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Show had their fat salaries reduced proportionately during the strikes? . . . ! About Labor The Greenville (South Carolina) OBSERVER (Independent Dem-i Dem-i ocratic) says: I The current strike situation is at last perfectly clear. It is nothing noth-ing less than a revolution. Traditional concepts of property rights are threatened. To see the way the revolution is proceeding, consid-; consid-; er the case of a single basic industry oil. Management and labor disagreed, superficially, on the percentage of wage increase to be granted. Fundamentally, the disagreement was not over the ade- quacy of wages, measured by past standards. Real wages are at rcc-: rcc-: ord levels. Labor leaders have frankly stated that they are out for a redistribution of profits. In the case of at least one industry, they have demanded a look at the "books" to decide for themselves how profits should be shar ed . . . THE SEWARD (Alaska) POLARIS (Independent) say: . . . The unions in Alaska are for the first time stepping into the political ring. In the States it was discovered many years ago that a labor organization could not divorce itself from the political picture. pic-ture. By entering into the picture, in a non-partisan manner, to not only protect their own gains, but to garner further gains for Alaska, the unions have displayed the fact that they are aware of Alaska's coming maturity. could lick Hitler with the aid of France alone, turned out to be too optimistic. . , M Two points have been brought out in discussing the loan, ivxany American financial students feel that the loan may never be paio. On the other side of the Atlantic the British critics say they will De paving on the debt until the year 2000. , ' One safe prophecy to make is that the debt will be paid. It me British don't pay it and we doubt that they can or will then tne American taxpayers will settle the bill. That loan is going to be paid, either by the British or by American labor and industry. 1 here are no two ways about this. It can't be liquidated by wishful thinking. Our taxpayers are still settling for the cancelled loans we made to Europe after the First 'World War. ' . . , , It is also true that somebody will be paying on the British dcot until the year 2000. If the British find they can't pay, then our children chil-dren and our grandchildren will be shelling out for that; length oi time. Let us make up our minds' that the loan to the British will be paid and that it will take a half century to do it. Just who does tne paying is another question. It will probably be our own Mr. John Q. Public. About Most Everything ED ERARD IN THE KINGSVILLE (Texas) RECORD (Nonpartisan) (Non-partisan) says: .. The strike situation is spreading like grease spots on the tailgate of a chuck-wagon, and it looks like it's going to include the Army in the Philippines. This nation is as hot as a mail order pistol when there's a war on, but come the Armistice, it goes on an amatol diet. When Will Rogers said we never lost a war nor won a peace, he was laying it down like a Leghorn hen on a trapnest. Jimmie Byrnes went to Moscow to prove we were still good losers at the game of international poker. That's what comes of sending a country coun-try boy to see a bear about an atomic bomb. t When Jimmie got through with MacArthur's policy in Japan it was so democratic the Hottentots had a vote on it. And Japan is , about the only place where everything is on the upgrade since V-J Day. . . , , Tom Connally is on the politics and security commission ol the United Nations, and the day he was named, we were told our-American atomic bomb was made obsolete by Russian improvements effected ef-fected by scientists captured in Germany. But the Russian story of Russian superiority may just be more CIO propaganda. The President was about to get his picture televisioned addressing address-ing Congress, but now they tell us he'll just send a message like Lincoln Lin-coln and Washington used to do. After all, who does Harry think he is, FDR? ' . Congress will meet and send delegations to the tropics countries to investigate the .banana, sugar-cane and cock-tail industries this winter. The junkets to the far North to see a walrus about an iceberg ice-berg will be thought up as Washington temperatures rise. FA; lorials Of Tlie Week The Milwaukee (Wis.) LABOR VIEWS (Labor): ARE YOU -THINKING OF STRIKING? DON'T, IT COSTS YOU TOO MUCH General Motors strikers lost $05,842,000 in the first eight weeks of the strike. Had the strike been settled at the end of eight weeks and the strikers had gone back to work with a 15 per cent increase in hourly rates, it would have taken them EIGHT YEARS working every day, without layoff, to make up the loss. But as a matter of fact, regardless of what they get in the way of wage increases, the sum of 185,842,000 can never be made up. The average hourly wage of General Motors workers when they went out on strike was $1.12. The corporation offered a raise of 13.5 cents per hour before the strike was called, which the union officers turned down. These 180,000 workers could have been getting $1255 cents per hour, during those eight weeks. It is the concensus of union and business leaders, as well as the Gallup Poll, that the General Motors strike will result in a 15 per cent increase. Another very good sign is that the office of business agent and secretary in many of the larger local unions has been put on a full-time full-time basis for the first time in Alaskan history. The sooner all unions recognize the fact that they, too, are a business and must be run as one, the