To Hold the Line

Rumple-haired, dry-humored William Hammatt Davis wondered if he had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. After three harried years as War Labor Board chairman, he was appointed last week to succeed Fred Vinson as U.S. Economic Stabilizer.

It had been Will Davis' job to hold the line on wages; it would be his job now to hold the line on wages and prices too--to guard the whole U.S. against the insistent pressure of inflation. Grinning, the 65-year-old Manhattan patent lawyer wryly described the assignment as "a nice little job."

To Washington observers the Davis appointment meant that for the moment, at least, labor had lost its long fight for upward revision of the Little Steel formula. Few weeks ago Davis and WLB's other public members had recommended to Franklin Roosevelt that Little Steel be kept.

But labor, already off on another tack, hoped that Davis would adopt a more liberal attitude than Vinson's in connection with "fringe" awards, i.e., increases for night-shift differentials, reclassifications, etc., which do not affect basic wage rates. This issue, now vital to the unions, was sizzling on Davis' desk before he had a chance to sit down.

For weeks, WLB had been chafing under firm Fred Vinson's restrictions on fringe awards, wanted him to loosen up, give the board more authority. Last week, as his last official act before becoming Loan Administrator, Vinson handed down a ruling, setting up specific and narrow limits for the granting of such increases. C.I.O. and A.F. of L. promptly howled that the Vinson formula was "completely unworkable," rolled up their sleeves for a shindig. That brought a new figure into the play. Will Davis' place as WLB chairman had been taken by roly-poly, moon-faced Dr. George William Taylor, longtime vice chairman of the Board. Dr. Taylor, a professor of labor relations at the University of Pennsylvania, wasted no time putting his ex-boss up on the edge of the frying pan. At week's end he announced that he would ask new Stabilizer Davis to ease up on the Vinson ruling, make fringe increases easier for labor to get.

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