Election 1944: Fred W. Perkins columns

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 28, 1944)

Perkins: Casey, battling for UMW, sure hits that ball

Lewis editor raps Hillman, Democrats
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
Casey’s at the bat, and really swinging.

Casey is K. C. Adams, one of John L. Lewis’ favorite authors. He is editor of the United Mine Workers Journal, the official Lewis program, and in today’s issue, Casey really hits hard.

It is not difficult to detect that Casey and his Journal and the eyebrowed boss of the Miners’ Union are against:

• “Sidney Hillman, self-appointed head of the CIO Political Action Committee, with Roosevelt approval, which… changed its name to cover up its ‘Commie’ domination… Phil Murray…. Reduced to a stooge… at Hillman’s side.”

• “Marshall Field III, richest man in America, who imagines he can become a newspaperman by spending money on newspapers which hardly anybody reads.”

• “The Democratic Party running on its record… The Little Steel formula and all other devices intended to freeze the American workingman as a political servant of the New Deal Party.”

** The Democratic platform, which “doesn’t exactly claim the war is the private property of the Democratic Party, but does claim the Roosevelt administration saw the war coming and got ready for it. Naturally enough, the sinking of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor by the Japs in a surprise attack, and the destruction of most of our oil tankers on the Atlantic Ocean, are not included in the platform boast of foreseeing the war.”

GOP answer is yes

Casey also tells his constituents, the half-million miners and their families, that the Republican platform answer is “Yes” and the Democratic answer is “no,” on the issues of:

• Unfreeze wages.

• Unshackle labor from being frozen to the job.

• Restore the Department of Labor to union labor.

• Reorganize, consolidate and simplify government boards and bureaus handling labor relations, and administer the laws on a basis of equality.

From now until the November election, the same arguments will be hammered at the coal miners and their voting relatives in an endeavor to accomplish what Mr. Lewis failed to accomplish four years ago – their diversion from voting the Roosevelt ticket. In 1940, Mr. Lewis had only a few weeks in which to work actively and in the open; this year he has several months.

Not as vicious as AFL

The Mine Worker attacks on Sidney Hillman and the CIO-PAC are not quite as vicious as those directed at the Hillman organization by publicists for the American Federation of Labor, who go farther in alleging a Communist background.

While Mr. Lewis and his union have not been taken back into the AFL, there is an apparent political sympathy between them – with the difference that Mr. Lewis is openly anti-Roosevelt, the AFL uncommitted on him, but definitely anti-Hillman.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (July 30, 1944)

Perkins: The Hatch laws say

By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent

Washington –
The job of enforcing the laws against undue political activity of federal employees will be greater in this election campaign than in any preceding one, for two reasons: (1) There are many more such employees, under the wartime expansion; (2) a large proportion have not had time to become indoctrinated with the politically-passive etiquette that is supposed to govern public servants, and many regard themselves as only temporarily on the federal payroll, with a consequent lesser fear of the principal penalty, expulsion.

The size of the job is indicated by the fact that the number of federal civilian employees, in and outside the continental United States, is now greater than the total number of employees of all the states, counties, cities, towns and other local units of the entire country.

The latest figure of the Civil Service Commission for the federal service shows 2,862,449 federal employees within the continental United states, plus 415,100 outside, a total of 3,277,549. The latest available figure on the total of state and local government is 3,069,600.

Congress has recognized the larger job of enforcing the political activities laws through adding $40,000 to the usual annual $50,000 of the Civil Service Commission for this purpose. That money will not be used for organization of a corps of official watchers of the behavior of federal employees. There is no such corps, and none is planned.

This is the law

The theory is that a federal employee cannot become active in party politics without making himself conspicuous and obnoxious, subject to being reported on or complained against by persons who are on the other side of the question.

Big, black “WARNING” signs have been posted in hundreds of thousands of places where they will reach the attention of the persons most concerned. They cite first, THE LAW:

It shall be unlawful for any person employed in the executive branch of the federal government, or any agency or department thereof, to use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election or affecting the result thereof. No officer or employee in the executive branch of the federal government, or any agency or department thereof, shall take any active part in political management or in political campaigns. All such persons shall retain the right to vote as they may choose and to express their opinions on all political subjects and candidates.

Other legislation applies the same restrictions to employees of the District of Columbia, and to state or local employees “whose principal activity is in connection with any activity which is financed in whole or in part by loans or grants made by the United States or by any federal agency.”

Depends on degree

Terms of the law indicate one of its main difficulties – that the propriety of political activity frequently depends on its degree. For instance, while the federal employee retains the right to express his opinions, if he does so in a public speech, he would be stepping over the line.

He may display a political picture in his home if he so desires, and the Commission apparently sees nothing improper about that. And he may wear a political

They may not–

The following are some of the forms of prohibited political activity:

• Serving on or for any political committee, party or other similar organization.

• Soliciting or handling political contributions.

• Serving as officer of a political club, as member or officer of any of its committees, addressing such a club or being active in organizing it.

• Serving in connection with, preparation for, organizing or conducting a political meeting or rally, addressing such a meeting, or taking any other active part therein except as a spectator.

• Engaging in political conferences while on duty, or canvassing a district or soliciting political support for a party, faction or candidate.

• Manifesting offensive activity at the polls, at primary or regular elections, soliciting votes, assisting voters to mark ballots, or helping to get out the voters on registration or election days.

• Acting as recorder, checker, watcher or challenger of any party or faction.

• Publishing or being connected editorially or managerially with any newspaper generally known as partisan from a political standpoint; or writing for publication any letter or article, signed or unsigned, in favor of or against any political party or candidate.

• Becoming a candidate for nomination or election to office, federal, state or local, which is to be filled in an election in which party candidates are involved.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (August 2, 1944)

Perkins: Steel pay case unique factor in election

President’s decision due before balloting
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
The 1944 election campaign includes a factor never before in political history: The President running for reelection will be called on, probably two or three weeks before the balloting, to decide whether a large group of his supporters shall get an increase in pay.

This was the picture presented today at the War Labor Board through statements that the factfinding panel in the “Big Steel” wage case is working to present its report before Aug. 31. That would give the board two months before the November election to prepare a recommendation that the “Little Steel” revised upward to meet the demands of the United Steelworkers and other CIO unions.

Final decision Roosevelt’s

Only President Roosevelt can make the final decision, because under his orders defining the duties and jurisdiction of the WLB, that agency must have White House approval before it changes the wartime wage standard. WLB states:

In a number of wage dispute cases pending before the War Labor Board and its agencies, including the dispute in the Steel case, unions have presented demands for general wage increases admittedly beyond the limits of the existing wage stabilization policy. The Board is, of course, without power to approve such demands.

Treasury will pay

The steel union, headed by CIO President Philip Murray, is leading the attack on the administration wage policy. This union is also the keystone of the CIO Political Action Committee, which has announced its intention of spending large sums in its efforts to reelect Mr. Roosevelt and to elect a Congress in sympathy with his policies.

If the steel workers and other CIO unionists get the wage boosts they have been battling for, the costs will be paid first by the steel and other companies concerned, but eventually will come out of the U.S. Treasury, because all the companies concerned are working on war contracts.

