"A Great Deal of Patience . . ."

The gale of war had blown itself out, and now a big swell was running: labor unrest. It crashed on every industrial shore in the nation (see Labor), spread beyond the factories. In strike-stormy Detroit, cops clashed with labor-union men picketing a meeting of Rabble-rouser Gerald L. K. Smith's followers, and men went down under blows of swinging nightsticks. High-school children in New York City, Chicago and Gary, Ind., swirled out in a rash of protests, racial disputes and wholesale hooliganism (see EDUCATION).

The pent-up economic pressures of peace had generated political pressures and had brought President Truman up against his first serious difference with Congress (see below). By last week it was clear that the threat of increasing strikes had plunked the issue of a national wage policy down on Harry Truman's desk for urgent decision.

There was strong talk in Washington that the President would act soon, perhaps this week, and that his decision would probably be along these lines: 1) in return for a pledge from labor's chiefs to keep the peace, the Government would issue a directive permitting wage increases up to 15%; 2) industries, in return would be permitted to ask for increases in prices.

Strategy. Such a formula would be a retreat from the wage-price line of defence against inflation. But Government economists looked upon it as a strategic retreat; they believed the line could be consolidated against any real inflationary breakthrough. They hoped the interim policy would bring order into reconversion at least until spring. And then?

No one expected that labor, now hot after 30% increases to bring postwar wages up to wartime totals, would be content for long with 15%. But there was no law against hoping; Administration analysts hoped that by spring U.S. production--and profits--would be big enough to give a Boost to wages without a lift of prices. If done, it would be the neatest economic trick of the millennium.

Said one Administration general, who had been certain the line against pay raises could be held: "We could not sit on the safety valve any longer at the risk of riots and disorders. It is better to release a little bit of our pressure than to try to hold it on. A great deal of patience will be required to get us over the next three months."

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