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Show MONEY & MARKETS sssaaBsssawBsatsB By-JameirMcMtHin Tke Teleerem'e bcknfve Okearve Alua Was Street NEW YORK Exceptionally informed in-formed New York sources pay attention at-tention to apparently inspired reports re-ports from Washington that tha Roosevelt-Lewis cleavage la definite def-inite and irrevocable. These are coupled .closelyjto othetvstrong hints that a formula to solve the A. F. of L.-C. I. O. civil war is being be-ing concocted behind the scenes. The point to note especially Is that no compromise between the warring wings of organised labor is possible In practice no matter how Ingeniously the craft va. industrial in-dustrial union problem la solved unless certain personalities now dominating the labor scene are eliminated. John Lewis would certainly have to be laid on the shelf before peace is practicable, and the same probably apples to Bill Green. What leadership would replace them? Astute analysts figure it would have to come at least at the outset from the government Itself. It looks to them as if F. I. R. is eooktng up coop which would In reality give the administration admin-istration a dominant position in labor affairs and relegate the Lewises and Greens to the sidelines. side-lines. Of course any such move would have to be dressed tip to its ears in indirection and camouflage camou-flage to make it palatable to the public. Watch for developments along this line. Wage negotiations between the railroads and all the rail labor unions except the five big brotherhoods brother-hoods have reached a curious impasse. im-passe. The unions have been demanding de-manding an increase of six cents an hour. A committee representing represent-ing the managements decided that raise of four cents an hour was their limit J. J. Pelley head of the Association of American Railroadswas Rail-roadswas deputed to convey, this decision to the unions. But Mr. Pelley, after a long and fruitless parley with union spokesmen, suggested a compromise compro-mise at five cents. The unions rejected re-jected this proposal and quit the conference blustering about a strike vote. On cool second thought however, how-ever, labor leaders decided it would be more sensible to take a half loaf peacefully than to stir up a big rumpus for the full loaf. So the strike vote was quietly canceled and Mr. Pelley was advised ad-vised that the boys were ready to discuss his proposition. Then came the peculiar hitch. Mr. Pelley had no authority whatever to make his five-cent offer and is privately on the griddle with his own committee. So the unions are waiting while the managements make up their minds whether to repudiate or reluctantly indorse their spokesman'a plan. The smoothness with which Pan-American's first transatlantic flight went off waa no surprise to aviation insiders. Pan-American never goes off half-cocked. All of its history-making oversea ventures were preceded by years of painstaking study and preparation. prep-aration. For example, Pan-Am. had a man stationed in Newfoundland way back in 1928 whose sole duty waa the gathering of meteorological meteorolog-ical and other data for use in planning eventual transatlantic schedules. In 1929, he was transferred trans-ferred to the Azores and Portugal to study a possible southern route. In the years since, doxens of un-publicized un-publicized fliers, engineers, weather weath-er experts, etc., have plugged away at the endless problems involved. in-volved. Charles Lindbergh's surveys, sur-veys, of course, were headlined but he was only one of many. It's a principle with this line to leave nothing to chance. Hence some of its most remarkable achievements look like simple routine rou-tine when they come through. It's a curious fact that Pan-American Pan-American was Interested in a transatlantic project for several years before it even dreamed of a Pacific service. Yet the latter came to fruition much sooner. There were several reasons. Foremost among them were diplomatic dip-lomatic difficulties. Britain, France and Germany all had ideas of their own about transatlantic aviation. All aorta of complicated questions of landing places, mail, etc., had to be answered. No such obstacle existed in the Pacific. The air bases and termini were all in territory owned or controlled by Uncle Sam. Second, there was the weather. The Pacific presented no such formidable problems as the Atlantic At-lantic on this score. Finally and extremely importantthe impor-tantthe United States navy was eager to cooperate with Pan-American Pan-American in the Pacific because of the national defense angles. It wasn't even remotely Interested In the north Atlantic Copyright, 1937. for The Telegram |
