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Show 'A Season of Surprises' And Still More to Come Government Control of Railroads and National Service Act Complete Surprise In Many Quarters. By BAUKHAGE Neivs Analyst and Commentator. pretty hard to ba really objective. Anyone who has watched political campaigns in the making, has a hard time not to attribute a partisan motive to any -act or word spoken in Washington in an election year. As far as taking the railroads over goes, that might have been prompted prompt-ed by a real and honest fear that transportation would have been interfered in-terfered with at a moment when it was as vital to the war effort as a division of fighting men. What possible pos-sible excuse could there be for letting let-ting such a thing happen? Again, whether or not there was to be a strike, there was a strike threat. At the same moment, there was a strike threat in another vital industry steel. That was called off by putting pressure on Phillip Murray, Mur-ray, head of the C. I. O. But could that pressure have been applied unless un-less Mr. Murray could have been told: "Remember, the chances of acceptance of your demands by the steel men will be a t lot better if they are afraid the government will take their industry over too. The WNTJ Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. This is the season of surprises I won't mention at this moment the big one which will cause your eyebrows eye-brows to go up at an early date (if they haven't already). I'll mention two others on the labor la-bor front since they represent two of the neatest problems with which congress still has to deal and which are particularly full of dynamite because be-cause of the coming elections. And elections are bound to color the acts of every public man from now until the ides of November. , We are used to it now because it happened some time age, and the effects were not visible to the naked eye but one big surprise that shook Washington as the year ended was the sudden announcement on a balmy Monday evening in December Decem-ber which ordered the army to take over the railroads. All over Washington the day before, be-fore, that day too, as a matter of fact, you could have collected fine odds against such a thing happening. happen-ing. Not that people were betting on that subject itself; what they were betting on, those who ought to have been (and I still believe were) in the know, was that there would railroads are a warning." And then, if you want to take one highly unofficial explanation from a nobody as far as officialdom goes, but from a man who has fought in his own little sphere for things he believes in, I'll throw it in for good measure. The comment was applied to the President's call for a national service serv-ice act, not the seizure of the roads, but it applies to both. This observer observ-er observed: "Politics? No. The guy just wants to win the war." And come to think of it, that might have had something to do with it too. Notes From a Broadcaster' Diary The following two viewpoints received re-ceived recently are interesting. Here is the first: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within with-in the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction." from the Constitution of the United States. The President swore to uphold the Constitution the national service act or the labor draft is involuntary servitude or human slavery. That's what he called it in Berlin and Tokyo and he wants it here. What are we fighting for? And now for the second viewpoint! General Eisenhower said we can vin the war in 1944 but everyone must do his part. Something must be wrong somewhere some-where for him to say that. He knows it is not the armed forces. So it must be on the home front. For the armed forces 6perate on a functional function-al alignment from commanding of-I'ficer of-I'ficer down, orders are given and obeyed. Servicemen cannot bargain with their commanders as to wages, hours, fighting conditions or make contracts on a cost-plus basis. Their objective is to win battles. But on the home front, the objective objec-tive is to make money (see Truman Report). Ships, planes, tanks and guns are secondary. We can have a functional operation opera-tion at home by Installing total conscription con-scription of men, machines, material materi-al and money. These boys were conscripted to die. Then why not conscript the ones at home? If it's good enough for the armed forces, it's good enough for the rest of us. Who can say he is entitled to more? be no railroad strike. The second big surprise is still having its sharp repercussions although al-though it happened not so much more recently than the other event to which it was closely linked. National Service Act The first, I discussed in a recent column in connection with the seizure seiz-ure of the railroads. Ttien the second, sec-ond, the President's demand for a national service act as a part of his legislative program outlined in that annual message, came tumbling after, aft-er, and we haven't gotten over either ei-ther yet. One astute and neutral observer of affairs in Washington an old-timer, old-timer, who sees parties come and go without loss of sleep over his Job, said something to me after the roads had been seized that I have had occasion to ponder upon often since. He is one of the men who was ready to give odds that there would be no strike and he knows all of the people who participated in the conferences, con-ferences, employers, union heads, officials, by their first names except ex-cept the President, of course, whom nobody but his mother as far as I know, perhaps his wife when she is here, fir it names. One just doesn't first-name Presidents. Anyho, this friend of mine, aghast at the suddenness of the seizure seiz-ure of the roads, remarked: "Do you realize this? Overnight, Instead of being the object of all attacks at-tacks for babying labor, the President Presi-dent suddenly is in the position now of defending the people against labor?" la-bor?" i That was the quick reaction of technical man to whom politics is only an interesting sideline. When the President's message was droned out by the reading clerk In congress and the President came to point five in his five-point legislative legisla-tive program, there was a sharp intake in-take of breaths. You recall the first reaction. Hardly anything but a frigid reception for the suggestion for what was Immediately called "the labor draft." Cynics' Reactions Then came the cynical observation observa-tion f the anti-administration politicians. poli-ticians. It sounded a little like the comment of my first-quoted observer observ-er except that it was flavored more heavily with party tabasco. "Pure politics," they sneered. "He had no labor program. He knew it. So now he tosses the hottest controversial con-troversial question on the boards labor draft into congress. He probably prob-ably hopes we won't pass it. If we 'don't, he'll say: 'See, I give them a labor program and they turn me down!' " Well, there are the two surprises which are scheduled to breed others in their trail, and you and everybody every-body else will interpret them In terms of your or their prejudices, sharpened to a knife-edge of devotion devo-tion or hatred In this year of the ballot. What Is really behind thse two sharp and unexpected moves? It is |
