Evening star. [volume], June 03, 1937, Page A-11, Image 11

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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Novel Phrases)
Seen Dotting
Pay Bill
"Delegation Run Riot”
Held Inadequate to
Describe It.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.
SOME of the powers to be granted
by Congress if it adopts the
Corcoran wage and hour con
trol bill are so fantastically
difficult to administer that their
presence in Federal legislation would
present a novelty.
Thus, the Fed
eral Wage and
Hour Control
Board may be ex
pected to inquire
into the mental.
equipment of the
citizen, as well as
his or her effi
ciency. Theoret
ically the bill is
to establish mini
mum wages, but
then it is realized
that certain per
sons might be ;
thrown out of
work if this were
David Lawrence.
Uniformly applied, so exceptions are
to be made with respect to the in
competent and the slightly defective
mentally.
The proposed Federal Wage and
Hour Board will probably have con
siderable work for mental specialists,
if not physicians qualified to discuss
the effect of a physical injury on the
relative efficiency of a person.
In other words, there is to be a
minimum wage theoretically, but the
Federal board actually could allow j
wrages below the minimum.
Maximum Hour Rule.
Likewise there are to be maximum
hours, but the Federal board can
say the hours are not at all op
pressive or injurious to health if the
employer pays time and a half for
overtime. It's in the matter of over
time that rules could be promul
gated that might affect working con
ditions generally, irrespective of the
minimum wage feature of the pro
posed law.
The opportunity, of course, for po
litical pull and pressure for special
favors is well Illustrated by the fol- I
lowing language taken from the text I
of the Corcoran bill: J
"The board shall provide by regu
lation or by order that the employ
ment of employes in any occupation
upon terms and conditions prescribed
by the board at a wage lower or for
a work week longer than the appro
priate fair labor standard otherwise
applicable to such occupation shall
not be deemed to constitute a sub
standard labor condition for the pur-'
pose of one or more provisions of this
Ret if the board finds that the spe
cial character or terms of the em
ployment or the limited qualifications
of the employes makes such employ
ment justifiable and not inconsistent
with the accomplishment of the pur
poses of such one or more provisions
of this act."
Commission to Be Judge.
Who is to be the judge of all this
es it relates to the hours of work
of 45.000.000 workers? A Federal
commission of five controlled by one j
man—the Chief Executive—is to as- !
sume this task, and once the law is !
passed it will take a two-thirds vote
of both houses of Congress to repeal
it, over a veto. The bill goes on to
say:
“Such regulations or orders may
provide for (1) the employment of
learners and apprentices at such
wages lower than the applicable wage
and subject to such limitations as to
time, number, proportion, and length
of service as the board shall pre
scribe:
"2. The employment of persons
whose earning capacity is impaired by
age or physical or mental deficiency
or injury, under special licenses to
be issued by the board, at such wages
lower than the applicable wage and
for such period as shall be fixed by
such licenses;
"3. Reductions for board, lodging
find other facilities furnished by the
employer if the nature of the work
Is such that the employer is obliged
to furnish and the employe to ac
cept such facilities;
“4. Overtime employment in pe- J
riods of seasonal or peak activity or ]
in maintenance, repair, or other
emergency work and the wages to be
paid for such overtime employment;
end
"5. Suitable treatment of other
cases or classes of cases which, be- j
cause of the nature and character of
the employment, justify special treat- j
ment."
Wages for Apprentices.
Tt had always been supposed here
tofore by business men that labor
unions would make the rules as to
apprentices and wages to be paid
them or schedules for overtime, but
the Federal Government, under the
terms of the proposed Corcoran bill,
row would undertake to do all this.
Just where five men are to be
found who will have the omniscience !
to work out equitably all the employ
ment relations described in the new
bill is difficult to conjecture, but it
goes without saying that, an army of
bureaucrats and jobs will be created
by the measure if it passes. There will
have to be regional boards and local
ooards and offices throughout the
country to take care of the many
thousands of questions affecting em
ployment that are bound to arise.
Sees "Delegation Run Riot.”
Clearly the Corcoran bill comprises
no much power delegated by Con
gress to the Wage and Hour Control
Board that the phrase of Justice Car
dozo in characterizing the N. R. A.
as "delegation run riot" seems hardly
broad enough even to approximate ac
curacy this time.
