Show 0 0 w national topics interpreted by Willi Will iata ato bruckart washington D C national press nuil dinc washington authorities general ly lly agree that good administration can make even a workable good law better in labor law its results and bad administration can definitely ruin it the same is true of course of any law A bad laws law a effect can be doubled or trebled by irresponsible administration of its provisions of this I 1 believe e there can be no doubt certainly we have fresh evidence on the point over which we can ponder and the truth of the above statements seems inescapable I 1 have been among amond those who have criticized the national I 1 labor abor relations act and the national labor relations board created by it it has always impressed me as being a half baked statute that it has many weaknesses there is no doubt that it has worked out in biased form and that it has done grave damage to the feeling of the general public toward labor organization there certainly can be no doubt or to summarize the situation it has been made painfully evident that senator wagner new york democrat who sponsored the law took prejudiced advice when he be drafted the measure he was given only one side of the picture but I 1 suspect the law can be made workable and I 1 entertain no thought at all that it should be abandoned entirely we need a national labor policy expressed in statute form changes in its provisions ought to be made but to my way of thinking there is a more urgent circumstance the urgent need is improvement pro in administration of the law in order that the benefits of even a weak and biased law will not be denied to the count rys economic life it is the recent administrative acts under the law that have brought it into the spotlight again these acts should be reviewed to bring the whole situation into proper focus for examination and I 1 shall refer to two of them in this connection they will substantiate my earlier criticisms early in december we learned of how the national labor relations board subpoenaed the editor of a magazine it called for the editor to supply all of the background of information upon which he based an article that was critical of the board since the article was critical of the board and its methods officials of the board regarded the background information as essential the article in question had been reprinted and circulated among workers in several mills according to the board and this fact was used by the board as a basis for bringing the editor under the boards jurisdiction ten days after the first unusual exercise of power by the board it took another unprecedented step rather one of its attorneys took the unprecedented step but since the attorney was an employee of the board it seems clear the action is is chargeable to the board because it is the responsible policymaking policy making head of the agency the second case resulted from the refusal of an editor of 0 asdall daily newspaper to tell editor a trial examiner sf stands andi pat tor for the board who wrote an editorial in his newspaper the st marys pa daily press harry T obrien the editor declined to answer the question put to him by a board attorney in a public hiaring hearing he stood pat and the trial examiner charles H bayly and the attorney jerome I 1 macht called his attention to provisions of the wagner act requiring him to answer the question of freedom of the pr press ess as guaranteed by the constitution was mentioned but according to the stenographic record of the it hearing earing the trial examiner and the a attorney each held to the provision of the law as being superior to the other guarantee or at least that is my impression of the proceedings As tar far as I 1 am informed the board has taken no further action in the obrien case it has moved however to enforce its subpoena in the case of hartley W barclay the magazine editor A federal court has been asked by the board to enforce the subpoena which mr barclay ignored he probably will be compelled to appear at least he should be compelled to appear in response to the subpoena no one can ignore a subpoena Rs As for supplying the information that is a different matter his refusal to supply confidential information and imperil the freedom of the press is indeed quite a different matter As one writer I 1 hope mr barclay and mr obrien stick by their guns I 1 hope too that the board will not imperil Us its existence and the good points in the law by attempting to assert power which I 1 do not believe it possesses there is no excuse legally or morally for a crew of officious in individuals dividu als to undertake the sort of th things ings disclosed in these two iastan instances ces they abuse confidence and besmirch the titles which they bear further t they hey have forced an us ia sue that ought never to be raised it is a sad day in our country when government officials great or minor try to break through the guarantees which the constitution gives you and me it portends more evil things consider for example my own personal situation if the boards attorneys get away with the sort of thing represented in these two instances how long I 1 ask will I 1 be permitted to write as I 1 am now doing freely frankly 7 and if they get away with it how long will it be until you who do me the honor to read my reports will find yourselves without any honest expressions in anything you read it is not blackjacking black jacking the press yet but il if it goes further that will be the proper term to apply returning now to the original premise namely that a good law may be destroyed or the effects of a bad law may be made worse by bad administration it appears to me the conditions related demonstrate the theory as a fact I 1 have rioted noted some comment on the floors of congress that the board was not aware of what was happening in these two cases that it had issued no such orders etc such observations require no answer anything that is done by any employee of a government agency is done by that agency because it is to that agency not to any particular person who may be on its payroll that congress gave authority to act I 1 am beginning to doubt that the american farmer is going to have his problem farm solved or even problem partially bettered I 1 by the present tactics the word tactics is used advisedly congress has not acted with th the full freedom that ought to obtain insofar as the current crop control legislation is concerned it is suffering from an overdose of some strange medicine currently called wallaces formula there is real doubt whether the ailment a from which agriculture suffers is as bad as the wallace prescription of medicine for its cure use of the word tactics can be further justified if the legislation is considered from the angle at which the problem is approached I 1 refer in this to the projected limitation on production that is to say I 1 I 1 believe in processes that will allow all of the production that is possible and that there are ways for handling the surplus without turning over a great industry like agriculture to have its fate decided by one man or group of men the fact is that while secretary wallace and his advisers are learned men they are still human beings I 1 hold to the old fashioned belief that even those learned men are not equipped to tell farmers how much they ought to plant and what they ought to plant it stretches my credulity t too 00 far for someone to ask me to believe any government official or anybody else can forecast next month what the demand is going to be next year and that is almost an accurate statement of what is pr proposed 0 by the current model of farm relief the reason I 1 called the influence wallaces formula goes back several months it is my recollection recollect 1 on without checking up the dates th that at I 1 reported some goings on by mr wallace last summer at that time I 1 said the agriculture secretary and numerous of his subordinates were traipsing about the country telling the farmers what was good for them it was quite evident then as facts have since proved the department of agriculture was staging a gigantic propaganda for mr wallaces type of farm legislation he persuaded a couple of senators to go into the interior and hold hearings and it was from these hearings that senators mcgill of kansas and pope of idaho both democrats dem 0 obtained their ideas for t the he bill that the senate considered unless the usual signs at the capitol fail me the vast majority of the farmers of this country do not want to have their production limited probably the best general statement that can bf be made on that phase of the legislation was made by senator borah of idaho who attacked the theory of compulsion on vehemently in a speech abou arou aroused sed to use of his full oratorical powers senator borah de declared blared to the senate this bill it if en enacted acted will accomplish corna com lish two things first it will place the farmer under tinder complete e bureaucratic control second it will bring about a reduction oi of crops when millions are hungry and in need that thought will be echoed more after the country has tasted of the fruits of the bill than now according to my way of thinking therefore it seems seem to me that rather than face economic suicide as senator borah predicted congress could very well lay plans to permit unrestricted growth of crops and couple coupie with that the means of taking the surplus off t the he hands of the farmer 0 western Nw News pap union |