VAC ' VUR Fifty-Third Year Eldited and managed by students of the University of Micfigan under the authority of the Board In Control of Student Publications. Published everym orning eXcept Monday during the regular University year, and every morning except M~on- day and Tuesday during the summer session. Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use 'for republication of all news dispatches credited to It or otbherWise credited in this newspaper. All rights of republication of all other matters herein also reserved. ntered at the Post Office at Ann Arbor, Michigan, as second-class mail matter. Subscriptions during the regular school year by carrier $4.25, by mail $5.25. THlE MICHIGAN DAILY THRSDAY, JAN. 7, 4& --*. . The Colossus totters WHY ALL THE SNIPING? The Forty-Hour Week Benjamin L. Masse, Associate Editor, in America, a Catholic Review of the Week Member, Associated Collegiate Press, 1942-43 REPENESENTEDF OR NATIONh.L ADVERTISING BY National Advertising Service, Inc. Collte Pxishers Represet*:atwe 420 MADISON Ave. New YORK. N.Y. CHICAGO * BOSTON * * LOSAnELES SAN FRARCISCO Editorial Staff homer Swander . * . . Managing Editor Morton lini. . . . . Editorial Director 1 Sapp . . . City Editor George W. Salade Associate Editor h es Thatcher . . . . Associate Editor Bernard Hendel . . . . . Sports, Editor s Barbara decries . . . . . Women's Editor Myron Dann , . . . Associate Slorts Editor Business Staff Edward J. Perlberg . Business Manager Fred M. Ginsberg . . Associate Business Manager Mary Lou Curran . . Women's Business Manager Jane Lindberg. . . Women's Advertising Manager Jaimes Daniels . . . Publications'Sales Analyst Telephone 23-24-1 NIGHT EDITOR: MARION FORD Editorials published in The Michtgan Daily' are written by members of The Daily staff and represent the views of the writers only.. HE only issue in the fight over the 40-hour week is this: Will the suspension of the overtime pro- visions of the Fair Labor Standards Act contribute more to our war effort than will their retention? The reasons advanced for ex- tending the basic work week to 48 hours are chiefly two: The longer work week will (1) mitigate the danger of inflation; and (2) help notably to relieve the manpower shortage. Stabilization of wages and sala- ries, rationing of scarce commodi- ties, extension of price ceilings to cover farm products, higher taxes and increased insistence on the war bond campaign, seem to have given us, at least for the immediate fu- ture, insurance against inflation. We can concentrate on the argu- ment that a longer work week will relieve the manpower shortage. The law, it is contended, was passed in 1938 to cope with a situa- tion which no longer exists. At that time, the problem confronting the country was widespread uneniploy- ment. But now the circumstances have utterly changed. It is no long- er a question of spreading a limited amount of work; it is a question of finding enough men and women to fill the new jobs. Claims of Opponents Under these circumstances, the opponents of the 40-hour week in- sist, to continue to enforce legisla- tion designed to spread work is absurd. If the work week were ex- tended to 48 hours, our dwindling labor force would be multiplied (equivalent to adding about 3,500,- 000 more workers), and hundreds of thousands of men and women would be free to transfer from ci- vilian to war industries. Before we consider the answers to this argument, three points must be clarified. 1. Most war workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are at their jobs far longer than 40 hours a week. 2. Many non-war industries are, however, working only 40 hours, and even less than that. In Sep- tember, the average hours worked in millinery were 33.9; in men's clothing, 34.5; in women's cloth- ing, 34.3; in cigars and cigarettes, 38.3; in boots and shoes, 35.9; in bituminous coal, 35. Nevertheless, the average week in all non-war industry was just a fraction short of 40 hours.. 3. Organized labor joins its cri- tics in agreeing that we are not making full use of our present labor force, and that the 48-hour week should be made universal. It dis- agrees only on the question of pay- ment for overtime. Since very many war workers, and many workers in civilian industry as well, are now receiving overtime payments, the move to suspend the Wage and Hour Act is a move not to length- en hours, but to cut wages. Adds Little to Costs Now, on with the debate. The negative has the floor, and we shall consider their chief arguments in order. 1.'. Overtime payments, in most cases, are not blocking a longer work week. While some firms are unable to pay overtime rates and continue, at -the same time, to sell at a profit under present price ceil- ings, these firms are not typical. Furthermore, some labor econo- mists claim that the overtime pre- mium for a 48-hour week increases unit labor costs in many industries by only one-twelfth (others say one-eighth), and that this increase is more than nullified by the fact that fixed charges and overhead are not augmented by the added production. The reason many non- war industries are still working 40 hours a week or less is not the Wage and Hour Act, but a short- age of materials. 