The Wilmington Morning Star

A Difficult Task

In setting out to devise a means of ridding defense industries of employees who engage in subversive activities the department of justice has begun a difficult and delicate task. Yet it is one that must be attempted and carried to success if the defense program is not to be throttled.

Probably it would be easy to overemphasize the influence of the Communists in the strikes that have beset defense plants, for it is reasonable to believe that some of these disputes can be attributed to causes that have operated similarly in like situations in the past.

We are in a period of increasing employment. Prices are rising. New Yorkers are being placed on factory floors, and many of them are impressionable and likely to listen to agitators.

But there is no doubt whatever that the Communists have infiltrated into the ranks of labor and that they wield a power entirely disproportionate to their numbers. C. I. O. leaders have declared that Communists were behind the recent strike at the Inglewood North American Aviation plant, and it is a fair conclusion that they have been active in other strikes in strategic industries.

Certainly many of the work stoppages have resulted not from differences over hours and wages and working conditions, or even jurisdictional disputes, but from mass hysteria created by those who want strikes for the sake of disrupting the defense program. Certainly, also, those who foment such strikes must be weeded out.

The question is how to do it without injustice to those with reasonable grievances and reasonable demands, or even the misguided who believe they have a legitimate cause. Evidently the problem must be approached with caution. No one wants the many to suffer for the misdeeds of a few. But it is essential that the few be so situated that they cannot bring suffering to the many.