"Double-Talk"

In their shabby, wallboard-sided office in Washington's Labor Department building, the War Labor Board sat down last week to decide the biggest question in its career. Should the Little Steel formula be broken, thus permitting pay raises above the present ceiling, including those for some 8,500,000 members of the C.I.O. and A.F. of L.? Soon the twelve usually friendly faces became grim, and tempers short; for nearly three days the bitter arguments crackled. Then the board voted 8-to-4 against breaking the formula. On to the President, as usual, went the responsibility.

The board found it was "not sufficiently informed as to the possible effects." Then why, wrathfully asked the four labor members, had the board spent eight months taking evidence? They said the majority opinion was compounded of "timidity, contradictions and double-talk."

What will happen now? Junking the Little Steel formula at this point, thus giving millions of workers a pre-election wage raise, would seem too raw a piece of politics to those voters who honestly fear inflation. And if the President sits tight, he may lose labor votes.

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