Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1948-11-12
Labor Gets
Second Wind
BY Bradford v. Carter
LPA COlumnist

ledueIS VI dlI PoL tlSob o5AC
that it is our victory, offers
labor its greatest opportunity.
It also presents labor with its
heaviest responsibility. Labor
must not fail. 1t has at the
most four years in which to
use the political standing won
on Nov. 2 to build a stable and
dynamic domestic economy
that will insure full employ
ment and a steadily rising
standard of living for all. At
the same time our nation must
be winning the worldwide
cold war between the idea that
the individual human being is
a piece of machinery to be
pushed around, used up and
scrapped by a managerial die
tatorship.
Labor itself was almost
stunned by the completeess' of
the victory.
President Truman, in his
first statement, said: Labor
did it,"
Chairman McGrath of the
Democratic National Commit
tee said: This is victory for
American labor"
These two statements to-
gether mean that for the first
time in American history la
Dor has been given the pri-
mary credit for victory in
national election. Truman's
victory is labor's victory. Tru-
man said so. McGrath said so.
Editors, commentators, and
other experts" slowly recov-
ering from embarrassment
over having elected Dewey be-
fore Nov. 2, say so.
Labor, between now and
Jan. 20, has got to come up
with:
A bold, thorough and
comprehensive plan that goes
beyond the necessary but linn
tied detectives such as repeal
of Taft-H Hartley, a 81 an hour
minimum wage, increased and
broadened social security and
a national health insurance
plan, low-cost housing, federal
aid to education, and all the
others.
1t must embark on a bold
program for dealing with the
initiation -ECA-national defense
emergency which requires an
integrated anti-inflation pro-
gram including a price-freeze,
price control, rationing, rent
control, priorities and alloca-
tions of scarce materials,
tighter credit controls includ-
ing restriction of the 900
loans on low cost homes and
low rent apartments, restora-
ton of the excess profits tax,
exemption of incomes below
$4,000 from taxation and man.
datory joint tax returns in all
states, and a recapture tax on
speculative profits including
inventory gains.
TO meet the emergency
need and to provide a begin
ming for a future that can in
sure a rising standard of living
enjoyed by all, the President
and Congress must quickly
break production bottlenecks
by expanding steel capacity
and production by 8 to TO-
100000 tons, putting marginal
plants, mines and other facili-
ties back into production on a
subsidy basis, assisting private
operators to expand and when
they can't or won't, building
and operating supplemental
government-owned capacity to
meet current domestic, Euro
pean recovery program and
subsequent needs of a full
employment economy.
Ditto for oil production
and distribution. Ditto to
break the power production
bottleneck by sp e e d & up
water power development,
steam plants and the produc-
tion of turbines, dynamos and
generators, which now hold
back the overall expansion
needed to break a present
power deficit in New England,
the northwest and elsewhere.
Ditto for coal production. Dit
to for building material pro-
duction and mass fabrication
of housing units. Ditto for rail
road facilities.
And the above is not a
complete list. Included also
should be an immediate start
on the application of the sue
ceSsful IVA method to the
Missouri and other river val
leys. The new Congress will
have fighting Senators and
Representatives from these
valleys TO carry this battle to
the private utility lobbies.
The findings of the Tenn
porary National z c o n o m C
Committee should be used to
stop and reverse the steady
trend toward monopoly DOM