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Show KAj af ORiiW PEARSON LABOR CRISIS TESTS TRUMAN The fast-growing labor crisis presents Harry S. Truman with the first big problem he has faced on a hitherto well-charted Roosevelt Roose-velt sea. Up until now, most policies, especially those dealing with war and peace, had been pretty well established by Truman's Tru-man's predecessor. In settling the current labor turmoil, however, Harry is completely on his own. For some time, labor advice from White House insiders has differed. Truman's labor department has argued that labor troubles after wars were inevitable, that both Wilson and Harding had to call out U. S. troops after the last war, that labor has been in a strait Jacket since Pearl Harbor, is bound to feel its wild oats now; finally that big business was equally equal-ly in a straight jacket and equally equal-ly willing to row with labor especially espe-cially If it could get labor in wrong with the public . . . advice ad-vice to Truman: Don't stick your neck out; let both sides battle it out for a while. Opposite advice came from another wing of the White House . . . while admitting that all the above is true, other advisers ad-visers urged that both labor and industry needed guidance. For four years both labor and industry have had the Little-Steel Little-Steel Formula as their guide. They were supposed not to go above this . . . Now labor finds itself losing its overtime wages, with take-home pay dropping way below lush war days, yet with the cost of living still high. Therefore, Truman was urged to step forward and set a national na-tional policy, suggest a wage increase which would partly offset off-set the drop in take-home pay ... It is this group of advisers which Truman finally has decided de-cided to follow. |