Show i A Great Relief to fo the Government THE HE decision of striking foreman f remen in 13 key Detroit war plants to go back to work must have been a great relief to the war war labor board and the government The strike was really serious Some persons eng engaged ged In various critical war production jobs were left lef idle because of it General H. H H. H Arnold chief of the army air forces said flatly that the strikes were so vital that if they were not immediately called caned off it might force him to change his timetable for the thebo bo bombing bing destruction of Germany it might affect invasion operations oper oper- s and it might cost the lives of bombing crews through lack of sufficient fighter plane protection No question about it this labor trouble was seriously hampering the most essential kind of war activities It wasn't new either It had been going on gathering momentum for about three weeks Repeatedly too the foremen's union had refused to heed appeals and orders from government officials and the war labor board to go back to work The situation was beginning to get rather embarrassing to the government It had acted with such dispatch t to take care of business defiance in the Montgomery Ward Vard case that the public was beginning ng to ask why all the procrastination and hesitation in handling the foremen's defiance equally defiance equally strong and affecting to a far greater degree essential war activity It was getting to a point where the government might have had to call out the soldiers to carry the foremen forcibly back to their jobs fobs a la Avery tactics tactics tactics-or or do something drastic at any event to prove that they really meant business and that they weren't playing f favorites in insisting on compliance with orders Despite this eleventh hour escape fr from m an embarrassing g predicament for the government the public will still believe that there was unpardonable hesitation in dealing with this strike which on the very eve of f invasion was tying up vitally needed war production and thereby threatening th the lives of the men in inthe inthe inthe the armed forces the success of tb the coming coming- invasion and the winning of the war itself The strike was inexcusable tantamount tantamount tantamount tanta tanta- mount to one of the worst deeds of sabotage which the enemy could have hoped to stage at t a critical hour Yet it was per per- permitted permitted witted to go on day after day increasing steadily in its dire effects effects effects ef ef- with nothing more than please to answer obstinate defiance Of course there is nothing new in such governmental failure to deal strongly with war production stoppages caused directly by an obstinate labor union That's been the whole history of the handling of wartime strikes The only thing new about it itIs itIs itis is the amazing contrast of such procrastination and hesitation with the speed and forcefulness with which the government dealt with a stoppage of work in an operation not at all directly co connected n ct d with the war effort when it involved an obstinate business |