Show b 0 national topics interpreted by william bruckart washington general hugh S johnson president Roosevel ts ira industrial du recovery ad johnson joanson has h a 9 gets action been moving with so much speed that lie he now has between thirty and forty major industries in agreement respecting principles and practices which each group shall follow in getting industrial du machinery into motion labor employed and buyers buying again ite he has accomplished these things by sheer driving power coupled with the full force of publicity industrial lenders leaders have had to stand hitched have had to make concessions and have had bad to abandon a lot of their own ideas in order to reach the agreements but ira has brought them together because the butt bulk of them were afraid of the spotlight of publicity if they failed to operate cooperate co developments under the industrial recovery act the program which the president drove through congress as a means of making partners of business and government have bate begun to show the extraordinary power accorded the president by that law they reveal likewise the enormous pressure than can be exerted in the name of the government of the united states and the subordination to which even traditionally independent and free americans will subject themselves in time of stress but simultaneously observers here have noted the undercurrent of anger among those same industrialists at the use of the powers of the government in the way they are being used in ID other words I 1 think it Is no exaggeration to say the majority of the industrial codes were worked out under duress and fear and that the majority of those agreeing to each code had bad their ringers fingers crossed and their tongues in their cheeks when they signed on the dotted lines general johnson has a term pineapples by which he describes the knotty problems constantly recurring in his big negotiations with the various industrial groups it Is freely predicted both among the industrialists who came here for their conferences on the new codes and among wise acres in the government that there will be a surplus ot of pineapples along with some other crops this year ira had bad hardly been under way a week with conferences in which the codes worked out by the industrialists for governing their industries were being aired when up came the age old pineapple of capital versus labor 11 capital can not be criticized too much for desiring to protect itself and laher labor cannot be criticized too much for demanding what it considers to be its rights yet the feeling here seems to be that each must go along within reason under present conditions or else each will be put in the position of cutting off its nose to spite its face ira was pretty hard boiled on this program and a full head of steam was developed that resulted in an inevitable blow off the blow off came with startling suddenness like lightning out of 0 a blue sky came miss came the frances perkins ns the blow off secretary of labor and she laid down some gome solid demands in a hearing before ira she said that capital was trying to take advantage of 0 labor that it was sliding out from under tile the terms of the law w which aich created iras job and that ira was moving w with ith uch such s speed to get recovery under wa way y that labor was going to suffer miss bliss perkins did not say I 1 it t that way yet my language Is no stronger than hers her S that was an une unexpected expected pineapple indeed ira had been face to face with several of them this however was as the first shot from what had been looked upon as a neutral in the war between the capital and labor troops troop correspondents who attended that hearing were given the impression that ira did not enjoy the labor secre speech one bit some of 0 his associates socia tes surely did not like it all but they were less restrained th than an was ira himself and the gossip aroun around d washington Is that iras start staff will be happy to see miss perkins remain in her office which Is some seven mocks blocks from the co colossal clossal department of 0 corn commerce building where general johnson has headquarters washington Is actually overwhelmed with codes these days ira has his crop of 0 new codes of principles and practices for industry secretary of agriculture wallace Is developing a barnyard full fail of codes in attempting to carry out the so called farm parity bill with its processing taxes options to the farmers to buy holdover hold bold over cotton and acreage reduction for various crops and agricultural relief administrator george N peek and farm credit administrator henry jr have their codes each one has its definite purpose and each one fita into the picture which president roosevelt Is trying to put together to lead the country out of the slough but where are the codes going to lead visitors to washington these days are many and it seems that on the lips of each there Is that question the whole program Is so new and so go untried on a national basis that it Is quite natural to express some i wonder onder about it I 1 have heard it suggested that the various steps now being taken by the roosevelt adminis see new probably con economic era statute the beginning of a new economic era indeed one analyst declared that possibly the arrangement of all of the new codes of practice for industry might conceivably represent the start ot of a period in which the federal government will become an industrial referee or umpire carrying that thought further it was conceived as possible that fewer and fewer federal laws would be enacted with reference to control of industry aud and agriculture with a federal umpire to sit in judgment tor for example farmers could organize and control their own destiny solve their own problems and be independent that same reasoning it Is asserted applies to every other line ot of commercial endeavor it represents a theory that private business observed from a watchtower by something of 0 a federal dictator can and will manage its own affairs to a better advantage than can be done by continual enactment of new and halt half baked laws to that extent therefore instead of making partners of the government and private business the roosevelt program takes shape as a possible move to put business on a plane to do the job itself it seems pertinent to call attention just here to the fact that except in wartime neither agriculture nor any other industry has ever received the shock 0 of its life with such equanimity as it has swallowed the orders of 0 the federal government I 1 have heard it said that it would take just such a shock to awaken the individual members ot of the various lines of trade to ta the necessity for complete co ordina tion of all 0 of their activities and functions president roosevelt on his return to the white house after a vacation repeated that he was must boost in deadly earnest prices about tho the necessity for boosting ot of prices and that nothing Is going to stand in the way insofar RS as the government can control those factors nis ills statement was waa but a repetition and a broadening of his earlier appeal to the cotton farmers to them he sounded a keynote for the whole campaign of crop reduction no doubt exists that unless the farmers help themselves the crop reduction program ram and the consequent boost in prices can cannot not be expected to succeed in other words the situation is this the federal machinery tor for reduction ol of crop acre ages it has worked out a program that thai means higher prices for that which the farmers sell and it has made a part of that program an inflation ol of fredit credit and use of federal funds it has resorted to its taxing power in oriler order to obtain funds to compensate those who agree to cut acreage and reduce the surplus it Is up to the I 1 farmers therefore to do their part the r reason eason the president spoke ol of cotton first was because that c rop crop la is still in a position and at a stage of growth where part of it can be destroyed st it was explained in this connection that the growth to fruition ol of the entire acreage of cotton now planted would increase the surplus to such an extent that eliat a carryover carry over of as much as bales was possible that figure probably Is too high but the th point Is that growth of this years entire crop would only add to th the e amount of cotton already stored from previous bears and the result jbv obviously bously would woul be a price reduction some market experts say it might go down to 3 ai to 4 cents a pound tobacco la Is the next crop in line it still can be cut down the department of agriculture Is working oil OD plans to levy a processing tax to pay the growers for curtailing that crop the tax Is scheduled to be 5 cents a pound and will be collected as the other processing taxes are from the th factories that prepare the commodity for market A wheat processing tax tai of 0 30 cents a bushel has gone into ef I 1 feet already to finance curtailment of the surplus wheat acreage and the same can be written respecting procedure for the other commodities nevertheless one can ask what good the processing tax will be and what will be accomplished by this vast mathine bl ne that has been set up to help the tha farmers banners unless they themselves cooperate the answer if stated in can dor would be nothing A few more weeks probably will be sufficient time within which to judge whether the farmers are going to do their part during the debate in congress when the farm parity bill was under conald consideration era tion there were frequent references to the possibility that the program could not succeed because too many farmers would hold back so from whatever angle one examines the program one arrives at the conclusion that it Is up to the farmer if the price he receives for his wheat or ills his cotton or his other products fulls falls to stay around the point where it Is profitable for him film to en gage gace in the industry some of his num her have killed the goose that laid the tha golden egg I 1 0 1111 1933 watern valor |