Holiday buyers smash records in ‘last spree’
U.S. retail sales jump as high as 35% over 1941 season
By the United Press
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Walkout goes into third day on New York papers
Over-the-counter sales boom, but deliveries remain halted
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Rumors rule in New York with ‘rationing’ of news
Strike keeps war facts from public; shoppers upset; 12 papers sell for $4; commuters unhappy
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WPB lifts restrictions on brassiere production
Washington (UP) –
The War Production Board today removed restrictions on production of brassieres and bandeaux because scrap elastic is generally used in the manufacturer of these garments.
WPB originally had limited monthly production to 75% of the average monthly output in the three-month period ended March 31, 1941.
Ship law change defeated by Senate economy bloc
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent
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Enemy broadcast –
Jap raids on Fijis, Caledonia reported
Berlin, Germany (UP) – (German broadcast recorded in New York)
Tokyo dispatches said today that Japanese Air Forces successfully attacked Fiji and New Caledonia, in the Southwest Pacific, yesterday.
U.S. forces are stationed at both places.
Peacemaking may be harder than last time
Diplomats believe Allies must begin planning before Axis falls
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Editorial: One’s own lights
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Background of news –
Labor relations and civil employees
By Editorial Research Reports
The dangers of protracted legal skirmishing on the part of municipal officials, and a great increase in the number of demands of municipal employees for wage increases, union recognition and other labor difficulties, are foreseen by federal officials and municipal experts as the result of recent disputes brought before the War Labor Board. Behind-the-scenes activity is directed at forestalling such dangers.
Mayors, city attorneys, boards in control of municipally-owned utilities and other local officials concerned with hiring and firing personnel are being asked, on the grounds of patriotism, to exercise better leadership in preserving tranquility among public employees. Labor union officials, equally, are being asked to pipe down, on the ground that any decisions or actions by war agencies concerned with labor can deal only with wartime conditions and that actions of such boards would bring no enduring, peacetime benefits to labor.
The resort to such tactics is indicative of the state of confusion which exists in connection with questions of collective bargaining of workers employed by governments – whether or not they are under civil service regulations, whether they are employed by publicly-owned utilities, or as common laborers.
Lawyers representing both the cities and the labor organizations appearing before the War Labor Board appeared to treat the Board as a court, which it is not, since it was created by President Roosevelt’s executive order. The absence of effective means of dealing with organizations of government employees appeared to be the seat of the difficulty. It is generally agreed that public employees have no right to strike. But whether the right to bargain collectively and to resort to arbitration in cases where agreements become impossible, is a decidedly moot question. The Supreme Court of Michigan held, last year, that a municipality comes within the terms of the statute requiring mediation of labor disputes by the state mediation board. On the other hand, the New York Supreme Court held that the anti-injunction law of that state does not apply to labor disputes involving state employees or any employees of the state’s subdivisions.
Such questions as arise in connection with the depriving of employees of their rights to collective bargaining enjoyed while working ample, if and when such utility comes under public ownership, usually have been answered by giving civil service status to such employees. By no means all employees of all publicly-owned and operated utilities have the protection of civil service systems, but labor organizers have found plenty of city employees under civil service willing and eager to join labor organizations in the hope of improving their pay and working conditions.
The general rule concerning pay of government workers is that the legislative body, whether it be a city council, board of county commissioners, state legislature or the federal Congress, holds the purse strings and employees are paid what the legislative branches determine they may be paid. A city administrator cannot raise salaries or wages unless the taxing authority provides the necessary revenue and approves the operating budget.
Rates of pay by governments usually lag somewhat behind the wages earned in private industry for the same type of work in times of prosperity. However, employment by governments usually is steadier and there are fewer dismissals in hard times.
Byrnes wins new powers over alphabet agencies
Economic czar given authority to settle disputes among Wickard, Henderson, Nelson, Eastman
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
WITH U.S. FORCES IN ALGERIA – A trip by troop transport in convoy is a remarkable experience. I came to Africa that way. We weren’t permitted to tell about it at the time, for security reasons. But enough time has passed now that it can be written without danger.
So, this will be a series on our convoy trip from England to Africa. As you read it, you can apply it any other convoy, for they are essentially the same, and they are sailing all the oceans this very minute.
Convoys are of three types, you might say – the very slow ones of freighters carrying only supplies; the medium-fast troop convoys which run with extremely heavy naval escort; and the small convoys of swift ocean liners which carry vast numbers of troops and depend for safety mainly on their great speed.
Ours was the second type. We were fairly fast; we carried an enormous number of troops; and we had a heavy escort, although no matter how much escort you have, it never seems enough to please you. We had both American and British ships, but our escort was all British.
I still can’t tell you what route we took, or how long we were at sea, but I can say that if we had sailed the same distance due west, we could have been in New York instead of North Africa.
I got the word at noon one day that we were to leave London that night. There were scores of last-minute things to do.
The Army picked up my bedroll at 2 p.m. to take it somewhere for its mystic convoy labelings. I packed everything else in a canvas bag and my Army musette bag. At leaving hour, I put on my Army uniform for the first time, and said goodbye to civilian clothes for goodness knows how long.
My old brown suit, my dirty hat, all my letters – every little personal thing went into a truck which remained in London, and I’ll probably never see it again.
Up all night on train
It was night. I took a taxi to a meeting place designated by the Army. Other correspondents were there. Our British papers were taken away for safekeeping by the Army. We were told to take off our correspondents’ armbands, for they might identify us as a convoy party to lurking spies, if any.
An Army car picked us up, and drove clear across London through the blackout. I lost all track of where we were. Finally, we stopped at a little-used suburban station and were told we’d have two hours to wait before the troop train came.
We paced the station platform, trying to keep warm. It seemed the train would never come. When it did, we piled into two compartments.
We sat up all night on the train, sleeping a little but not much, because it was too cold. We didn’t know what port we were going to, but somebody told us on the way. We were surprised. Some of the boys had never heard of it.
Just after daylight, our train pulled alongside a huge ship. We checked in at an Army desk in the pier-shed, gathered our baggage, and climbed aboard, feeling very grubby and cold but awfully curious.
Train and train of troops
Our party was assigned to two cabins, four men in each. Our staterooms were nice, much better than any of us expected. They were the same as in peacetime, except that an extra bunk had been carpentered over each bed. Many officers were in cabins much more crowded than ours.
We all thought we would sail shortly after getting aboard. But we had forgotten that the ship had to be loaded first. Actually, we didn’t sail for 48 hours.
During that time, one long troop train after another, day and night, pulled alongside and unloaded its human cargo. Time dragged on. Impatience was useless.
We would stand at the rails and watch the troops marching aboard. They came through the rain, heavily laden. In steel helmets, in overcoats, carrying rifles and with huge packs on their backs. It was a thrilling sight, and said, in a way, to see them marching in endless numbers up the steep gangway to be swallowed into the great ship.
One soldier led a big black dog. And one, I found later, carried two little puppies aboard beneath his shirt. Like the Spartan boy in the story, he was almost scratched to death. He had paid $32 for the pups, and he treasured them.
The British (it was a British ship) are finicky about allowing dogs on troop transports. The officers ordered all dogs turned in. They said they’d be sent ashore, and promised that good homes would be found for them.
But somehow the dogs disappeared. They were never found by the officers. And the morning we filed off the boat in North Africa, a black dog and two little puppies from England marched with us up the strange African road.