SnosrnS that cnnne and 90 And