Note to Unions.
There's another feature of the Cor
coran bill which probably will prove
Interesting to labor unions. Hereto
fore all legislation relating to labor
has had in it a clause to the effect
that nothing in the measure shall
be construed as diminishing or im
peding the right *to strike. But the
Corcoran bill contains a different
phraseology;
"Nothing in this act, or in any reg
ulation or order thereunder, shall be
construed to interfere with or im
pede or diminish in any way the right
of employes to self-organization, to
form, join, or assist labor organiza
tions; to bargain collectively through
representatives of their own choosing;
and to engage in all concerted activi
ties allowed by the law of the land,
and the act shall be construed and
applied to encourage and protect the
self-organization of employes for the
purpose of collective bargaining and
mutual aid.”
What is meant by “all concerted ac
tivities allowed by the law of the
A
What’s Back of It All
/
Charles Edison Credited With Adding Speed to
Naval Program, Now Well Under Way.
BY H. R. BAUKHAGE.
UMMER, beautiful, but cruel as Europe's growling war dogs, swept over
Washington in time to make tense nerves jiggle like the heat waves
that rose from Pennsylvania avenue.
Echoes from labor’s battle front and the murmur of the some
what sullen industrial world over proposed regulation of hours and wages
added to the universal desire to shoot the weather man or anybody nandy.
Embassy doorbells jangled and the shadowy corridors of the State
Department rang with many feet, but nobody asked what was happening
to our Navy program while shells dropped promiscuously on the European
powder box.
It's doing nicely, thank you—and thanks In no small portion to
Charles Edison, the business man who was hired to make sailormen like
Business ana Business men reel n
little more friendly to the Navy.
* * * *
In parentheses, before we go
further, the present strikes in the
independent steel plants are not
worrying the Navy Department as
far as supplies are concerned. It
deals chiefly with the other plants.
Nor are huge orders from abroad
of any particular concern.
* * * *
DO N T VVT'ffR'r
uncle rums
PlFNTf MORI
_ * J
.UoiWaVj
Last February a telephone call brought Charles Edison, newly ap
pointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy, to the White House. The Presi
dent asked him to use such inventive genius as he might have inherited to
speed up the sea program.
What's happened?
The answer, as of today, is revealing:
Several knots have been added to the speed of the shipbuilders:
several more knots have been shaken out of the red tape that makes
a Government contract more of a backache than a bargain for
Tnivate firms.
* * * *
Calm, quiet, unassuming, almost shy. sitting in an office whose walls
are covered with pictures of ships, there is no suggestion of the rollicking
sea dog about Mr. Edison, but it only takes a minute of conversation to
reveal why and how he gets things done. His problem isn’t ships, anyhow,
it's men.
He likes the Navy, finds its methods and organization compare not
unfavorably with a great corporation.
Even the son of the Wizard of Menlo Park might not have been able
to conjure steel bids out of unwilling bilders. Fortunately, the manu
facturers “capitulated" to some degree to the conditions laid down by the
Walsh-Healey act, and helped solve that crisis. But, right there, Mr. Edison
took hold and started some capitulating on his side.
He went after the distracting Vincent-Trammel act (which authorizes
the treaty-strength Navy and also has that clause which limits profits on
Government contracts to 10 per cent). Of course, he couldn’t change the
per cent figure. That was fair enough. The manufacturers had no ob
jection to it. Their trouble was that the Treasury made rules about what
could be figured in as costs, which in some cases turned the 10 per cent
MAW
JEPT i
AM TMATS
.MORE LIKE IT.
prom, into a loss. There was
elasticity there, and Mr. Edison
■went after it, obtained the co
operation of Treasury officials and
made common-sense adjustments
that satisfied the manufacturers.
That's Just one example. There
are others. They all add up to
speed.
Charles Edison doesn't yearn
to be an Assistant Secretary of the
Navy during a war. But should
aer tag rise like thunder out of the Bay of Biscay, there will be no need
for him to invent an alibi for our fleet.
* * * *
One American ship that won’t be speeding toward the Mediter
ranean. as originally planned, if the present trouble gets worse, is
the training vessel that carries the midshipmen to foreign shores
after graduation each year.