2. The retention of overtime payments, far from being a hin- drance to the transfer of workers from civilian to war industries, is an effective and orderly way of bringing this about. The magnetic attraction of overtime and fat- ter pay envelope are daily indcing many workers to switch to war plants. Those who resist this at- traction are probably restrained by very solid reasons, frequently of a family nature, and could be led to make a change only by force. Would Wreck Contracts 3. To do away at this time with overtime provisions would destroy the delicate balance between wages and prices, achieved, let it be re- membered, only after months of laborious effort. The budgets of all workers now enjoying overtime would be badly upset, and this would probably lead to widespread demands for higher hourly rates of pay. Thos, when labor leaders and management ought to be con- centrating their full energies on stepping up production, they would be forced to spend days and weeks drawing up new agreements. And worse still, most war con- tracts now in force make. allow- ances for overtime payments. it these payments were abandoned, every one of these contracts would have to be renegotiated--another arduous and time-consuming job. 4. The drive to emasculate the Fair Labor Standards Act is an iI logical approach to the manpower problem. This act is a highly im- portant piece of, legislation, a mile-. stone in the social history of the United States. The suspension of such a law ought to be proposed only as a last, unwelcome resort, after all other means have failed. And labor charges that other reans have not failed. Nelson Opposes Cha Consequently, workers are in- clined to see in the movement not so much an honest attempt to solve the manpower shortage, as an at- tack, cleverly wrapped in the Aner- ican flag, on the social gains of the past decade. And these suspicions do not make for- good morale. This seems to be the position of the President, and of many close to the war-production effort. Donald Nelson said: "To abolish the 40-hour week law would not, in my opinion, brink any greater production or more sustained effort in war industry. I believe that such action would have a harmful effect on war pro- duction. If we now abolish the 40- hour week by law, we do not gain one hour of additional work in our war industries, but, naturally; rVe create a widespread demand for increases in 'wage rates, throw the entire wage structure out of adjust- ment and remove an important in- centive for labor to shift from fond essential industries intowar-pro- duction jobs." DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN MISDIRECTED: Public Criticism Of Government Unjustified AERICA has long been known for its sense of humor and one of its most prominent writers, Sinclair Lewis, once spent an evening here in Hill Auditorium telling us that this country's "Oh yeah" attitude will be its salvation. Unfor- tunately, the "oh yeah" attitude is still very much in evidence, and its current prevalence was brought out in last week's Gallup Poll sur- vey of this Nation's criticisms of the war effort. We have a right to criticize our government, and this right must be exercised even further in wartime. If Mr. Gallup had found a public aversion to the pre-war isolationists now flying the banners of "no need for gas rationing," if this poll had shown Americans to be up in arms about our coddling of such characters as Darlan and Franco, we would feel that the right of criticism is being used in the most salutary fashion. But what did Mr. Gallup discover? Well, his reporters went out and came back with tales of a strong sentiment against governmental "lack of foresight" especially in the case of rationing. This lack of foresight, of course, compares un- favorably with the vision and clairvoyance shown by that too-numerous segment' of the general public that laid away for rainy days to such a degree that rationing-with all of' its evils and inenveniences-was hastily instituted to nullify the effects of their hoarding. SECOND CRITICISM reported by Mr. Gallup was"government bureaucracy and ineffi- ciency," a complaint that seems to have stayed in style since the last "efficient" government went out with the Hoover Cities in 1932. The public's complaint about bureaucracy, of course, is based on the Washington correspondents' tales of thousands of people filling hundreds of offices in the capital. Needless to say, this war is no backyard brawl and you cannot expect "while-you-wait" service on forms and requests when the forms and requests run into the mil- lions. Bertie McCormick is the most obnoxious critic of government inefficiency, but we see little eydence of any constructive suggestions from him or his followers. They only take their line because we are fighting a war they do not like for principles they do not like and they are doing their best to hamper it. Mr. Gallup's poll lists as the third criticism government indulgence toward labor unions- another segment of public opinion that has been nurtured by an antagonistic anti-labor press. The number of man-days lost by strikes ples into insignificance before the total effort of American labor and this anti-labor senti- ment might have been changed slightly if American newspapers had been equally liberal with theIr two-inch banners on such "patri- oi'" industrial firms as the Anaconda Wire and Cable Company. F OURTHon the howl list turned in by Mr. Gallup is "sugar-coating" of war news by the government and lack of information about the war. The American people are now ready to take it on the chin, according to Mr. Gallup, and they want their bad news straight. They have already forgotten that a luxury-loving America would have been floored by a full report of the GOOD NEIGHBOR: Relations With Bolivia Hurt By Boal's Action WORD has arrived in Waschington that all is not well with our good neighbor policy in South America. According to Ernesto Galarza, chief of the labor and social information division of the Pan-American Union, Pierre Boal, the United States ambassador to Bolivia has discouraged the adoption of a labor code aimed at raising wages and somewhat improving working condi- tions in the tin mines of that country. Since the United States is the chief