Leaders of the unions involved are the source from which the PAC, headed by Sidney Hillman, expects to collect several million dollars for use in the Roosevelt campaign.

From two factors

This wage-decision situation is an outgrowth of two factors:

• The President’s insistence on keeping all the strings of the labor situation in his own hands.
• The drive begun last December by the Steelworkers to break the “Little Steel” formula.

If Mr. Roosevelt ups the formula for the steel union, it will go up simultaneously for all the other unions, AFL and CIO, that have wage demands on ice. It may mean a major operation on the administration’s anti-inflation policies.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (August 16, 1944)

Republicans missing fire?
Perkins: Two labor developments give Democrats edge on GOP

Roosevelt coal program woos UMW; Dewey ‘too busy’ for AFL Labor Day message
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
Two developments on the labor front here today were favorable to the Democrats, indicating that if the Republicans intend to try to crack the organized-worker vote they had better move fast:

• President Roosevelt, it was learned, has signed a letter advocating enactment of a new law for stabilization of the bituminous coal industry – this legislation being desired by the United Mine Workers as well as a large group of coal operators. The Roosevelt letter might have the political effect of cramping the style of John L. Lewis in getting the coalminers to change their habit of voting pro-Roosevelt.

• The American Federation of Labor leadership was reported by a spokesman to have a pronounced case of peeve with Governor Dewey because the Republican candidate, pleading pressure of other business, has declined to write a Labor Day message for the AFL weekly news service and the 300 labor papers which it serves.

Held for right time

On the coal matter: The Roosevelt letter is said to be in the possession of Rep. John W. Flannagan Jr. (D-VA), who will make it public when he thinks the time is ripe. Mr. Flannagan is one of eight Congressmen who have introduced identical bills on the subject.

There is a ninth coal bill in the House, by Rep. Jenkins (R-OH). It differs from the others in that it would set up a commission to stabilized and regulate the coal industry, the commission plan being favored by Mr. Lewis. The other bills would leave regulation in a bureau of the Interior Department.

UMW opposes ‘domination’

The Roosevelt letter is said to straddle on the point of Lewis controversy, and to leave that decision to Congress. A Lewis spokesman says, “We will never consent to bureaucratic domination” – meaning by a bureau in the Interior Department. Lewis’ foes have charged he prefers the commission plan because a UMW representative would be included in the membership.

The Lewis union is reported incensed about the Bureau of Mines. UMW spokesmen say it is steadily becoming “more bureaucratic,” doing less and less of what the Lewis union thinks it ought to do.

On the AFL matter: AFL columnist Philip Pearl, who is regarded as an indicator of the thinking of AFL President William Green, recounts with apparent pain that his request for a Labor Day message from the Republican candidate brought the reply from a Dewey assistant:

Due to the pressure under which Governor Dewey is working at the present time, it is impossible for him to meet the requests for specially written messages, and I am sorry to say it will not be possible for him to write one at this time.

Mr. Pearl wonders, if Mr. Dewey can’t find time to write a Labor Day message, how much time he would be able to spare for labor if and when he is elected; and also whether Mr. Dewey’s assistant “considers us naïve enough to believe that Governor Dewey prepares his own messages.”

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 8, 1944)

Perkins: CIO union ignores Dewey’s presence in same hotel

Already committed to Roosevelt, office workers weren’t interested in speech
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania –
The United Office and Professional Workers of America (CIO) resumed its sessions today with hardly a ripple to show that for more than 10 hours the 300 delegates had lived under the same hotel roof with the Republican nominee for President, Governor Dewey.

The Dewey entourage was on the ninth floor of the Bellevue-Stratford. The CIO unionists were meeting on the 18th but there was no communication between the two despite the fact that both are interested in politics.

The reason is, the union is already committed, like all other CIO unions, in its presidential choice. The Office Workers did not wait to see whether the Republican nominee, in his opening campaign speech last night might make some statement or display an ability indicating his fitness for the Presidency.

Declared for Roosevelt

Following the lead of CIO leaders who turned an early thumb down on any Republican who might be named for the high office, they declared for a fourth Roosevelt term early in this week’s convention. They also announced a plan to raise $50,000 for political expenditures by the CIO Political Action Committee.

In his speech here, Governor Dewey promised to discuss the labor question in detail during the campaign and he asserted.

Of course, the rights of labor to organize and bargain collectively and fundamental. My party blazed the trail in that field by passage of the Railway Labor Act in 1926.

One of several unions

The Office and Professional Workers Union is one of several labor organizations cultivating the white-collar workers who are generally described as “including but not limited to office workers, typists, stenographers, clerks, salespersons, bookkeepers and accountants, attorneys, draftsmen, engineers and agents.”

Among all the groups, the Office and Professional Workers Union is regarded as most leftish and its president, Lewis Merrill, has drawn charges of Communistic sympathies from Congressman Martin Dies.

A principal accomplishment of the convention is authority for its officers to proceed with plans to try to induce Congress to legislate a “national white-collar commission” which would be a part of the War Labor Board, with exclusive jurisdiction over salaries including those now under control of the Treasury Department. A general increase of 35 percent is sought in white-collar pay levels, and to this end the white-collar union has endorsed the efforts of other CIO unions to break WLB’s Little Steel wage formula.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 10, 1944)

Perkins: Railway union paper blasts Hillman’s PAC

Attack on McCarran called ‘brazen lies’
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington – (Sept. 9)
Denunciations of CIO political activities continued today with a blast from Labor, organ of 115 railway brotherhoods and unions, against Sidney Hillman and the CIO Political Action Committee for unsuccessful efforts to unseat Senator Pat McCarran (D-NV).

The white-haired chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who recently severely condemned administration procedure in the Montgomery Ward seizure of last spring, won renomination this week, defeating Lieutenant Governor Vail Pittman, brother of the late Senator Kay Pittman.

Labor charged the Hillman committee with “lies,” with having “united with reactionaries,” and with using Communistic tactics in an effort which the publication asserted was thwarted by the railway unions and the American Federation of Labor.

Other AFL attacks

That was one of a series of attacks on the CIO politicos from labor sources. In a recent one, Philip Pearl, publicist for the AFL, characterized the CIO-PAC as “the strongest anti-labor force in America today” and predicted it would prove not only to be “a fearful boomerang for the CIO but that it will do a lasting harm to the cause of the entire labor movement of America.”

To this Len de Caux, publicist for the CIO, replied in print that the AFL had been deceived into repeating slanders which had been originated by “anti-labor sources,” including some newspapers that were charged with being anti-union.

‘Brazen lies’ circulated

Today’s Labor article said:

Reactionary Democrats in Nevada have always been against McCarran because of his outspoken support of labor and other progressive measures. They thought they could “get him” this time.

Hillman’s outfit, which apparently had money to “throw at the bords,” was not interested in McCarran’s labor record. It opposed him because he refused to embrace its peculiar “ideologies” and circulated the most brazen lies concerning his work in the Senate.

Some workers were deceived. They were not familiar with Communist tactics and imagined Hillman’s propagandists must be telling the truth.

Chiefs of the standard railroad labor organizations and the AFL put on a staff campaign for McCarran and succeeded in neutralizing the vicious work of the CIO crowd.

‘Menace’ to labor program

Labor also gave some observations on the overall effect of the CIO’s political efforts.