They'll have to make for more tranquil waters.
* * * *
The battle to kill the court bill really isn't over. This was revealed
when a well-known Washingtonian cleaned up his desk and turned up a
telegram he hadn't answered.
It stated that the "vicious precedent" of adding to the court would
be blocked with the aid of "an additional hundred thousands dollars" and
that "small contributions" could not be depended upon. The recipient of
the appeal was Secretary of Agriculture Wallace.
♦ Copyright, 3 937, by the North American Newspaper Allianct >
land?” This is a broader definition
than ever before has been made, but
for some unknown reason the "right
to strike” is specifically omitted. The
whole bill, however, Is full of novel
phrases which may contain hidden
meanings, depending on the point of
view of the five master minds who
are to constitute the proposed Federal
commission.
CTHE opinions of the ivriters on this page are their own, not
necessarily The Star’s. Such opinions are presented in
The Star's effort to give all sides of questions of interest to its
readers, although such opinions may be contradictory among
themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s.
Fate of Court Bill’s Foes
Eight Democratic Senators Face Test at Polls—
O’Mahoney’s Dramatic Statement.
BY MARK SULLIVAN.
THE Supreme Court has ad
journed. So far as Its de
cisions are Influences upon Mr.
Roosevelt's court proposal,
there can be no more until October.
And by October, assuming Mr. Roose
velt insists on action at this session
of Congress, the court proposal will
have been voted on—it is hardly likely
Congress will continue in session until
that month.
There is one
other influence
that could ema
nate from the
court. Conceiv
ably, there might
be deaths or res
ignations which
would affect the
status of the
court measure.
Disregarding that
possibility, Mr.
Roosevelt's court
measure stands
on its merits be
fore Congress
and the country.
Mark Sullivan.
The strong Judgment of Washing
ton is that the measure will not pass.
1 hat it will not pass in the form in
which Mr. Roosevelt sent it to Con
gress, giving himself power to ap
point six new justices, is taken for
granted. And most observers believe
it cannot pass in the compromise
form that has been discussed, giving
Mr. Roosevelt power to appoint two
new justices.
Reasons for Probable Defeat.
For the probable defeat of the
measure, there are many reasons. Most
of the reasons focus into one. A large
number of Democratic Senators have
been so impressed by the objections
to the measure that they just will
not vote for it. The Senators who
have tome to thus position include
many whose loyalty to the party is un
questionable, some whose loyalty to
the Roosevelt administration, with re
spect to any reasonable matter, is
likewise unquestionable.
Among positions taken against Mr.
Roosevelt's court measure by Demo
cratic Senators, that of Mr. O'Ma
honey of Wyoming is especially sig
nificant. From the time the Presi
dent sent his measure to Congress,
for more than two months, up to
almost the very day Mr. O'Mahoney
took his position, he had been
counted in favor of it: newspaper com
pilations listed him among the
“fors.”
This incorrect assumption may have
arisen from Mr. O'Mahoney's back
ground. He had been a member of
the Roosevelt administration—Mr.
Roosevelt when he took office had
made him First Assistant Postmaster
General. In that post he had been
close to Postmaster General and Demo
cratic National Chairman Failey.
Hence he had been far within the
inner party organization that ad
ministers patronage and exercises
party discipline. After he left the
Post Office Department to enter the
Senate in 1934 he was supposed t.o
share Mr. Farley's notions about
loyalty to the administration.
Showed Knowledge of History.
In the circumstances, Mr. O'Ma
honey's declaration against the court
proposal, at an advanced stage of the
fight, might be attributed either to his
political intuition telling him the court
proposal was not popular, or to his
conscience telling him it was not right.
The latter assumption Is much the
safer. The spirit and phrasing of his
declaration showed him to be con
scious of high principle, and deeply
moved.
Our American courts, Mr. O'Ma
honey said, were designed for pro
tection against arbitrary power. To
preserve them in that exalted function,
Mr. O'Mahoney said, "they should
never be under even the suspicion that
they might be dominated by either the
executive or legislative power. • • *
The right of the Individual to be pro
tected against the arbitrary use of
power can be guaranteed only by the
courts, and if the independence of the
courts is not maintained, all guaranties
of freedom and justice vanish. This
* * * is the most fundamental question
of basic Americanism that has been
presented to the Congress in a gen
eration."
