President's Choice

The heat was on the President. The wartime anti-strike bill had reached his desk and there were now three choices before him: 1) sign the bill; 2) veto it; 3) let it become law without his signature.

The bill's sponsors--Senator Tom Connally of Texas and Representatives Howard Smith of Virginia and Forest Harness of Indiana--confidently predicted Presidential approval. But not in his wildest dreams could the most optimistic anti-laborite in Washington quite visualize a scene in which the President smilingly signed the labor-crunching bill and handed the pen as a trophy to labor-baiting Howard Smith.

Organized labor was angry and afraid. Labor leaders blamed John L. Lewis for their predicament. This bill, as a law, would be the first reduction of labor's social gains in ten years. Labor also feared it might foreshadow permanent anti-labor legislation. Cried A. F. of L. President William Green: "UnAmerican, Fascist anti-labor legislation."

If the bill is made law, it will:

> Outlaw strikes (in Government-operated war plants).

> Force a 30-day cooling-off period and majority approval by secret ballot before a strike can be called (in private plants).

> Make strike "incitement" punishable by a year in jail and $5,000 fine.

> Give the War Labor Board power to subpoena witnesses.

> Legalize the President's authority to seize plants threatened with labor disturbances.

> Forbid union contributions to political parties.

The bill was loosely drawn; it also contradicted itself. It forbade strikes in war plants, yet set up a legal method for voting on strikes. It would not simplify labor relations: unions would have to tell their troubles to WLB, NLRB and Labor-Secretary Frances Perkins. It might wreck WLB: a section provided that no member of WLB shall have "a direct interest as an officer, employe or representative of either party to the dispute." Would this disbar WLB's four labor members, who are members of A.F. of L. and C.I.O.?

If Franklin Roosevelt signed the bill, he would begin to make an end to ten years of companionate marriage with labor. If he chose to veto it, he could find plenty of reasons.

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