It said:

More and more, as the campaign develops, it becomes evident that Hillman and his Communist colleagues are a serious menace to organized labor’s political program. The CIO never had many supporters in Congress and now it is so discredited that the foes of labor have discovered the most effective argument they can use against a measure favored by the workers is to brand it a “CIO bill.”

That’s bad enough, but now the CIO under Hillman’s leadership is invading states and Congressional districts, assailing candidates who have sturdily championed the cause of the workers and bringing the entire labor movement into disrepute among voters who do not appreciate that the noisy Reds who are on Hillman’s payroll do not speak for the American labor movement.

---

Perkins: Job-separation formula

By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent

Washington –
The general hope is that indefinitely after the war there will be a job for every man and women who wants a job, including the returned veterans. The political importance of the question is shown by the main theme of Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s opening campaign speech, when he portrayed the Republican Party as best able to produce and maintain the private industrial activity necessary for full employment.

But support economic conditions so shape themselves, no matter who wins the election, that dismissals from industry will become seriously numerous? What will be the fairest way of choosing the workers who will have to leave private employment and depend for a while at least upon whatever form of public works or public unemployment compensation that may be provided?

Discussion has started here, but has not reached the stage of official public comment, on the possibility of adapting to industry the rating system that the War Department announces it will use in selecting the men (not officers) to be discharged first from the Army after the defeat of Germany.

Army credits

Priority of separation from the Army (for men who want to be separated) will be determined by the number of points the veteran can compile for himself from the following four factors:

• SERVICE CREDIT: Based upon the total number of months of Army service since Sept. 16, 1940.

• OVERSEAS CREDIT: Based upon the number of months served overseas.

• COMBAT CREDIT: Based upon the first and each additional award to the individual of the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Legion of Merit, Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Soldier’s Medal, Bronze Star Medal, Air Medal, Purple Heart and Bronze Service Stars (battle participation stars).

• PARENTHOOD CREDIT: Which gives credit for each dependent child under 18 up to a limit of three children.

The fairness of this scheme is attested by the War Department’s statement that:

Opinions expressed by the soldiers themselves became the accepted principles of the plan. As finally worked out, the plan accepted by the War Department as best meeting the tests of justice and impartiality will allow men who have been overseas and men with dependent children to have priority of separation. Ninety percent of the soldiers interviewed said that that is the way it should be.

Could such a plan be adapted to the unwelcome task (supposing that it becomes necessary) of choosing the men and women to be separated from the production end of the war machine? Some who have studied the subject think it could be, but with the No. 1 essential requirement that it would have to be applied without suspicion of unfairness, and with complete and unselfish cooperation from management and the representatives of labor.

It has been suggested that it might be a good subject for investigation by the labor-management organization which has functioned in the War Production Board, with local branches in several thousand war-production plants. Another suggestion is that to be fully effective the plan would have to be applied nationally in industry.

This for industry?

The job preference of a civilian worker might be evaluated on such factors as the following:

• His length of service in industry (what unions call seniority).
• His efficiency rating as an able, industrious and productive worker.
• His age, with some allowance to older men below the usual years of retirement.
• The number of his dependents.

There might be, in addition to the merit factors, some of demerit – for instance, in the individual’s record on unexcused absenteeism.

It is generally agreed that the plan could not be expected to work without a higher degree of sympathetic cooperation between management and the unions than apparently now exists in some important industries. It would requite a completely different atmosphere from that repotted in some industrial centers which fear that the end of the war in Europe will mean a resumption of domestic warfare between labor organizations and employers.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 13, 1944)

Perkins: Lewis vs. Roosevelt debate touched off at UMW’s convention

Routine program disrupted as fiery words fly thick and fast and pro and con
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Cincinnati, Ohio –
John Mascaro, a delegate to the United Mine Workers Convention from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, touched off a hot floor debate today on the outstanding issue of whether the union’s rank-and-file should follow John L. Lewis in opposing a fourth term for President Roosevelt.

The Canonsburg delegate objected to repeated criticisms by the leadership of the Roosevelt administration.

Mr. Mascaro said:

We lost President Lewis for his courageous leadership, but we will not turn down the savior of humanity – the man who opened the gates to union organization and allowed us to build this great union.

The boys fighting this war want him, and the rank-and-file of miners want him.

Tom Farmer, Negro delegate from Morgantown, West Virginia, took the opposite side, saying: “We’ll follow Lewis, not Roosevelt.”

‘No bread under GOP’

Another Pennsylvania delegate, George Gernot, from Adah Local 6548, declared:

We are 100 percent behind John L. Lewis, but the people in our state haven’t forgotten how they couldn’t get a piece of bread under the last Republican administration.

Ralph Bartimioli, also from the Adah local, wanted to know, “What is this – a political convention or a United Mine Worker convention?”

Discussions was finally stopped by a motion to resume regular business. Applause for the two points of view seemed about equal.

Officers’ report adopted

A heated debate followed a charge by Frank Hefferly, president of UMW District 13, that the government had exceeded its authority “by permitting the War Manpower Commission to regiment United Mine Workers and the people of this country when Congress refused to give that authority to the President.”

Mr. Hefferly said:

You go to the polls next November and apply the real remedy by voting this administration out of power.

After the debate subsided the delegates unanimously adopted the officers’ report.

Meanwhile, it was learned that the leadership of the United Mine Workers is preparing a blast against President Roosevelt that will be even more startling than the charge of John L. Lewis yesterday that the President is a party to efforts to “dethrone” him.

The new attack, according to men close to Mr. Lewis, will be cut loose during the convention here of 2,500 delegates, before whom Mr. Lewis yesterday demonstrated that he is still an effective orator.

‘Rebels’ assailed

In this speech, the self-called “old man” – he is 63 – used all the stops of his pipe-organ voice in his old-time form. He skillfully placed himself on a par with the man in the mines, drew ovation after ovation, and apparently killed off any chance of success of efforts within his union to challenge his leadership of his policies.

Under one of these policies, now under attack, the district officers in more than half of the mine worker empire are appointed by Mr. Lewis and are not voted upon by the rank-and-file.

Ray Edmundson, former president of the Illinois District (there is a disagreement as to whether he resigned or was ousted) is the spearhead of the home-rule forces here.

And it was obvious to Mr. Edmundson, sitting in the back of the crowded hall, that Mr. Lewis was speaking of him when he said “no lace-pantied gigolo is going to dethrone John L., in his own organization.”

Nobody seems to know why Mr. Lewis chose this way of referring to Mr. Edmundson, who is a big, handsome fellow, fairly young, whose he-man belligerency doesn’t check with that description.

Just before that, Mr. Lewis had confided to the delegates in a tone that taxed the loudspeaker system:

Browder, Hillman and Roosevelt hired a man to come down here and throw out the old man. They gave him some money and he put out some pamphlets and he had himself interviewed by the newspapers.

Mr. Lewis referred to Sidney Hillman, head of the CIO Political Action Committee, as “a Russian pants maker,” and included him and Mr. Roosevelt among the owners of “smug faces” he would like to confound with a recital of the coal miners’ production and military performances in this war.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 14, 1944)

Perkins: Lewis risks repudiation if he doesn’t back up on Roosevelt issue

Mine workers demonstrate that big boss doesn’t do all the union’s thinking
By Fred W. Perkins, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Cincinnati, Ohio –
John L. Lewis, for 25 years the boss of the United Mine Workers, today faces a choice of risking a repudiation of his political leadership or of soft-pedaling his attempts to get this big union on record against a fourth term for President Roosevelt.

