Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1948-09-17
Cavil>Cade
BY Les Finnegan
Labor Press Associates

planned that tnere mas Deen no
hurnor in the election cam
paigns to date. If it was hu-
NOR that Lawrence was look
ing for the L a bor Day
speeches by Republican lead
ers should have left his tom
sils limp. Dewey didn't dare
go to Detroit himself to an
swer Truman's Labor Day ad-
dress. Instead he sent Harold
Stassen. Even Republican
newspapers thought this very
odd. If anyone is going to
talk about the COP and labor,
they reasoned, it ought to be
the author of the Republican
Party's labor policy-Senator
Robert Taft. Whatever else
he is, however, Dewey isn't
that stupid. Taft would have
been about as welcome to De-
troit's workers as a decision
by General Motors to return
to the manufacture of the
buggy and one-horse shay.
Trum n addressed 125,000
people in Detroit; Stassen at
tracted 5000, and 1000 of
these were said to have been
people who came to see how
small the crowd would be.
Stassen declared that Tru-
man is "a failure as presi-
dent" Now there's bright
crack from a man who could
not even succeed In becoming
a candidate for president.
Dewey, in his Labor Day
proclamation, b o S e d that
1--WE have kept the bread and
butter problems of labor rela-
tions where they belonged,
far removed from politics"
In his own state Dewey de-
manded and got an anti-strike
law that was opposed by all
organized labor. And if Dewey
thinks the Taft Hartley law is
not a bread and butter prob
lem when strikes for example
can be legally replaced by
scabs somebody ought to get
him of the h h i S h diet.
Dewey is in for a rude sur
prise if he continues in his
naive notion that CIO-PAC
and the AFL League for Po-
litical Education were organ
lied for the purpose of re-
electing Phil Murray and Bill
Green to their union offices.
How do Republicans like
Dewey ever develop the sim
pleminded conviction that
they are heavens gift to labor
relations and industrial peace.
Strikes are on the increase
in Dewey's own state and in
other Republican strongholds.
Philadelphia has had a Repub-
lican administration for so
long that even the New Deal
landslides didn't bulge it. For
the first six months of this
year far more people were out
on strike in Philadelphia than
during the same period last
year and the year before. The
same is true in other COP
cities. The Republican pro-
gram for achieving labor
peace is to use the same meth
cd the great engineer Herbert
Hoover used in dealing with
the bonus army.
Washington BARRIERS have
decided to ask for S1.25 for
haircuts. However, Congress
men patronizing their own
barbershops in the Capitol
building will continue to pay
only soc. This the only case
in current history in which
Congress and not the public
gets a good trimming.
Thomas Dewey said it was
"cruel and inhuman punish
ment" to call Congress back
into special session. It certain
ly was that but not for the
Congressman. The public took
a beating that shouldn't hap
pen to a dog. But only an
amazing animal like the COP
elephant could be capable of
so much pussv-footing, weasel
wording, parrot talking and
pio-headness.
The multi-million d olla
housing lobby (Which really
should be called the "slum-
trailer camp-and-quonsethut-
lobby") waited until after it
had succeeded in killing any
national housing program in
the 80th Congress before it
announced who its enemies
are. Of course before every
Congressional committee its
representatives proc lined
that they fought the housing
Nrnoraoo IN n q n a nf fhe