CESSATION OF LABOR AND CAPITAL BAITING URGED

A moratorium on "hates" between Americans, particularly those involving capital and labor, was urged as vital to the war effort by Dr. Benjamin M. Selekman, associate professor at the Business School, in the most recent issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Referring to two recent smear attacks, that against labor's 40-hour week and Standard Oil's prewar cartel agreement with German collaborators, Dr. Selekman contended that in both cases the real issues involved were obscured by "wrenching them out of their historic context and plunging them into the tense emotional atmosphere of war.

"This is not the first time certainly that trade unionists and industrialists have found themselves held up for excoriation. No other groups, save only perhaps the alien, have drawn through our history so much bitterness and condemnation. Organized labor striking for higher wages, shorter hours, and union recognition, or seeking privileges new to the custom of the land; organized business, founding banks and railroads and great industries that yielded general plenty and differential disadvantages; these have long constituted time-honored vehicles for hates and antagonisms.

"Even before Pearl Harbor the day seemed fast approaching when we could ill afford this traditional American luxury of industry-baiting. Certainly now, when the nation is fighting for its life; the only luxury has become self-destructive indulgence."

Making no attempt to resolve the pros and cons of the two controversies, Dr. Selekman pointed out that the problems of the shorter work-week and patent rights both are aspects of long term developments in the United States. The trend toward shorter hours, he said, goes back to the nineteenth century beginnings of the industrial revolution, and the issues raised by patent pools and monopolies are a part of the American trust breaking tradition that extends unbroken from the days of President Andrew Jackson to Thurman Arnold.

Therefore, Dr. Selekman said, "To proved relatively easy because three months of our active participation in the war has been crowded with bitter defeats. evoke such old resentments once more -despite the urgent demands for unity-