The delegates to the convention here, now numbering 2,800, support their leader unanimously on economic subjects. But this unanimous support does not carry into the political field, where the miners have opinions of their own. By expressing themselves publicly, they are proving it isn’t true that John L. does all the thinking for this union, or that his control is so complete that men are afraid to express contrary opinions.

Should they risk fight?

There was to have been a sizzling anti-Roosevelt resolution, containing allegations more “startling” than any Mr. Lewis has yet voiced and it may yet come through. But overnight, the UMW boss and his straw bosses have been questioning whether to risk a floor fight that conceivably might go against Mr. Lewis, who has never suffered a conspicuous defeat in his own union. And whether to take the chance of a public row that might leave bad scars in the union and on the Lewis reputation.

John Mascaro, a delegate from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, took over the loudspeaker system yesterday and objected to the reiteration of these anti-Roosevelt opinions, adding:

We love President Lewis for his courageous leadership, but we will not turn down the savior of humanity, the man who opened the gates to union organization, for this great union and others. That, my friends, was not done under a Republican administration.

Compromise may come

The choice of Mr. Lewis is whether to press for an outright anti-Roosevelt declaration, with a direct endorsement of Governor Dewey, or to compromise on a less savage denunciation of the Roosevelt administration. A compromise appeared most probable.

Most opinions are that it is the same among the miners as among most other labor groups: They are mostly for Mr. Roosevelt, but not as much as in 1932, 1936 and 1940.

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The Pittsburgh Press (September 15, 1944)

Perkins: UMW backing renews Lewis fighting spirit

Roosevelt criticism report approved
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Cincinnati, Ohio –
John L. Lewis had more courage today for a broadside attack on President Roosevelt, courage gained through his smashing victory in the United Mine Workers convention.

The courage of Mr. Lewis, like that of any labor leader, is based on the support of his own organization. Mr. Lewis got a 20-to-1 vote in his favor among 2,800 delegates when he went to them with a personal plea against changing the system under which he appoints more than half of the union’s district officers.

The 64-year-old labor labor’s overwhelming victory over the autonomous wing, led by former UMW Illinois district president, Ray Edmundson of Springfield, came after he had delivered an impassioned plea for delegate support on the convention floor.

Delegates cheer

His voice dropping to emphasize his points. Mr. Lewis charged the autonomy movement was an operator-inspired effort to weaken the UMW internally before next March, when the unions present wage agreement with the mine owners expires.

At the conclusion of his address, the delegates gave the faintly-smiling Lewis a rising ovation, punctuated with handclapping, cheers and cries of “Pour it on, John.”

This issue – home rule – was the first of two major questions in the convention. The second came today when the UMW approved a report which strongly criticized the Roosevelt administration and praised Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey, while reframing from a direct presidential endorsement.

Indispensable man

The Lewis victory over the proponents of home rule was won partly through a preponderance of delegates speaking in favor of government from UMW headquarters in Washington, and partly through Mr. Lewis’ speech, which established him as “the indispensable man” in the United Mine Workers.

Mr. Lewis charged that a group of UMW members had gone to Washington to ask the U.S. Attorney General “to send me to prison” or suppressing civil liberties.

“And in due time,” Mr. Lewis continued with a smile, “I shall find out who these men are who wanted to send me to prison.”

Hints of operator conspiracy

He said:

I think I also shall find out that one of them stayed in a luxurious suite paid for by a coal operator.

I have no doubt the coal operators would make important contributions to weaken this union before we go into wage negotiations next March, and I’m not sure some of their money hasn’t already been spent in this campaign of slander.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 17, 1944)

Perkins: Selling Dewey to miners next job for John L.

Convention’s policy will need propaganda
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Cincinnati, Ohio –
The next political task of John L. Lewis and others of the United Mine Workers leadership, following adoption of an anti-Roosevelt and pro-Dewey statement in the convention here, will be to propagandize this policy down through the rank and file of the union’s membership.

The importance of this from the political standpoint is that the miners’ union has large memberships in several key states whose electoral votes may decide the presidential contest. For instance, in Pennsylvania, with 36 electoral votes, which most polls have been giving to Mr. Roosevelt on a narrow division, the Mine Workers have 230,000 members.

Could swing election

Mr. Roosevelt won Pennsylvania in 1940 by approximately 280,000, so the Democratic margin could be reversed if all the other sections of the electorate cast their ballots as in 1940, and if the miners follow the advice of their national convention.

The same applies to West Virginia, with only eight electoral votes, but with 115,000 coal miners. It is true to a lesser extent in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois – where the miner vote is less important but where Republican claims are more confident than they are in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The convention proceedings have shown that it will not be easy for John Lewis to get anything like a unanimous anti-Roosevelt vote from coal miners in the November election. The proportion of miners who do not believe in swinging away from the Roosevelt allegiance is believed to be greater than the size of the convention minority when the anti-Roosevelt statement was adopted.

Speakers favor Roosevelt

Before debate was cut off, most of the rank-and-file speakers were pro-Roosevelt. There were only a few anti-Roosevelt speakers, but when the standing vote came the majority on the anti-Roosevelt side was tremendous – some observers said 3–1, and others as high as 20–1.

The Mine Workers’ convention has been adjourned for a weekend recess.

The statement on which the convention approved charged a number of sins to President Roosevelt against the United Mine Workers and labor in general, and concluded:

Governor Dewey, the Republican nominee, during his two-year incumbency as Governor of New York, has worked in complete harmony with the legitimate trade unions of his state. Dewey has not met the expectations of the betrayers of labor, the misleaders of labor, or the Communists who dominate the CIO and the Political Actionites… in the election to come the Mine Workers will know their enemy and can be relied upon to protect their home, their country, and their union.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 18, 1944)

Perkins: Lewis expected to widen his fight on Roosevelt

Drive to filter down through UMW union to wives and families of his mine workers
By Fred W. Perkins, Press Washington correspondent

Cincinnati, Ohio –
The concluding days of the United Mine Workers Convention are expected to develop more of the reasons why John L. Lewis is so dead set against the reelection of President Roosevelt.

These arguments will be filtered down through the mine workers organization to the half a million members and their families in states that may decide the presidential election, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky, and to a lesser extent, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Mr. Lewis epitomized some of his reasons in a speech before the Ohio United Construction Workers, a division of the UMW’s District 50, in which he declared that policies of the Roosevelt administration are directed toward making labor in general “a political company union.”

Sarcastic comment

He added the sarcastic comment:

What a record for one who likes to call himself the savior of mankind and the defender of the poor. He would strike down the unions that are not subservient to his wishes.

Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Lewis charged, “joined in intrigue with his man Friday, Hillman, the cringing officers of the American Federation of Labor and the present officials of the CIO” to hinder the organization of the United Construction Workers. He shot an oratorical blast at what he called “cowardly leadership” that would permit labor to become “indentured servants.”

He asserted that under such leadership, “the officers of unions would become a police patrol to hold labor in subjugation to the will of its economic and political masters.”