To those who said that the 27,000,
000 votes for Mr. Roosevelt were a
mandate from an overwhelming ma
jority, a mandate to Congress to sur
render their individual Judgments—
to this Mr. O'Mahoney made a dra
matic answer.
That quotation Is one of the most
important contributions made in all
the millions of words of the whole
court discussion. How does that dec
laration happen to appear in the con
stitution of Wyoming and not, so far
as I know, in the constitution of any
i other State? (Some one ought to
I search the other 47 State constitutions
; to see if this declaration Is anywhere
' duplicated.) Here is a foundation
stone of the American conception of
government—yet it was not written
explicitly into the Federal Constitu
; tion nor into any of the State ones
except that of a sparsely settled moun
tain commonwealth.
I imagine the explanation is that
at the time we founded our Govern
ment we were so familiar with this
principle, believed it so universally,
that we took it for granted.
Within a year the voters of the
country must make up their minds to
what to do about Democratic Sena
tors who are in Mr. OMahcney's
1 position. Mr. O'Mahoney does not
happen to come up for re-election
next year, but there are some eight
' other Democratic Senators in his po
sition who do. It is safe to expect
the fates of these Senators will be the
most important issues of next year's
congressional campaign. Their fates
will be determined, not so much in
the general election as in their fights
for renomination in the Democratic
primaries. That President Roosevelt,
‘ National Chairman Farley and the
We, the People
Relief Polls in Congress Give Roosevelt Chance to
"Ear-mark” Rebels.
BY JAY FRANKLIN.
THE congressional roll call on relief is a political suicide club.
Therefore, it is hard for New Dealers to get terribly worked
up over ‘.he ‘'revolt" in the House of Representatives over the
President’s $1,500,000,000 relief bill.
This rebellion Is largely of Mr. Roosevelt's own making, and the
insurgents have a good deal of logic, but not much political sense, on
their side. Everybody knows that, whatever happens, the needy will not
Pcoh'PcohI
JUST A W.
gATTLE
be allowed to starve. For there
will be deficiency relief appropria
tions and many Congressmen have
thus been lulled into the belief that
the whole thing is a sham battle.
Unfortunately, this particular
sham battle will result in a good
many killed and wounded. While
Congressmen are ear-marking relief
funds for pork-barrel purposes, the
administration is ear-marking the
rebels.
new Deal reprisals can take two painful forms: First, to see that
few, if any, of the public works projects demanded by the ear-markers
occur within the districts which they represent; second, since relief
must be curtailed as a result of their raid on the cooky far. let econ
omy begin at home. Harry Hopkins should discharge all W. P. A.
workers in their districts and say: “The man who represents you in
Congress says that you don't need to eat.’’ So what?
So the relief row in the House may help along the New Dral party
“blood purge” just as the President's judicial reform bill is marking down
Tory Senators for reprisals. The foes of the "Forgotten Man” and the
Nine Old Men may find themselves in the same leaky dory w hen the 1938
primaries and State conventions come rolling around.
This blood-letting will be especially painful since the Pres
ident, by starting his loose talk about national economy, set a trap,
by accident or design, for the politically prehistoric members of his
own party. The enemies of the New Deal had a chance to pretend
to fight under the Roosevelt banner against the very policies he
advocates. From now on they will be. marked men.
The unfortunate thing about it is that neither the President nor his
party has seriously thought through this business of relief. To many w-ho
ardently sympathize with New Deal policies, there has always seemed to
be a monstrous confusion in the work-relief program. Why should neces
sary projects be confused with social pressure? If a project—a power dam,
a recreation ground, a bridge, a highway, an apartment house, a drought
or flood control system—is desirable, it should be completed, with maximum
efficiency and minimum cost, without reference to the size of the local
relief rolls. Relief workers should be given preference on such projects
but projects should not be sacrificed to relief workers.
The basic idea of uork relief seems to be a degradation of
labor, quite as immoral as prison labor. Why insist that needy citizens
be given work, no matter how foolish and useless, before they can
claim relief? If our Vincent Astors can live without working and still
maintain their yachts and morals unimpaired, if the late John D.
