Murray urges fourth term
Steel union roars Roosevelt approval
Cleveland, Ohio (UP) –
CIO President Philip Murray today endorsed President Roosevelt for a fourth term amid thunderous applause of 2,300 delegates attending the opening session of the second biennial convention of the United Steelworkers of America (CIO).
Mr. Murray, who also heads the steel union, said that “the overwhelming majority of the people of this nation… regardless of political affiliation… demand his [Mr. Roosevelt’s] reelection.”
He said:
No man in our lifetime has rendered greater service to his nation than the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces – the President of the United States.
In an attack on the “Little Steel” wage formula, Mr. Murray recalled that when it was formulated two years ago, he said then that it was “unworkable, impractical and that time would prove its application would develop wider discrimination in the wage structure of the nation.”
Without specific reference to the union’s current demand for a 17-cent-an-hour wage increase over the formula, Mr. Murray said:
I attended its baptism, I participated in its confirmation and with the grace of God I hope to attend its wake.
Mr. Murray reaffirmed the CIO’s no-strike pledge and said his organization would never justify a strike “while an American is in a foxhole.”