Big Push

With the Presidential special standing in Washington's Union Station one evening last week--puffing, impatient to be off with Mr. Roosevelt to Hyde Park-- General Johnson in a few hours put across three big deals: wangled codes out of the lumber, steel and oil industries. Thus was a grave deadlock broken, the first major industries (aside from textiles) brought under the code provision of the Recover Act.

First of the three codes to be pushed through to Presidential signature was lumber. It did not stop with providing a 40-hr, maximum week (extensible to 48 hr. at seasonal peaks) and wages of 40-c- an hour. It provided that the industry should undertake forest conservation measures (details to be worked out in co-operation with the Administration). Biggest of all it set up a "Lumber Code Authority Inc." which will 1) estimate consumption, work out production quotas; 2) set minimum prices so that no lumber products may be sold below cost. Dr. Wilson Compton, manager of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, promised the code would meet a "cordial reception" in the industry.

No such reception was waiting for the steel and oil codes. The President's own persuasion was used to help wangle the steel code. U.S. Steel's Myron C. Taylor and Bethlehem's Charles M. Schwab spent an hour on the carpet in the White House. They emerged rather grimly, refused so much as a word to newshawks. One determined correspondent took Mr. Taylor's lapel, cried: "You'd better come clean. We're stockholders in your company."

Said Mr. Taylor: "Congratulations" Said Mr. Schwab (who has in recent years faced angry stockholders at Bethlehem Steel meetings): "Congratulations, Mr. Taylor, on meeting some of your stockholders."

Said Mr. Taylor, shrugging: "This isn't a stockholders' meeting "

The morning before he lumber code was finished General Johnson got the steel men into a room, kept them there for twelve hours with only a brief intermission for dinner--virtually whipped them into agreement. They came out late at night, glum, shaking their heads grievously. He had beaten down their demand for continuance of open shop.* The code provided a maximum 40-hr. week (extensible to 48 hr. at seasonal peaks); a minimum 40-c- an hour wage; an eight-hour day effective after Nov. 1 if the industry is operating at 60% or more of capacity; three representatives of the NRA to see that steel obeys its code. Gloomily accepting these provisions the steelmasters agreed that the code should go into effect for 90 days to determine its effect.

Next day while the steel code was being set down in black & white, General Johnson tackled the oil men. All his hard-boiled energy could not get them to agree with one another. Chief split was on price fixing. One group including Harry F. Sinclair, Kenneth R. Kingsbury of Standard Oil of California, Wirt Franklin, president of the Independent Petroleum Association, wanted complete price fixing from well to consumer. The other group including the representatives of Standard Oils of New Jersey and Indiana, Texas Co., Royal Dutch Shell, Gulf, Sun, Atlantic, favored only that oil should not be sold below cost, opposed complete price fixing. A day's work brought them no nearer agreement. So General Johnson cut the knot, gave oil a code written by Secretary Ickes and James Moffett (who resigned as vice president of Standard Oil of N.J. month ago because he disagreed with President Teagle's policies).

The Ickes-Moffett code set a 40-hr. week, 40-c- an hour minimum pay, empowered the President to fix for 90 days a maximum base price per gallon of gasoline, crude oil prices per bbl. to be 18.5 times as high as the gasoline price. By way of compromise the whole question of price was, however, left subject to change by a committee of 15 to be appointed by the President. The committee is to "recommend" to States the quota production they should permit and by forbidding greater shipments in interstate commerce will enforce its "recommendations." Furthermore, withdrawal of oil from storage is limited to 100,000 bbl. a day for the rest of 1933.

Late in the evening, weary but triumphant, General Johnson rushed from his final conference with the oil men, shouted to newshawks waiting in the hall. "I have the oil and steel codes," then sped to the White House where the President signed both. Half an hour later Franklin Roosevelt was on his way to Hyde Park confident that opposition to NRA had been broken, happy to have jobs provided for 400,000 more men. (Estimated new jobs: lumber 115,000, steel 50,000, oil 240,800.)

Three big triumphs left General Johnson with two big problems still on his hands: soft coal and automobiles. Earlier in the week the President had warned that he wanted to sign the bituminous coal code before he left Washington. Later he relented. The 29 coal groups, each advocating its own code, could not agree, were given a few more days to reconcile their differences. Stumbling block to the auto mobile code was Henry Ford's refusal to approve the plans drafted by other manufacturers. Mentioning no names General Johnson thundered at the assembled auto mobile men: "Certain it is that in the administration of this law ... no exception can be made in favor of any manufacturer whether he is large or whether he is small. . . . We are going to execute it without exception, without favor and without fear."

From Detroit emanated a hint that foxy Mr. Ford was only waiting to see what kind of code his competitors would adopt, then go them all one better with a more generous code of his own.

Happy at the big progress he had made last week General Johnson told newsmen that he had "enlisted" only for the emergency, hoped to finish plastering industry with Blue Eagles and retire by the middle of November to his old position as an associate of Bernard Baruch. "But," said General Johnson, "I'll be here until this job is done." Meanwhile he announced plans for giving the Blue Eagle claws by arousing public opinion: drives to sign up consumers all over the land; 1,500,000 volunteer workers; 100,000,000 "pieces of literature"; a big radio program with stage and screen stars; Alfred E. Smith, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Glenn Frank, Walter Chrysler, Senator La Follette, General Harbord, William Green, General Atterbury, Lewis A. Johnson (of the American Legion)--all teaching the Blue Eagle to scream.

*Said the code: "No employe and no one seeking employment shall be required as a condition of employment to join any company union or to refrain from joining, organizing or assisting a labor organization of his own choosing."

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