| Show 19 0 01 z 13 1 I 0 I 1 national topics interpreted by william bruckart i washington unless all signs fall there Is going to be a determined stand by fight for nanny of theroun the coun business interests for a lim ration on the provisions of 0 the national industrial recovery act when that question comes up tor for congressional action not next january or february an AB undercurrent of information in to the effect that a movement to that th it end Is under way has begun to seep into washington in a growing volume it indicates that we will hear much about NIIA during the coming campaigns indeed sonic observers vers are convinced that president roosevelt already Is attempting boget to get the administrations side of the story to the country by sending general johnson recovery administrator out for a tour of speechmaking to sell the blue eagle to the cou nIvy the president it ni will ill he be remembered already has declared that nita must be made a permanent part of our economic structure I 1 have found few persons who disagree with that there Is a difference of views however and it Is emphatic as to the extent to which should go in managing the count rys business on a permanent basis it Is upon that question therefore that the battle apparently will be waged from what I 1 can pick up around here her it Is certain that a considerable portion of the business interests Is desirous of a limitation on the recovery act provisions so that they will apply really just to establishment lish ment of maximum hours of labor and minimum wages and to abolition of the sweat shop and elimination of child labor they are determined in their opposition to retention in the recovery act of provisions that give power to fix prices I 1 to control production find and to grants of authority that bring private business books into the limelight whenever snooping government agents want to dig into private affairs of individuals or corporations po rations frankly I 1 think that feature has done more to discredit than any other phase of the law under which it operates on the other hand only the meanest and cheapest of individuals can oppose any nwe mone that Is designed to provide better working conditions and hours ot of labor for those who live by the sweat of their brow while obviously none can foretell the result of this issue at such an early late date the opinions that I 1 gather among observers here make me believe that there is quite a popular appeal in the argument which Is being advanced for re vision of the recovery act and limitation of control folks generally will go along with propositions that work for betterment but which do not at the same time include invasion of what they believe to be their personal rights the administration contends however that extension of the recovery act powers or at least retention of the powers now existent in nita are not an invasion of personal rights beyond the necessity for creating greater human happiness hut the hardheaded hard headed business man great or small Is going to be hard to convince it seems to me that government go eminent control to the extent of fixing liis his prices and doing some of the other things now dow permitted Is not an undue messing with his personal affairs the lessons of the four year depression have been so severe that there Is little evidence of important opposition to curtailment of hours of labor likewise sound business leaders cannot justify opposition to minimum wages nor can they find cud a safe ground upon which to propose use of child labor or operation under sweat shop conditions politically therefore labor will be interested only in those four items tho the women NO ote te of the country probably will be interested only in accomplishment of those ends and business interests worthwhile will not object attention was called above to the tour which general johnson Is mallog making in be johnson wants half of the blue to retire 0 enle en aas le c ot of the N it A and it will be recalled that some months ago I 1 reported on the probability of changes in NKA management during general johnsons absence a board of five fire men constitutes the administrative authority of it seems to be in the nature of an experiment if it works out satisfactorily facto fact rily orlly we may expect to see the veteran army officer retire to private life lie ile has said us as much ire he wants want to get back into private business mr roosevelt however likes the lighting qualities of general johnson and it la Is still possible that lie he will remain on the job lie la is responsible for the general plan of NIIA administration and the theories embodied in the various codes it would seem therefore that the man who worked out the codes should stay along and sift tiem them down to the permanent level it if permanency be the goal whether general johnson continues at the helm or whether tile the management of 0 that work Is entrusted finally to general johnsons johnsona handpicked hand picked group of five it la Is certain that the summer and autumn will witness elimination of 0 many petty features of codes that have proved to be only annoyances I 1 believe there Is agreement among unbiased thinkers that development of 0 codes at the rate necessary to nuke make the initial drive for recovery Datu naturally rally brought many provisions of a worthless character many times it has been shown those provisions have very nearly upset tile the good that was obviously going to result from fair practice agreements the job the five man inan board has to do it if it remains as a successor to general johnson Jo linson is to go through the codes with a fine toothed comb and eliminate all of the questionable and useless provisions my opinion is it if this were done there would be much less opposition to the code and consequently to continuation of the industrial recovery act the prevalent thought in washington then Is that as a result of the annoying features contained in the codes the administration Is likely to pull hard to revise as many of thorn them as Is possible before next net winter it always has been true that an invalid who Is convalescing passes through a stage invalid on the way to re perks up covery y where he develops a genuine grouch everything ever thing hits bits him wrongly F food is not right aud and medicines are no good and a thousand and one other things furnish grounds for complaint this condition nearly always precedes the time when the patient gets out of bed and takes a few steps again the circumstance to which I 1 have referred Is such a common occurrence that it seems to me there Is no better illustration of the condition in which american business now Is represented to be it Is highly significant in the first instance t ance it shows according to the experts that business has enough new life blood to start fighting back against administration plans and policies that cramp its style and secondly vigorous opposition never has failed to be a healthy thin thing for the country as a whole from the information I 1 get in many quarters it Is let too early to tell whether commerce and industry Is going to be a unit in any one course of its opposition the strictly re reco coNery ery phases of the new deal are not going to be attacked even by the republican national committee that question apparently is settled cut but business interests apparently and quite to logically are distinguishing between recovery and reform take the legislation that created tile the commission for control of security sales all and policing the stock exchanges as an example I 1 frankly do not see how the republican leadership or business interests can expect to got far in criticism of that even if it is solely a reform proposition 0 0 not the least of the problems that are arising out of the work so speedily done in legal creating NIIA and 0 other t h e r recovery quest questions iona agencies are the horde of legal questions now on the horizon one or of these aliese stands out it relates to the rights of citizens after they have signed the codes of fair practice and legal lights tell me it runs straight back to a linse ta the constitution of tile the united states it Is an old legal maxim that after a person has accepted benefits from a statute or regulation which means a voluntary action that person may not be heard to question the validity of 0 the provision from elch those benefits accrued now business men signed the codes under what nita lawyers claim was a voluntary act having done that it Is claimed they cannot test the constitutionality of tile the law or regulations ions or the codes written under that law it seems however that there Is a difference of opinion between the lawyers of NIZA and the lawyers of the department of justice many lawyers outside of the government tire are understood to be catheri gathering 19 up all of the pieces of argument argument they can find respecting the fositt positions ons of the two governmental groups group S As I 1 understand it lawyers representing code signers hi have put forth the argument that the signing was not a voluntary action they contend that throughout the making ot of codes general johnson and his aides consistently stressed the point that unless those to whom the he code was to apply agreed the administrator would write a cole code for them and they would be bound I 1 1 by it I 1 never hoard heard it use used d its as III a threat but it nevertheless is ft a fact that most of those who had dealings in with the wore were afraid they would suffer from the licensing of 0 their plants if they fall edlo sign the codes Q by western newspaper paper union |
