"This Is Not So"

The Republican reaction was prompt. Said New York's Senator Irving Ives,who had often taken labor's part in debate and committee room: "[The veto message] is the worst possible interpretation of the provisions of the bill, based on the assumption of the worst possible administration of the act." While the bill's opponents in the Senate filibustered desperately to delay the vote (see The Congress), Senator Robert Taft went on the air half an hour after Harry Truman finished his broadcast and took up Harry Truman's speech.

Said Taft: "[The President] ignores every abuse by labor unions . . . criticizes every provision designed to make unions responsible. . . . Corporations have long been required to file reports. . . . Why not unions? . . . He says they might be harassed by suits by an employer. Everybody else in the United States is subject to harassment by lawsuits. Why not unions?"

As for too much Government interference: "The bill in no way interferes with the rights of the parties to bargain, in no way limits the right to strike . . . except in the case of a nationwide strike. . . . There might be something in the argument [if] the Government had not intervened in every collective bargaining on the side of labor. . . . The administration of the Wagner Act . . . made it so one-sided as to produce a general public demand that the law operate both ways. This is the effect of the new bill."

The bill did not require "election after election," Taft pointed out, but limited elections to one a year.

As for the President's objection to the anti-Communist provision: "Why should an individual officer refuse to sign such an affidavit if he is not a Communist? If he is a Communist, why should such a union be certified?"

To many another Truman charge, Taft merely said flatly: "This is not so." He doubted whether the President knew anything about the bill itself. "We have simply provided that unions are subject to the same general laws as any other corporation or agency or citizen."

Concluded Chief Draftsman Taft: "The Committees of Congress . . . have tried to restore equality in collective bargaining and correct only those abuses . . . which were clearly shown to exist."

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