purchaser of Bolivian tin, the adoption of such a code would naturally result in a price raise. Galarza, in a letter to Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, charges that "In the conversa- tions Ambassador Boal did not venture to give instructions to President Penaranda, but it is clear that the Ambassador's observations were intended to diminish the prospects of. passage of the labor code. The Ambassador clearly agreed with the position of the large mine operators that the new code would ifipose disagreeable administrative expenses on the companies; that it was desirable not to pay earned wages on time in order to compel the workers to remain on the job; that the enactment of the code would com- pel the companies to demand higher prices from the United States Government for tin and other essential materials; that collective bargaining would be detrimental rather than helpful to pro- duction." DESPITE THE FACT that Ambassador Boal cabled Secretary of State Cordell Hull that he has not engaged in any acts or utterances which could be construed at all as an attempt to influence the labor plans and proposals and pro- grams that were pending in Bolivia, it is evident that something must have happened to bring forth such serious charges from Galarza. Whether due to interference 'of the United States ambassador or not, the labor code was refused and the natives continued to labor long hours under the worst conditions possi- ble, earning from 20 to 30 cents a day. How- ever, the refusal of the government to adopt the code met resistance from the miners who struck. Violence ensued, bloodshed and the jailing of the labor leaders followed. Such intereference on the part of the United States, if the charges are true, cannot be con- demned too severely. But even if Ambassador Boal has not intrefered with the Bolivian labor policy in any way, matters are not helped greatly. It seems utterly inconsistent to practice good neighbor policy on the surface, sending good-will envoys back and forth, while economically alien- ating the people of the country. BY taking advantage of such opportunities as the betterment of conditions in the Bolivian tin mines the United States can show the world that it is really back of its post-war promises, and that it is really interested in helping the other United Nations. By paying a higher price for its tin, the United States could help to bring about the economic betterment of the Bolivian miners, a result that would be appreciated -by all of the democratic peoples of South America and Central America. It is true that such action might bring a clamor from waste-hunting senators, but in true - divi-' dends it would repay the United States. The Iepth of a good feeling inspired by exchanging notion pictures and lecturers, rarely reaches to the neomJP of a c~onry. Hwvr dirct act.ion PEARSON'S MERRY-GO-ROUND WASHINGTON-When WPBoss Donald Nel- son stood up in press conference and flatly denied there was any conflict between civilians and the Army over war production, he probably did not know that the Army had just issued a most interesting brochure describing in detail the civilian-military conflict over war production. Donald Nelson, however, was not the only man who didn't know about it. Simultaneously, Secretary of War Stimson was asked at his press conference whether a booklet had been issued telling why the Army should run war production. Mr. Stimson denied there was such a booklet. Moreover, Major Gen. Alexander Surles, his efficient press chief, leaned over his shoulder and reinforced that denial. Undoubtedly they did not knowabout the booklet. Nevertheless, it does exist. And it is a care- fully prepared document of 22 pages, giving a minute analysis as to why the Army should run war production. As to why the Army should issue such a trea- tise without the knowledge of Army Press Rela- tion,s or the Secretary of War, or particularly Elmer Davis's Office of War Information, may require some explaining. Under a direct White House ruling, all public statements must clear through Elmer Davis. The excuse in this case may be that the Army's booklet is intended for limited circulation-though it has found its way into the hands of a limited number of news- papermen. CHIEF TARGET of the Army's lobbying booklet is the Tolan-Pepper Bill which would reor- ganize and revitalize the War Production Board, giving it by law powers over the Army, some of which the WPB now seeks through directives. "Resurgence of proposals to take procurement of weapons away from the Armed Forces," says the Army's booklet, "is traceable to the disloca- tions which war makes inevitable. The hope is that somehow someone other than the Army and Navy could do the job better. Then all business men, large and small, efficient and inefficient, would be able to continue undisturbed. In short, the movement for a new control is a phase of "business as usual," although we are engaged in unusual war business." This paragraph is one which particularly irks senators who have investigated the Army's new booklet. For on Capitol Hill the sponsors of the Tolan-Pepper bill are accused of being the chief enemies of "business as usual," have pro- posed going much further than the Army in re- shaping industry to war needs. ANOTHER PARAGRAPH which interests in- quisitive senators reads: "There is a morale factor in continuing pro- duction under the armed forces. The Army and Navy 'E' symbolizes the direct relationship be- tween every working man and the fighting forces. No civilian procurement officials could obtain the same measure of support" . Congressional probers point out 'that unfor- tunately the Army-Navy 'E' has now lost some of its distinction since awarded to several com- panies