Veto

For a few days last week, for the first time since Nov. 21, there was no major strike in the U.S. But beyond the threat of the seaman's strike (see Labor) President Truman had a labor problem just the same. Before him, for his disposition, was the Case bill, which sought, in a small way, to redress the balance between labor & management.

Telegrams, both pro & con, had rained on the White House at the rate of about 3,000 a day--a total of 38,000. Nobody bothered to count the letters. In the House, proponents and opponents gathered signatures to petitions. Labor leaders stormed their arguments against the bill ("emasculation of labor's rights").

To C.I.O. Boss Phil Murray fell the major task of making labor's case. He wrote to the President: the bill was "not corrective"; it would "encourage and increase labor disputes"; it was "exclusively and aggressively anti-labor . . . sinister . . . dangerous" not only to labor but to the U.S. public. But in all his 8,000 words Phil Murray made no mention of the abuses of labor's power which the bill sought to correct.

Perpetual Immunity? Six Senators who had voted for the bill* promptly pulled him up short. They sent to the President their own answer to Murray's letter:

"We call attention to a significant omission from Mr. Murray's letter. He does not defend the practices which this bill would prohibit. He does not assert that it is right that unions should practice robbery or extortion by violence in commerce. He does not argue that it is right for unions to paralyze the nation or a community by pulling the switches and closing down essential utilities without notice.

"He does not argue that it is right that unions should escape responsibility for the acts of their agents. He does not argue that it is right for unions to violate their contracts. He does not argue that it is right for unions to combine with others to fix prices or restrict competition. This, apparently, would be carrying the matter a little too far.

"Yet today every one of these things can be done by a union with complete legal immunity. They could not be done legally if the Case bill were enacted. And Mr. Murray urges that the immunity be perpetuated.

"Finally, it is appropriate to ask what remedy Mr. Murray proposes for the demonstrated evils with which Congress has tried to deal. One may search his letter in vain. . . . His sole contribution is the request that the Case bill be vetoed, and the unions thereby be left free to pursue in future the course they have in the recent past.

"This attitude of disregard for the public's interest is the most convincing reason why the Case bill should receive presidential approval."

Decision. Harry Truman ignored the senatorial advice. But he listened to his political henchmen--to National Chairman Bob Hannegan and Crony George Allen. Politician Hannegan argued that a veto would salvage some vestige of the labor support the President had lost when he rushed to Congress with his own draft-strikers measure on "Black Saturday." At week's end, in Washington's 90DEG heat, the President called off plans for a cruise, toted a briefcase full of reports to the White House living quarters.

There he made his decision: veto. This week he so informed Congress. He recommended that it study permanent labor legislation, but gave not one hint of what he wanted. He also gave Congress six months to bring in a bill--well beyond the November elections.

A Fresh Start? Labor--and political expediency--had won again. The U.S., through its President, had failed again to come to complete grips with the labor question. The people, through Congress, had given unmistakable notice that it was time for labor to accept its responsibilities, but labor, despite some of its leaders' offstage whispers about the necessity of some reforms, had shown no public inclination to pay that sort of price for peace. And the President, playing the political game, had strung along with labor.

But he might have to face the whole problem over again. A move was developing in Congress to tack the Case bill on to the President's emergency legislation.

*They were three Democrats: New Mexico's Carl Hatch, Virginia's Harry Byrd and Louisiana's Allen J. Ellender; and three Republicans: New Jersey's H. Alexander Smith, Ohio's Robert A. Taft and Minnesota's Joseph Ball.

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