Rockefeller could be supported in idleness for the last quarter of a
century without being thereby degraded, why should the stamina of
their fellow Americans be burned out by a straight cash dole?
u inis principle naa Deen 101
lowed in spending the great $5.
000.000,000 1935 relief fund, we
could have built several T. V. A.s
and controlled the floods of the
Ohio and the dust of the Dakotas
with what we saved on made
work and boondoggling. But Harry
Hopkins had to have his way. Sec
retary Ickes was given the works,
and Congress has quite naturally
rebelled.
tVv-A>C' \
S ?
, RE E ■'
k, S
, ;/( %
Yet in rebelling, Congressmen have committed another and
worse blunder. It Mr. Roosevelt erred in trying to combine a public
ivorks program with the relief administration, Congress is committing
the crime of trying to combine a public works program with economy.
If the rebels win, any economy must come out of the hides of the
millions of jobless Americans who have been supported by W. p. A. The
New' Dealers will be dumb indeed if they do not take advantage of this
piece of tragic folly to drive the fake-liberals and phoney-progressives in
the House of Representatives out of the New Deal party and. if possible, out
of public life altogether. Heaven knows there are plenty of younger and
more flexible politicians gunning for their jobs to lend Messrs. Roosevelt
and Farley a helping hand when the relief rebellion gets down to the pre
cincts next year.
Democratic national organization will
try to defeat them is assumed. This
i condition would seem to put an obli
i gation on those voters and leaders of
I thought who have taken an Interest
in stopping Mr. Roosevelt's court meas
ure, and who ought to be grateful to
the Democratic Senators who have
checked it.
(Copyright. 1037.)
An American
You Shcmld
Know
L. J. Briggs, Standards
Bureau Director, a
Real Scientist.
BY DELIA FYNCHON.
THE National Bureau of Stand
ards and its director, Lyman
J. Briggs, makes the journey
from the cradle to the grave a
scientific adventure. New discoveries
emerge from laboratories. Necessities,
luxuries attiin higher utility. The
Dr. Brlsjs.
maker, buyer,
seller, us°r have
a national yard
stick of standard
measurement.
Dr. Briggs,
courteous, quiet,
dignified, with
far-seeing, merry
blue eyes that
close for concen
tration, with gray
hair awry, flow
ing eyebrows
rampant, meas
ures up himself
to a national
standard of what
eminent scientists should be, how they
should look.
Fundamentally, he says, “all stand
ards used in industry are based on
national standards.” The metric sys
tem was legalized by Congress in 1866.
Perversely the legalized metric system
is only used for scientific work, for
eign trade. Inch and pound meas
ures are in common use.
By act of Congress in 1901 the
National Bureau of Standards was
created. It functioned in the Treas
ury with a staff of 14 people. In 1903
the bureau was transferred to Com
merce, where it now flourishes with a
staff of 821.
Industry sends to the bureau annu
ally more than one hundred and sixty
thousand instruments, commodities to
be tested. This service is made avail
able to the National Government, the
States, free of charge. Other tests of
national scope are charged fees.
To maintain national standards of
measurement, and to get these stand
ards into u e for the benefit cf In
dustry, are the bureau's prime func
tions.
When I first saw the inside of a
physics laboratory at college I knew
that my life would be spent there,”
Briggs said. Born in 1879 on a farm
in Michigan. 14 miles from a railroad,
he entered Michigan State College at
15, graduated, tutored his way
through two years at the University
of Michigan, received his masters of
science degree in 1895, came to Wash
ington the same year, worked in the
Bureau of Soils, Department of Ag
riculture, went to Johns Hopkins, re
ceived his doctor's degree. Detailed
in 1917 to the Bureau of Standards,
Briggs started in the field of aero
dynamics, developed a gyroscopic In
strument for directing gun-fire, a
practicable earth inductor compass,
became chief of mechanics and sound
division, assistant director in 1S27,
director, 1933. With five honorary
degrees to his credit, Briggs is scien
tifically authentic, commercially pro
gressive. personally popular. His hob
bies are billiards and base ball.
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