later indicted by the Justice Department for war frauds. (Continued from Page 3) SAMIUEE GRAFTON'S I'd Rathaer Be Right NEW YORK-The State Depart- n ment is in a curious dilemma, from f which no man can rescue it. It has just published a White Book, t to prove that it made every possible v concession to the aggressors for ten' years to preserve the peace.c With an air of pride that isa strange, under the circumstances,t the Department tells in detail how t it sold oil to Japan to save the peace, proposed arrangements to1 Hitler, wrote letters to Mussolini.I (And opened and closed the Burma i Road like an accordion, and' sold steel to Ii Duce in 1940; you know1 the details.) y It would have been a wonderful book, if the peace had been saved byS all of this. Unfortunately, the last chapter says: Somehow it didn't work. So'the book becomes a kind of let- i ter to the isolationists, saying, well, we failed, but look here, we did every-t thing you could have wanted us to1 do. The Department did, in fact, almost everything it could have done had it been staffed from cellar to roofJ by isolationists. A KIND OF CONFESSION THE BOOK, therefore, crushes. the isolationists. It says to them, inI effect: We followed your policy; your desire to conciliate was no greater than our desire to conciliate; and it was all no good. That excuses the State Department so far as isolationists are concerned. Perhaps, politically, right now, that is a good and important thing to do; I think it is. But what does the White House do as regards the more important quarrel between the State Depart- ment and those of us who were not isolationists, those of us who thought we should not sell steel and oil to Japan, those who thought it was impossible to make deals with aggression, those who warned solemnly that conciliation would not work? It won't work, we said, if von want our exact words. main job was to find an answer to Hitler, an answer to the Axis. To "answer the isolationists," that is, to make the great political point which the White Book makes, it was necessary to adopt isolationist and conciliatory policies toward the Axis,t and to have them ' fail. That is a high price to pay to prove that some- body was wrong. That is why the State Department's pride in its new publication is so hard to understand, for failure sighs in every paragraph of it. In order to prove so devastatingly that isolation was wrong, the State Department had to do what was wrong. The White Book says the Department did what was wrong. The Department has dealt a blow to the forces behind a policy of conciliation in this coun- try, only at the heavy cost of proving ' it had adopted that policy. And so the Department is inextricably en- tangled with the very forces it be- lieves it is answering. PROUD RECORD OF ERROR MR. HULL'S sincere desire for peace breathes through every bit of the White Book. War guilt is clearly laid upon the Axis. We had no desire for war, or for aggrandize- ment at the expense of other coun- tries. All this is unquestionable, and the very fact that so great an ulti- mate failure could have been scored by a man of Mr. Hull's moral stature tells us, again, how important it is, in our time, to make the correct po- litical decisions. Clarity, not honesty, is the issue. Our morality had a# choice be- tween trying to buy the peace, or to stop the Axis. It chose, un- clearly, to buy. So the amazing final statement that comes out of the White Book is that we would have been willing to do next to nothing about the existence and even the depredations of the Axis, if it had let us alone. What more could any isolationist say? That the world did not allow that policy to succeed, is just another in- Karg-Elert, Franck, Copland and Wi- dor. The. public is cordially invited. Exhibitions Exhibition, College of Architecture and Design: The American Acadeiny n Rome Prize Competition drawings n Architecture for the problem -"A Supply and Maintenance Depot for he U.S. Army Air Corps" ai'e being shown in the third floor exhibition room, Architecture Building. Open daily through January 7; 9 to 5; ex- cept Sunday. The public is invited. Exhibition, University Museums: "Animals on our Fighting Fronts-i. Birds". Sixty-five birds collected from various countries which are now con- sidered as war zones, such as N6* Guinea, Solomon Islands, Africa, England, etc. This particular series wvill be exhibited until January Ai . First floor rotunda, University Mu- seums. Open daily 8-5; Sunday 2 to 5. The public is invited. Events Today Varsity Glee Club will meet tonight at 7:30 concerning the spring term. Get in touch with Repola, Saulson, or Professor Mattern if you cannot at- tend. Music will again be issued; bring deposit. Clubt picture will be taken on Sunday at3:00' p.m. F'dl dress, blue ribbons. House Presidents Meeting at v:O09 p.m. today in the grand Rapids Room of the League. Attendance'compil- sory. If you cannot come, send a re- liable representative. La Sociedad Hispanica will meet in the League tonight at 8:66. The movie "Buenos Dias, Carmelita" will be shown. No admission charge. MeMl- bers, patrons and others 'interested are invited. Freshman Discussion Group: The second of a series 'of lectures 'for freshmen will take place at ane Hall tonight at 8:00 when the Revered Mr. Pickerill ,will speak on "In4- vidualism and Campus Life". Ann MacMillan, '44, will discuss the 'bear- ing that sorority life has on the prob- lem. All freshmen are invited. Seminar: The Just and Durable Peace Seminar will meet tonight at 8:00 at Lane Hall, rather than last night as previously announced. Michigan Dames.Child Study g o1lp will meet tonight at 8:00 at the home of Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Maxwell; 920