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Show plauded. Members frequently Insert that word, but no old-timer remembers anybody else who took it out. Defense Cost Note: OPM Director Direc-tor Knudsen Informed Rep. A. Willis Robertson of Virginia that the federal 40-hour law has increased in-creased the cost of negotiated or fixed fee defense contracts "from 5 to 10 per cent." There are a lot of people today who regret such policies. If news is the unusual, then Rep. Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan Michi-gan has made news. He delivered a speech in the house. When it appeared ap-peared in the Congressional Record, Rec-ord, the primer naa put at the end of it: ."( Applause)". Hoffman obtained ob-tained official permission of the house to have that "applause" deleted de-leted from the permanent copy of the Record because nobody ap- JameS Preston Washington Is still fumbling around in its search for means to end defense strikes without hurting anybody. There also are fears in some congressional quarters that unless progress is made cautiously the nation may surrender the very things it is building defense to protect. On the first point, the legislators legis-lators are a-dither. Many of them think it unfair for the government to take over private property just because allegedly Communist agitators agi-tators persuade workers to strike. Such action, they believe, punishes an innocent bystander. What these solons would like to do is simply forbid strikes in defense de-fense plants. But that, they fear, would be wrong because it is difficult dif-ficult to compel a man to work against his will.- Also, saboteur's are adept at slow-downs and at destructive operations inside factories. fac-tories. A lot of the legislators, too, blame themselves for the present situation. They think, for example, exam-ple, that things would be much better nowadays if they had amended the Wagner act to put some responsibilities upon labor organizations; that they should have moved four years ago when sit-down strikes broke out. out of labor organizations, the need for troops never would have arisen. For example, it was only two years ago that then Chairman Madden of the National Labor Relations Re-lations board said that if an employer em-ployer in complete truth should describe leaders of a particular union as Communists, he would be in violation of the Wagner act. But they did neither... of those things. The house did pass Wagner Wag-ner act amendments by a tremendous tremen-dous majority, but administration pressure bottled them up in the senate. Today, even some of the senators sena-tors who failed to exert pressure which might have unbottled the Wagner act amendments are penitent. peni-tent. There is, though, a good political po-litical reason why they do nothing now. It is this: For years the administration and many of its congressional followers fol-lowers have been a "friend" of labor la-bor and labor organizations two terms which by no means are synonymous. They have encouraged encourag-ed unionization and collective bargaining, bar-gaining, the two weapons which permit unions, to exert so-called "economic pressure" by striking and forcing plants to close down. The president even went so far that when he condemned the sit-down sit-down strikes in automobile plants he also condemned plant managers. Thus these congressinal followers follow-ers of the administration have a "record" on which many of them were elected and re-elected. They feel they must stand on that "record." "rec-ord." To admit that they made mistakes by writing one-sided laws, by granting all the privileges privi-leges to labor unions and imposing no responsibilities upon them, is to admit faulty judgment. And a candidate can-didate for congress who admits he was guilty of mistakes might not prove too popular at the ballot boxes. Many of the serious thinkers believe be-lieve that troops were necessary to protect airplane production, but they also think that if proper steps had been taken by the government to keep subversives and agitators |