sooner labor will climb to its appointed goal. I think it can be said safely that sooner or later Congress is going to pass a bill requiring financial statements from ALL labor organizations, and when that does come, it will force labor to go on a full time business basis. Let's see, Alaska. The Merchantville (New Jersey) COMMUNITY NEWS (Republican) (Repub-lican) says: The industrial "worm" is turning very vigorously against the attitude of CIO in the protests being circulated in pamphlet form the method by, which PAC, with CIO money, influenced enough voters to elect candidates at the last presidential election of which President Truman was one. Without an organization and expenditures expendi-tures equal to that of PAC in 1944, the effect of the industrialists' propaganda will hardly match that of the CIO's political organization. organiza-tion. Later, it may be necessary 'for Industry to also form a political party to combat the CIO power ... THE WAYNE (Ohio) OBSERVER (Independent Republican) : If the strike is settled at 15 per cent, it will amount to only 3 cents more per hour than was originally offered by the corporation. At3 cents per hour it will take each General Motors worker, 16,193 hours to make up the $485.80 lost at the end of eight weeks on the picket line. That means 405 weeks or slightly under eight years. One must bear in mind (hat also during the eight weeks they were out on strike their living expenses continued. Rent, food and clothing expensese were not stopped by the strike. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's came and went during the eight weeks, therefore, these 180,000 workers either spent from their savings and War Bonds or went into debt. It will take them a year or two to save up the money or pay off the debts incurred. Incidentally, brothers Thomas, Ruether and Frankensteen continued con-tinued to draw down $150 to $200 per week plus expenses during the eight weeks. As officers of the UAW-CIO THEY can afford the strike, but their 180,000 members certainsly could not. The strike of the 700,000 members of the Communist dominated dominat-ed United Steel Workers of America scheduled to begin Jan. 14, will cost the members $36,728,600 each week they are out on the picket line. Within three weeks after the steel strike begins it is estimated that 20 million American workers will be laid off because of the shortage of steel for production. This strike, therefore, will within three weeks ,be costing the American workers 15 MILLION DOLLARS DOL-LARS per hour. If the strike lasts two months it will cause American Ameri-can wage earners to lose $5,077,828,800. Read that figure again. It is over "FIVE BILLION DOLLARS in wage losses. Then, of course, there is a strike scheduled in the meat industry that will put 200,000 packing house workers on the picket line January Janu-ary 16. This will result in a serious meat shortage but why worry about the contemplated meat shortage, what with General Motors and the steel strike on at the same time, no one will have any money to buy meat with anyhow. Are YOU thinking of going out on strike? DON'T it will cost YOU too much. , The right to strike is as American as baseball, but it should be used only as a last desperate resort. Demand that your leaders get what you want by arbitration, compromise and decent' American dealing around the table. When they have failed and want you to" f go out on strike, tell them you want to appoint a new committee of rank and file members of your union for one more try at the table with the boss. We have yet to meet a union man who is in favor of the present strikes. Some have said they didn't know what it is all about and could not find out although they had tried. When the word "labor" is used, it means the Union bosses, not the fellow who toils with his hands. Will these leaders who ask for 30 per cent increase now be willing to take a 30 per cent decrease when prices go down? They state they ask only what industry has the ability to pay. Will they agree to take a loss when industry does? The labor leaders want everything their own way and mostly have been granted their wishses and special favors without any responsibility. re-sponsibility. They should be required by the government to abide by the laws that promote the general welfare just as other individuals and corporations do. It is not democracy, neither is it good politics to permit individuals to use gangster tactics as has been done on so many occasions, and permit them to go unpunished. How long will the law-abiding citizens continue to allow law-immune bosses to interfere in-terfere with their well-being? THE ARCADIA (Florida) ARCADIAN (Independent Democratic) Democrat-ic) says: -The President's fireside chat over the radio the other night definitely def-initely aligned Mr. Truman with the left-wing element, for endorsement endorse-ment of the CIO program of reverse economy could leave no doubt as to his position ... Those who have been hoping that the new president would find a way to turn the nation off the route to communism can dismiss the hope now. He is definitely supporting the CIO program, and in the case of the strike against General Motors, the CIO has made it very plain that the object of this strike is for organized labor to take over management of the business, or have the government 'do so, and to definitely start the destruction of free enterprise and replace with a form of communism, the economic system that has made this the greatest nation the world has ever seen. It is beginning to look like a majority of the people of this nation na-tion are dead set on taking a