The Nome Nugget

THAT'S THAT

By BRUCE GUSTIN

Because of a provision in the new law permitting unions to be sued for damages for breach of contract, the CIO steelworkers have decided not to sign contracts which include a no-strike clause. AFL unions have been advised to follow the same policy. That is a mistake. One of the strong arguments for an employer to contract with a union is that it will give him assurance there will be no strike interruption of operations during the life of the agreement.

The plea that unions cannot prevent unauthorized or "wildcat" strikes is not at all convincing. Of course President Green of the AFL and President Murray of the CIO and other top labor leaders turned down suggestions for a general strike in protest against enactment of the Taft-Hartley bill. As loyal Americans, they could not take any other course.

For organized labor to call a general strike, as some hot-heads suggested, until the new law is repealed, would have been outright rebellion against the government. And it would have become union suicide. Men like Green and Murray have not worked their way to the top of the union movement in this country to engineer its destruction.

Senator Taft's blast at universal military training did him no credit. It is his privilege, of course, to oppose this proposal. But his argument that it calls for "the same military setup which we went to war to abolish in Germany and Japan" is asinine. The American people have been fed a lot of nonsensical propaganda. But they understand they went to war because the Japs attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and Germany then declared war on us.

Henry Wallace flops around like a chicken whose head has been cut off. He's for one thing today, and something else tomorrow. He has been advocating appeasement to Russia in Europe. Now, he is warning that Russian domination of Europe would be a "disaster." He has been fighting the Truman doctrine which calls for stopping Russian aggression in Europe. And now, in effect, he is saying that Russian aggression in Europe must be halted. One can't help wondering if he really knows what he does want.

When President Truman vetoed the 4-billion-dollar tax reduction bill he said the measure represented "the wrong kind of tax reduction at the wrong time." That the proposed tax-cutting bill would encounter a Presidential veto was taken for granted. Even if the change in time met one of Truman's objections, he is still committed to the theory that the measure calls for "the wrong kind of tax reduction." But the idea of making the tax reduction effective six months later than originally proposed appealed to many Democrats.

The President's complaint that the tax cut proposed was "the wrong kind" was based on the argument that it would give more relief to the people in the high income brackets than to low-income groups who need it most. While the cuts ranged from 30 per cent for the low-income brackets to 10.5 per cent on the largest incomes, the savings in dollars naturally would be largest for those in the upper brackets. They pay the most taxes. When taxes were increased, they were hit hardest. In any reduction on a percentage basis, high income groups are bound to get the most relief.

Even if President Truman were correct in his stand that Congress was proposing the "wrong kind" of tax relief, what did he offer in the way of tax reduction? Absolutely nothing. "The time for tax reduction," he said in his veto message, "will come when general inflationary pressures have ceased and the structure of prices is on a more stable basis than now prevails." Which reminds one of that "prosperity - is - just- around-the-corner" talk heard during the depression.

There should be no argument about whether we should reduce taxes or the national debt. Both can be cut. Republican administrations, after World War I, slashed both taxes and debt. Fred Rogers Fairchild, professor emeritus of economics of Yale, recently declared in the Tax foundation's Tax Review that "in the third year after the end of the war, a tax load is proposed which is seven times the amount collected in 1940." He warned that taxation at this level "discourages thrift and saving, dries up investment and weakens the motives that lead men into business ventures." Of course he is right. The need for tax relief is critical.