Yesterday

The President's latest decree on the National Labor Board may, without any occult insight into the backstage life of the N. R. A., be safely termed a victory for the shrewdly-hitting Secretary of Labor over her burly opponent, Hugh Johnson. In the struggle over the remodelling of the strike mediation, Miss Perkins, despite her hat, seems to have gained the ear of the Executive very effectively, and has brought it about that the N. L. B. no longer is compelled to hand over its decisions to the so-called compliance division for final review, but will be able to work quickly to its own conclusions without fear of reversal. The major triumph of this ukase lies not simply in the fact that the compliance board was outrageously biased in favor of the employer in most disputes, but in this; that the process of mediation will be stepped up to something more than the snailspace which is causing such widespread disillusion with the entire scheme of dispute-settlement. In strikes, the element of time is absolutely vital to the union involved; and delay in arbitration may quash the walk-out more surely, more disappointingly than an army of thug-scabs.

Immediately upon the announcement of the President's order, there came, of course, the expected reverberations from the expected people. The two principal protestants were the National Association of Manufacturers and the United States Chamber of Commerce, both organizations bellowing against the monopoly which was, in their estimation, being placed in the lap of Labor. The roar goes up, "What about the self-government of industry?", a roar which rather well illustrates the position of the compliance division in the eyes of these gentlemen. There can be no doubt, I think, that the Executive order was the best of the alternatives open to the Administration. To retain the existing state of stagnation would have been politically unwise as well as ethically negligent: the threatened general strike in Milwaukee this Monday is evidence in point. To hand over the balance of power to the trade unions would have been economically dangerous and obviously unfair to our captains and lieutenants of industry. And to allow the courts the ultimate word in these troubles would be, as it has been, quite inimical both to the workers and to the speedy adjustment of difficulties; their record along this line, what with yellow-dog contracts and injunctions, exhibited, to say the least, very doubtful impartiality. And at the conclusion of our eliminatory procedure we are forced to second the newly-born scheme of arbitration which vests power finally in the N. L. B. with an enlarged membership of known liberals of known integrity.

But while the Administration is in line for a commendatory slap on the back, there is one item of some magnitude for which they should be called to task; and that is their ill-considered duplication of functions by the N. L. B. and the worthy if forgotten Department of Labor. The President's very excusable regard for the Board as a member of the larger body of the N. R. A. ought not to blind him to the disadvantages consequent upon setting up two bureaucracies with approximately the same objective: the settlement of industrial dislocations. To have the two organizations covering a common territory with slightly varying policy (the Labor Department being the more Leftist of the twain), has lead not only to a dis-economy of effort but very real friction. Turning the mediation work of the N.R.A. back to its proper setting in the existing department, and, while they're at it, pushing the statistical branches over to the Department of Commerce would be two reforms whose value would be in considerable excess of their difficulty.