dip into the comrhunistic system. In this plan the people do not worry about balanced budgets, or fairness fair-ness and right, or common honesty or property rights, or any of those old-fashioned ideas which once prevailed. Better null un vnnr collar. We are already in up to our necks. THE SWEET HOME (Oregon) NEW ERA (Independent) says: King James C. Petrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians, is again telling radio stations what, they may broadcast. And believe me this is happening in what we call free America. We ask: just how long are the American people going to take orders from men like Petrillo. How long is the federal government, supposedly sup-posedly the protector of the people's rights, going to let men like Petrillo rule America? ' About That L oan To Britain THE GREENSBURG (Penna.) WESTMORELAND OBSERVER (Independent Democratic) says: If the Congress would take Senator Ed Johnson's (D. Colo.) suggestion to permit the government to issue special bonds to be sold only to individual American citizens to cover the five billion dollar loan (gift) to the British and other foreign handouts, it would be interesting to see how much of their own money these Washington officials and congressmen, who so willingly give the taxpayers' money mon-ey away for free, will invest. How much would the other yelpers for help to the British, Russians and others, lay on the line on the terms our squanderers have given the British? Not very damned much, you can bet on that. Senator Johnson's idea is a good one; it would allow those who want to help foreign nations to do the helping themselves and prohibit pro-hibit our official . . . crackpot do-gooders from further plundering the poor, broken-backed American taxpavers so that they personally can cut a figure in international affairs. The time has come to call a halt on the spenders. THE FREMONT (Mich.) TIMES-INDICATOR (Republican) : There has been much discussion in congress and out of the four billion dollar loan granted Great Britain, and there has been much kickmg about it In the first place, the American people do not like to be told by the British that we didn't do our full share of fighting the war. We recall the number of our casualties on both fronts c also recall our skyrocketed national debt, and the twenty-six billions of lease-lend which has been cancelled. It is true we didn't enter the war when Great Britain did But it is to be remember that at that time even the British didn't think our entrance to the war was necessary. They told us that if wc would furnish the tools they would finish the job. In obedience to that suggestion we repealed our neutrality act and became about as unneutral as possible, short of an outright declaration of war It is not entirely our fault, of course, that the British promise that they It is the time for the American workers to again stand on their own two feet and quit following irresponsible, radical and incompetent incompe-tent labor leaders like a flock of sheep think for yourselves, get together to-gether with your fellow workers and go into the bosses' offices as you formerly did and talk things over with him as American equals. Talk things over man-to-man, using good common sense and reasonableness and you will get more from management than your over-paid, seliish, un-American labor leaders will ever get you you come on now, wake up and get back on the trail throw out your irresponsible, communistic labor leaders and put men into your un-' ion offices that have intelligence. YOU can't afford a strike, it costs YOU too much. Willi am A. E. Chappcllcj Jr., Editor and Publisher The Oregon City (Oregon) BANNER-COURIER (Independent: There was a time when government played along with- business and industry, which led to abuses to the working man. For 13 years we have seen government playing along with labor, which has led to equally bad practices with the added damage of the effect upon the general public. Administration of national affairs should not be on a prejudicial prejudic-ial basis our government should be a government for all the people peo-ple labor, industry and the public in .general. It should be an impartial im-partial government. We believe America is tired of prejudiced governments which act in accordance with the policies pressured upon them by well-organized well-organized minorities, and because of this, we believe that voters will arise next November and install a congress which will reflect in its acts, the will of the majority of this nation's citizens. In this regard, the Republican party has a golden opportunity to be of real service to the nation and regain administrative prestige and leadership. The Democratic party is too well stained with the pro-labor brush, and is too partial to turn its coat in time to convince the voters that it has seen the great light and wants to reform. There is danger, however, that the Republican party will not have the ri"ht leadership to align itself on a bold, and impartial program. There are strong elements among the mighty of the GOP which will attempt to steer the party along anti-labor lines, which would be wrong and would give the strongly organized labor forces the opening they seek to pressure continuance in power. America, that great voiceless segment of it at least, we feel, is ready to support candidates who pledge impartiality and equal rights in government for all' fractions, but principally labor and industry as they arc the outstanding contenders. Question OF The Week The Banning ( Calif.) LIVE WIRE (Independent) asks: . . . Wonder how long the strikes would last if the labor leaders m |