‘Sympathy’ for management

In a press conference, Mr. Lewis showed a sympathy with the problems of management in the coal industry – in direct opposition to the Communist school of thought.

He argued against proposed further government development of hydroelectric power as “a vicious and destructive victory” that would “create widespread unemployment and harass invested capital in the coal industry.”

Having disposed of the controversial political and autonomy issues in a manner satisfactory to the leadership, the convention will take up a subject about which there will be no argument – the United Mine Workers want a big pay raise and they want it badly.

The details probably will not be decided definitely until a few weeks before the mine workers meet the bituminous coal operators in the regular wage conferences next March. A demand for a pay raise is sure on the basis of the volume of more-pay resolutions from local unions that are now before the convention’s “Scale Committee,” and also from the fact that Mr. Lewis has not yet won the $2-a-day raise which he spent most of 1943 trying to get.

Little Steel formula

It has been emphasized here that the apparent victory won by the miners’ union in 1943 did not raise the basic pay scale. The miners were making considerably more money, but much of it comes from premium pay for overtime, which is likely to disappear after the war. The rest of it comes from portal-to-portal pay arrangements.

Forecasts, now backed by War Labor Board panel reports in the CIO steelworkers wage case and the general case of the American Federation of Labir, are that President Roosevelt will soon authorize an upping of the Little Steel pay formula.

The WLB timetable indicates this action may be expected no later than two or three weeks before the November election.

The mine workers, like all other unions whose basic pay scales have been held to this formula, undoubtedly will line up for their share.

Best information is that the March demands will include a boost in basic pay of at least a dollar a day, and more probably the still-unsatisfied two-dollar prescription. Also, the miners are expected to demand full pay for the time spent in traveling between mine entrances and actual working places underground (portal to portal). According to the hard-to-understand settlement finally worked our by the War Labor Board, the miners get pay for only about two-thirds of this travel time.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 24, 1944)

Perkins: Hopes for wider security are bolstered by Dewey

By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington – (Sept. 23)
Hopes for an early extension of the social security system were raised in Washington today through Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s endorsement, in a Los Angeles speech last night, of some important features of legislation stalled in Congress since its introduction in June 1943.

The Republican presidential nominee, it was noted here, came out in favor of certain major phases of the program which appeal to the largest number of citizens and which have encountered the least opposition.

On one controversial feature, which its foes call “socialized medicine,” he proposed a method intended to turn the opposition of powerful medical groups into cooperation.

Job for the states

He would legislate “assurance of medical service to those who need it, and who cannot otherwise obtain it,” but he would reach that objective by enlisting “the leadership and aid of the doctors of America in organizing our private and public hospitals as well as our other services into a fully effective system to protect the health of all our people.”

He would not follow the proposal of the Wagner-Murray-Dingell bills in placing technical and professional administration under a federal bureau (the U.S. Public Health Service).

In another important particular, Governor Dewey differed from the philosophy of the Wagner-Murray-Dingell bills, and did so in harmony with the declared Republican policy of maintaining and strengthening state functions rather than extending federal power. He would return to the states the control of employment services, and would leave unemployment insurance with the states.

Present law cited

In the long argument over the wisdom of encouraging the individual to look more and more to the federal government for his upkeep in times of unemployment and to depend on Washington to get him a job, the New York Governor takes the side of those who believe these are proper functions of the states.

But Governor Dewey expressed full support for the effort to add 20 million Americans to the 40 million now carrying federal social security cards which promise them old-age pensions after retirement at 65.

Under the present law, enacted in 1935, and for which the Roosevelt administration claimed full credit (although the Republican candidate pointed out it was passed “by a nonpartisan vote of overwhelming proportions”) the old-age survivors’ insurance plan covers business and industrial jobs.

Some excepted now

Congress excepted a number of other large classes of employment – including agricultural labor, domestic service, public employment, service for non-profit and government institutions, and self-employment.

For instance, a printer who works for a commercial publisher gets the benefit of the present law, but a printer for a religious organization does not. The law covers a janitor who sweeps out a grocery store, and a stenographer for an industrial concern, but not a janitor in an educational institution, nor a stenographer for a charitable group.

‘Not good enough’

These exceptions were made for various reasons, including the one stated by Governor Dewey, “difficulties of administration.” Governor Dewey said this was “not a good enough answer.”

Governor Dewey did not adopt all the ideas of the Social Security Board, nor of the framers of the Wagner-Murray-Dingell bills, nor of the American Federation of Labor, which has been active on the subject. But his supporters think he may have found a way to end the stalemate in the Democrat-controlled Congressional committees (Ways and Means in the House, Finance in the Senate) where the proposed legislative extensions of social security have rested for 15 months without even a hearing.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 26, 1944)

Perkins: President ‘in the middle’ on wages

He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t – and time’s a wasting
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
The question which President Roosevelt did not answer in his campaign-opening speech before leaders of the Teamsters Union will be moved several steps ahead in War Labor Board proceedings this week toward a decision, which could be ready about two weeks before the November election.

The unanswered question, of tremendous political significance, is the one which most interests the labor leaders, and which only Mr. Roosevelt can answer. It is whether the President will order an upward revision of the Little Steel Formula of wartime wage control. Only the President can answer because he is the final authority. The War Labor Board has merely the power to make recommendations to him.

If the formula is liberalized, more than a million unionized wage earners will be benefited immediately through WLB cases now pending in the steel, electrical manufacturing, meat-packing and other industries. The eventual and not-distant effect would cover several millions more – and possibly the majority of the many millions now working in American industry.

Has great power

Never before has a President had this power to raise wages of millions of workers, for the reason that this system of wage control was never used previously. Never before has a President been called on to make such a vital decision in the middle of a campaign for reelection.

Mr. Roosevelt said in his speech to the labor leaders, with reference to reconversion policies:

We shall follow a wage policy which will sustain the purchasing power of labor – for that means more production and more jobs.

The present policies on wages and prices were conceived to serve the needs of the great masses of the people. They stopped inflation. They kept prices on a relatively stable level. Through the demobilization period, policies will be carried out with the same objective in mind – to serve the needs of the great masses of the people.

The pay raises, if ordered, are expected to bring a demand from manufacturing concerns for OPA authority to revise their prices, and if the changes on both the wage and price fronts are large enough, they might encourage the inflationary movement which the President warned against in connection with his hold-the-line order in April 1943.

Wage increases also would set a higher standard for the labor unions to attempt to maintain after the war. Leaders of these organizations have shown they are fully aware of an inevitable drop in weekly incomes when the country returns to peacetime working schedules – hence they now strive to boost the hourly rates of pay to compensate for the loss of premium pay for overtime.

If the President, before election, should decide against any change in the wage formula, millions who are supporting him for a fourth term would be disappointed.

If the decision should be held off until after election, Mr. Roosevelt’s foes will ascribe political motives, and they will do the same if he OK’s an upward revision before Nov. 7.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 27, 1944)

Perkins: Steel pay revision poses real problem

Bosses back Roosevelt on policy, unions oppose him – everything hangs fire
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
Here is an apparently cockeyed situation: Industrialists who are going to vote against Mr. Roosevelt will be arguing here this week for maintenance of one of the President’s important policies against the attacks of his political friends in the labor unions.

