Humpty Dumpty

The week that followed the Supreme Court's destruction of NRA found most of Washington running around trying to find ways of putting Humpty Dumpty together again. General Johnson was reported busy drafting a new statute. Fat and jolly Governor Nice of Maryland issued an invitation for all governors to prepare state substitutes for NRA. Officials in NRA and businessmen fond of NRA devised strange schemes and ingenious devices to get around the Supreme Court's ruling. But by the end of the week one fact was manifest: The Supreme Court had shattered NRA into such fine particles that a new brand of cement would be needed to make them stick together again. NRA wired code authorities that their official status and official existence had ended--both "officials" underlined. Attorney General Cummings announced that the Administration was abandoning 411 NRA cases in the courts.

Hugh Johnson took to the microphone: "NRA is dead. The Blue Eagle is struck to earth. . . . The codes are as though they had not been written. . . .

"Let's get out of our minds any idea of wreckage of the New Deal. It is not wreckage. It is a temporary halt. Speaking of NRA alone--after a rough voyage on an unknown, unchartered and foggy sea, during which it tacked and veered and took many wrong courses (for much of which I was to blame)--the fog suddenly lifted and disclosed a blank wall of a seemingly impassable cliff--the decision in the Schechter case. The problem now is not to pick up its wreckage but to steer a course around that barrier. . . .

"Let your Representatives in Congress know how the loss of NRA will affect you and insist--demand--that everything left by the Court's decision be saved. . . ."

Although Franklin Roosevelt told the world two days later that there was practically nothing left to save from the whole New Deal, nonetheless he began this week to take preliminary steps toward what looked like legislative action. He instructed Donald Richberg to maintain NRA's staff of 5,400 employes and not to serve notice that their jobs would terminate June 16. He called his Cabinet together, held another press conference, spent many more hours with Congressional leaders. Meanwhile the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Manufacturers Association were urging all businessmen not to cut wages and lengthen hours, to uphold code standards. A. F. of L.'s William Green warned workers to resist any changes attempted by employers. All denounced the chiseling which "had been begun in many places." NRA ordered defunct code authorities to wire it collect reports of all code infractions. The reports were withheld from the public but compiled in a great dossier so that they might be recited as a magnificent funeral oration to make the U. S. sorry that NRA had died. Hundreds of concerns announced that they would not cut wages.

Reports trickled into the Press of wage cuts. A restaurant in Honolulu had put waitresses on a $4 seven-day week. Most news concerned the textile industry, pride of the Blue Eagle, first to take a code. At Lincolnton, N. C. mill hours were upped from 40 to 50 per week, minimum wages also upped from $12 to $16. At Greenville, S. C. the Piedmont Shirt Co. cut wages 25%, upped hours from 36 to 40 hours. At Atlanta 20 piecework shirtwaist makers struck when wages were cut from $1.80 to $1.50 a dozen, hours upped from 35 to 37 1/2 At Manchester, Conn. 1,200 silk workers threatened to strike against a 5% to 20% wage cut imposed by Ward Cheney, great NRAdvocate, head of Cheney Bros. He backed down.

Labor, afraid of wage cuts, and Business, afraid of price cuts, both trembled harder than the facts to date warranted. After two years under a system of government guarantees, they evidently feared the experiment of again doing business as they had been doing it for 150 years without Federal regulation. Those who feared cried out and those who rejoiced--including consumers who got cheaper cigarets, cheaper liquor, better trade-in allowances on their cars--kept mostly silent.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.