The policy concerned is the one intended to hold wages to the Little Steel formula. The labor leaders, with constituencies in the millions, have been trying to break this yardstick ever since it was established by the War Labor Board in July 1942. They are now moving in for “the kill,” in the closing weeks of a campaign in which the only man who can change it is a candidate for reelection.

There is more to the cockeyed character of the situation.

The industrialists defending a Roosevelt policy against the President’s labor friends are mostly Republicans, and this year’s platform of their party condemns “the freezing of wage rates at arbitrary levels.”

What a setup

Philip Murray, president of the CIO, which has a Political Action Committee campaigning for Mr. Roosevelt, complained in a WLB hearing over delays in the disposition of the case initiated by the CIO United Steel Workers in December of last year. He said that “delays, postponements, briefs and briefs, repetition and repetition, have been the order of the day.”

Mr. Murray made his statements in presenting the union’s case before WLB hearings on modification of the “Little Steel” wage formula; AFL gave their arguments for wage raises yesterday and industry presents its opposing case tomorrow.

Mr. Murray’s mention of possible war-end changes in the stabilization program was a reference to an assertion by WLB Chairman William H. Davis that the end of the war in Europe was “certain” to bring changes in the nation’s wage policy.

Would reverse OPA study

Mr. Murray said that in arguing the case for steel wage raises, he would “take the liberty of making public” an OPA study of the steel case which Price Chief Chester Bowles has termed “preliminary and confidential.”

Stating that the steel industry had requested a general price increase of 10 percent, Mr. Murray said the OPA study concluded that:

There is at the present time no ground for an overall increase in the price of steel, and even in the event that the wage increase requested by the union were granted in full, the case for a price increase would not be persuasive.

Great advances made

Harold J. Ruttenberg, research director of the union, departed from the familiar cost-of-living argument to urge raises to allow wages to “catch up with the constantly rising productivity of American industry.” In the past two years, he said, the steel industry has made technological advances so great that production increased seven percent while manpower was reduced by 12½ percent.

Governor Dewey, campaigning against Mr. Roosevelt, and opposed vigorously by the CIO Political Action Committee, said in his labor speech at Seattle:

This policy of delay, delay and more delay serves only the New Deal and its political ends, It puts the leaders of labor on the spot. It makes them come hat in hand to the White House. It makes political loyalty the test of a man getting his rights.

An important decision

Thus, Mr. Murray and colleagues agree with Governor Dewey on the delay subject, but won’t vote for him. The industrialists agree with President Roosevelt on maintenance of the stabilization policy, but won’t vote for him!

Political implications of highest voltage are involved. Mr. Roosevelt, through acts of his own and of Congress, has come into position where he can order a raise for several million workers.

Nothing like this ever has been known in American politics. What Mr. Roosevelt does about it may turn out to be an important chapter in this country’s political history.

Mr. Murray, before the War Labor Board, emphasized that the steel union had not been responsible for delaying the dynamic wage question until the presidential campaign. He pointed out that since the War Labor Board assumed jurisdiction of the wage dispute last February, his union had used only 3½ days for its testimony. The union also used a week while its officers were at their convention, and the balance of the seven months was charged to the steel companies and the procedures of the War Labor Board.

Was it planned?

Mr. Roosevelt can make a decision just before election, but according to the evidence there is no proof that anybody planned it that way.

Mr. Murray hopes for presidential action before election, according to his statement:

I raise the question whether we are going to obtain a decision quickly and on the merits of the case; or whether this case is going to be treated as a political pawn, kicked around hither and yon, because courage is lacking to determine the issue.

George Meany, secretary of the American Federation of Labor, conducted a long list of AFL officials to the witness stand against the Little Steel Formula. He ended by saying, “We are asking this board for a chance for the workers of this country to enter a high-wage economy after the war.”

After the war, it is presumed that workers will go back to the 40-hour week, with no allowance for the overtime pay that now boosts their incomes, unless hourly wage rates are raised in the meantime – a problem for either Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Dewey.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 28, 1944)

Perkins: Communist meeting backs Roosevelt to last comrade

Dewey characterized as ‘Hoover stooge’ with dangerous Fascist tendencies
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
In one of this non-voting city’s infrequent political meetings, the leading Communists of the community made it clear last night beyond any doubt where their votes will go this year – they are for FDR to the last comrade.

Governor Thomas E. Dewey was characterized as not only a “Hoover stooge" but as a dangerous person of pronounced Fascist tendencies, something like Hitler.

James W. Ford, Negro and three-time vice-presidential nominee of the Communist Party, did this characterizing in a calm and cultured voice. Comrade Ford drew the comparison of Dewey with Hitler as follows:

Dewey is unable to answer the questions raised by Roosevelt so he adopts the Hitler policy of telling big lies. With added boldness following his speech in Oklahoma City he has adopted the Hitler purge policy – he says he will purge Earl Browder, the CIO-PAC, Sidney. Hillman, Madame Perkins, and Ickes.

National anthem opens meeting

The proceedings opened with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” There was an appeal for blood donors for war purposes, and $38 was collected to buy Christmas packages for local Communists serving in the Armed Forces.

Also, there was a plug for a new book by Earl Browder, Tehran, and the paid circulation of that Production was increased on the spot by 25. Mr. Browder, the habitual presidential candidate of the former Communist Party, is now president of the Communist Political Association. The meeting was in observance of the 25th anniversary of the Communist movement in the United States.

James L. Branca, a paid organizer of the party and president of the Washington branch, explains that the Communist Party no longer exists and that its place has been taken by the Association, the motives of which, he said, are “educational.”

Praises Negroes’ progress

Mr. Ford devoted much of his speech to praising the progress of Negroes in recent years, and he credited nearly all of it to President Roosevelt, and especially to the latter’s use of his executive power in creating the Fair Employment Practice Committee.

He described both major parties as part of the “bourgeois democracy system,” and said Mr. Roosevelt is a representative of “bourgeois democracy.” So, he said, is Mr. Dewey, but not as acceptable a one as Mr. Roosevelt. This was the nearest he got to the vernacular of the Marxian philosophy to which the American Communists cling.

Denounces Negro leader

Mr. Ford bitterly denounced Edgar Brown of Washington, head of the National Negro Council, who is opposing reelection of President Roosevelt.

But Mr. Ford had kind words for a leading spokesman for the American capitalistic system – none other than Eric Johnston, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He quoted Mr. Johnston as saying, “The present capitalistic system is on trial, and we must make it work.” Mr. Ford, referring to Mr. Johnston’s recent visit to Moscow, remarked “He has learned much in recent months.”

Mr. Ford said, to prolonged applause:

Basically, the policies of President Roosevelt are those we have fought for. Our inevitable duty is to see that he is again elected.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 29, 1944)

Perkins: Aluminum workers hit wage hike delay, point to ‘promise’

Business spokesman supports Roosevelt
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
An important question before President Roosevelt – whether several million working men and women shall have an immediate increase in their wages – was apparently made harder to answer today through a defense of the Roosevelt wage policy by a spokesman for “big business.”

John A. Stephens, a vice president of U.S. Steel Corporation, appeared as the defender of the policy, and seemingly put up to the President the responsibility for any change which might encourage a rise in prices to make the dollar look like 30 cents.

A lot of politics is involved. Among President Roosevelt’s principal supporters are the CIO unions foremost in the drive of organized labor to break the “Little Steel formula.” The presidential campaign is now in full swing, and the CIO leadership is pressing for recommendations from the War Labor Board to be in the White House by Oct. 15.

Murray wants action

Philip Murray, head of the CIO and the Steelworkers, objected to the wage cases being mixed up with national politics, but at the same time, he insisted on the Oct. 15 deadline. That date would allow three weeks before the election for Mr. Roosevelt to make up his mind – through discontent among his union supporters or of risking an inflationary move and also a charge from his Republican opponents of “using other people’s money” to hold the labor vote.

By a vote of 8 to 4, the Board refused to put a deadline on its deliberations but it promised a decision as soon as possible after that date.

Mr. Stephens used a simple device in defending the wage policy and of putting the responsibility for a change up to Mr. Roosevelt. He merely cited the principal statements of the President and his economic aides on the necessity of maintaining the stabilization plan until all danger of inflation is past. He noted that the war is not over, and that recent news indicates the end is not as close as had been hoped.

Quotes from speech

Mr. Stephens quoted from a speech Wednesday by James F. Byrnes, Director of War Mobilization:

On the whole, the line has been held and government should continue to hold it until the dangers of inflation are passed. If we do not preserve a stable economy, post-war deflation will ruin all hopes of post-war prosperity.

He also quoted Mr. Roosevelt, in his speech of last Saturday night:

The present policies of wages and prices were conceived to serve the needs of the great masses of the people. They stopped inflation. They kept prices at a stable level. Through the demobilization period, policies will be carried out with the same objective in mind – to serve the needs of the great masses of the people.

The distinctive feature of the present situation is that only one man can give the answer – Mr. Roosevelt.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 30, 1944)

Perkins: ‘Little Steel’ ruling demanded at once, but delay indicated

Politics or not, action is asked
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
What Robert J. Watt, AFL member of the War Labor Board, wants to know is: “How are you going to keep this wage question out of politics?”

He put the question, in those words, to a CIO unionist who had protested against union wage demands being made a “football of politics,” but who almost simultaneously had requested that the Board act on the case immediately, and thus place it on the desk of President Roosevelt well before the November voting.

Through the workings of the stabilization program, the matter of giving a pay raise to millions of American citizens becomes a question to be decided only by Mr. Roosevelt.

The War Labor Board has become merely an advisory body to the President in the matter of changing the basic policies of stabilization, including the freeze on wages and salaries.

Speed urged

The witness before the Board was W. T. Lewis, representing the CIO Federation of Glass, Ceramics and Silica Sand Workers. He made the “football of politics” statement, whereupon Mr. Watt asked, “Do you think this case should be held up until after the election?”

The answer of Mr. Lewis was “No,” that “the case should be decided on its merits” – but quickly. This witness was in accord with Philip Murray, president of the CIO, who has demanded that political considerations be eliminated, but that the Board put its recommendations before the President by Oct. 15.

This was one incident in current Washington proceedings which lead up to the question of whether President Roosevelt will use his power over wages to please his supporters in the CIO and other labor groups, thus risking an inflationary movement; will turn them down before election, thus taking the chance of losing labor votes; or will delay the decision until after Nov. 7.

No commitment

The third course appeared most probable after a White House conference between the President and members of his “Labor Victory Committee” – William Green, Daniel J. Tobin and George Meany, for the AFL; Philip Murray, R. J. Thomas and Julus Emspak for the CIO.

Messrs. Green and Murray, acting as spokesmen, agreed that the President had listened to their arguments in favor of breaking the “Little Steel” formula, had asked a number of questions, but had made no commitment.

Mr. Green said:

We didn’t ask for any commitment, but got the impression that the President will not act until the wage cases (AFL as well as CIO) are sent to him by the War Labor Board.

The AFL president, in response to questions, said he hadn’t seen “even a gleam” in the President’s eve, to indicate which way he might be thinking.

Optimism expressed

Mr. Murray also said he had no idea of what the President will do, and explained that his recent statements before the United Auto Workers (CIO) – that he was sure the wage formula would be revised upwards – had no basis in any pledge from any government official.

“But I still feel,” Mr. Murray said, “that the formula will be broken.”

Mr. Green, questioned on this point. was not so sure – “I think it should be,” he said.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (October 3, 1944)

Perkins: Giving Congress pay reins would solve political mess

President could get off ‘Little Steel’ spot by following Monroney suggestion
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
President Roosevelt could remove a ticklish political question from the campaign by adopting a suggestion that the important decision on breaking wartime wage controls should be made by Congress and not by the Executive.

He would be relieved of possible political repercussions, which are thought likely no matter which way he moves.

Congress will not be back in Washington until a week after the Nov. 7 election, and Congressional leaders hold that the decision then could be made without the political pressure that will exist in the next five weeks.

CIO backing fourth term

CIO unions, in the front of the drive to smash the “Little Steel” formula of wage control, are pressing the War Labor Board to get its recommendations on the President’s desk not later than Oct. 16. Philip Murray, CIO president, denied any political implications, but insisted on the deadline. The CIO unions, through the Political Action Committee headed by Sidney Hillman, are prominent in the drive for the fourth term.

The suggestion that Congress make the decision was presented to Judge Fred M. Vinson, Director of Economic Stabilization, by Rep. A. S. “Mike” Monroney (D-OK), who has been active in stabilization legislation. He wrote to Judge Vinson:

Because wages and prices are so closely tied together, I would hike to insist that before any modification of the “Little Steel” formula is made, Congress be given a chance to approve or disapprove this important step…

To break through the “Little Steel” formula now would result in a general upward movement of all prices, of great enough degree to cancel out all, or almost all, of the real purchasing power of any increase.

Formula not in law

The formula is not written into law, but has been given such support by executive orders of the President that the WLB has stated it cannot make a change. It can only advise Mr. Roosevelt – the only official with power to decide – who finds himself called on to approve or disapprove a pay raise for groups including millions who are regarded as his political supporters.

The political implications figured yesterday when the WLB received Statements opposing immediate changes from Robert M. Gaylord, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, and Eric A. Johnston, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Political football

Mr. Gaylord’s statement included a regret “that a decision on this issue has been postponed until this time, when circumstances make it a political football.”

John Brophy, a CIO member of the board, asked if the issue “wouldn’t be just as political after election,” and the NAM president replied, “That depends on the kind of a deal made before election.”

Mr. Johnston was not pulled into the political discussion, but was asked by Mr. Brophy what he thought of the guaranteed annual wage being demanded by some big unions. Mr. Johnston said he had “always been in favor of leveling out the peaks and valleys of industrial production,” and recently had initiated studies looking toward “a more stable pay envelope” for all the employees of American industry.

Meanwhile, some industrialists were wondering if the President would call into consultation an industry war advisory committee which he formed a year ago, but piety has not met since Oct. 27, 1943.

The industry committee includes B. F. Fairless (president of U.S. Steel Corporation), Frederick C. Crawford (former president of NAM), Richard R. Deupree (head of Procter & Gamble Company), George H. Mead of the Mead Corporation in Dayton and an industry member of the WLB, David Sarnoff (president of RCA) and several others.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (October 6, 1944)

Perkins: Republicans streamline labor setup

District union groups replace central unit
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

New York –
What has become of the Labor Division of the Republican National Committee, which has been a tradition part of the campaign organization for many years?

The answer is that there isn’t any, and isn’t going to be any in the accustomed form. The streamlined setup which National Chairman Herbert Brownell, presides over here in the Hotel Roosevelt (named for TR) has adopted a new idea, one of several departures from the usual campaign procedures.

Mr. Brownell explained it just before leaving for Columbus today.

Strong state groups

He said:

In this campaign, we have not adopted the traditional plan of setting up a labor division, because Governor Dewey and I consider the labor field so important that I am giving it my direct attention. But we have something more than the usual labor division.

A strong Republican labor committee has been organized in each of the industrial states outside the solid South. to carry into effect the labor policies of the national committee. In place of the usual formal national labor committee of 20 to 25 members, we have thus enlisted the support of approximately 3,000 union officials and members of the rank and file.

We think that will prove to be the better plan.

The only thing old-fashioned in the political behavior of Mr. Brownell was that he proffered a campaign cigar to his visitor.

Getting back to the labor subject, the chairman said that the proportion of labor support he expects “is all a question of how far the trend goes. There is a very heavy trend now in our favor among working men and women. Governor Dewey undoubtedly will draw a much larger support from labor, groups than recent Republican candidates have had.”

Follow tradition

In the Baltimore Hotel, only a block away, the Democratic National Committee has followed tradition by setting up a labor division under Dan Tobin, head of the Teamsters Union. He is assisted by his son Fred, also an official of the Teamsters Union. Dan shuttles back and forth between Washington and New York, but Fred spends most of his time here.

The Tobin setup has no apparent connection with the political activities of Sidney Hillman, who heads both the CIO Political Action Committee and the National Citizens PAC – the difference being that the latter can contribute money to candidates while the former is prohibited by law from doing so.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (October 10, 1944)

As election draws near –
Perkins: CIO still unable to win promise of pay boost

And may have to back Roosevelt without one
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
The election is four weeks from today and it looks as if the CIO supports of President Roosevelt will have to vote for him without official assurance that he is going to order a pay raise for them.

This, despite efforts of Philip Murray, head of the CIO, to get a War Labor Board recommendation for breaking the Little Steel wage formula on the President’s desk by next Monday, and despite a statement today by R. J. Thomas, president of the CIO Auto Workers, that he will do all he can to see that the President will have three weeks in which to make the final decision that would please the unionists, but might antagonize other sections of the electorate. Inflation possibilities are involved.

Roosevelt commitment denied

There’s a story going around that Mr. Roosevelt told union leaders who called on him 10 days ago that the question would have to go over until after election, that there would be no political advantage in unsettling wartime wage policies just before the election and the wage action might produce charges he was attempting to buy votes with other people’s money.

Mr. Thomas said the story “isn’t true.” He was one of the labor leaders in the White House conference. Mr. Thomas has a reputation for straight-shooting and no doubletalk. And all other evidence indicates that the President made no commitment on either side of the question.

Won’t promise early action

William H. Davis, chairman of the War Labor Board, said he could not guarantee a Board decision next week – “I don’t like deadlines. I never said it would be decided by next week.”

A labor spokesman pointed out that any recommendation for a change in wage policies would have to go through the Office of Price Administration, to the Director of Economic Stabilization and the Office of War Mobilization before it reached the President.

Mr. Davis admitted that “would take considerable time.” He also said that the problem he was trying to impress on the other members of the Board was whether “if wages go up the wage-earner will get anything out of it or will prices go up at the same time so that everybody will lose.”

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (October 11, 1944)

With election only 27 days away –
Perkins: Major labor trouble plagues Roosevelt from three fronts

Some of ‘breaks’ that help swing the vote flare to beset New Deal on home front
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

Washington –
Three of the “breaks” that help swing elections appear today on the labor front. All are against Mr. Roosevelt.

• The Petrillo case, in which the head of the American Federation of Musicians (AFL) leaves the President out on a limb by rejecting an official but courteous request that he obey an order of the War Labor Board.

• The Matthew Smith case, in which this leader of non-affiliated unions offered a destructive strike of 70,000 men in 64 vital war plants. Republicans may cite the case in their attacks on the administration’s manner of handling labor problems.

• Disclosure that heads of five railway workers’ brotherhoods were recently pressured, in some cases unsuccessfully, to declare for reelection of Mr. Roosevelt.

As to No. 3, the rail union heads called on the President a week ago to add their weight to other labor groups in asking for a relaxation of wage-control policies, preferably before election.

When they came out of Mr. Roosevelt’s office, George M. Harrison, president of the Railway Clerks and a vice president of the American Federation of Labor, gave reporters the impression that the entire group was enthusiastically in favor of a fourth term.

‘Pressure’ charged

What wasn’t told was that when the rail labor leaders entered the President’s office they found there Dan Tobin, head of the Teamsters Union (AFL) and director of the Labor Division of the Democratic National Committee. Some of the railway men construed Mr. Tobin’s presence as intended to “put the heat” on them, and they so said today.

They pointed out that Mr. Tobin was not a member of their group, could have been there only at the instance of the President, and they construed his participation as purely political.

Split vote predicted

The conversation was reported as dealing only scantily with the subject the railway men had come to talk about, but abundantly about how the members of railway unions – with a membership of approximately a million and a half – should regard Mr. Roosevelt as their friend, despite the bad feeling early this year over the administration’s handling of the railway wage controversy.

None of the rail union heads, it was learned authoritatively, attempted to commit their organizations to the support of Mr. Roosevelt, and some were said to have failed to give their personal pledges. An authority on the political pulse of railway workers says their votes, predominantly in recent years for Mr. Roosevelt will be split.

Petrillo is problem

The group, in addition to Mr. Harrison, included D. B. Robertson (president of the Locomotive Firemen and Engineers), Harry W. Fraser (president of the Railway Conductors), E. E. Milliman (president of the Maintenance of Way Men), and Harvey W. Brown (president of the Machinists Union).

The Petrillo refusal followed a request from the President for compliance with War Labor Board orders that the union lift its ban on members doing work for the transcription divisions of NBC, Columbia Recording Corporation, and Radio Corporation of America.

A high official concerned with labor matters expressed the opinion that the development would cause more unfavorable public reaction against Mr. Roosevelt than against the head of the musicians’ union. This opinion was based on the fact that in the President’s telegram of Oct. 4 to Mr. Petrillo he left no means of enforcements against the union.

‘Very polite’ request

The presidential telegram cited an opinion that “under all the present circumstances the noncompliance by your union is not unduly impeding the war effort,” thus absolving Mr. Petrillo from prosecution under the War Labor Disputes Act.

However, the President’s telegram added:

This noncompliance may encourage other instances of noncompliance which will impede the war effort.

Matthew Smith, defying the government with a threat of a serious war strike, and drawing a “stab in the back” charge from Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, has been in a long conflict with the War Labor Board over its refusal to include spokesmen for independent or non-affiliated unions in the Board’s labor membership. He is identified as a Socialist in politics, but has publicly announced support for Mr. Roosevelt in this campaign.