Trainman News

Truman Asks
Closer Labor,
Farm Co-op Ties

O'Mahoney Asserts
That Soviet Secret
Weapon' Is US Slump

WASHINGTON - If the atom bomb is our secret weapon, then the hope for a U. S. depression is the Russian secret weapon.

That's the opinion of Sen. Joseph C. O'Mahoney (D-Wyo) who spoke before the National Economic Action Conference called this week by the Cooperative League of the U.S.A.

'Common Stake'--Truman

More than 200 labor, farm and cooperative representatives heard a message from President Truman saying that closer cooperation is needed between farm, labor and cooperative groups which "have a common stake in the economic progress of the nation."

Mr. Truman said that members of each of the national economic groups are beginning to realize this need, but "much work remains to be done before the interdependence of interests is completely appreciated."

The necessity for a free economy in the U. S. was stressed by Senator O'Mahoney as "the essential key to the struggle for maintenance of a free world."

"Out of all business enterprises in the U. S., eight-tenths of one per cent employ more than 52 per cent of all the workers," he said.

He pointed out that these employers are engaged in interstate commerce, the regulation of which was committed to Congress by the Constitution, and said this is why the federal government has expanded.

Don't Weaken Government

"We should try to solve our problem according to the American ideal," he said, "not by weakening the federal government and thus destroying its power to serve the people or by attempting to destroy Big Business."

Monopoly is not only a threat to our economic life but also is a threat to our political and personal freedom, said Sen. George D. Aiken (R-Vt) in a later address.

He said that monopoly is growing despite the anti-trust laws and other formal means of combating it.

"The best defense which the farmer and the little fellow have against monopoly," he said, "is the cooperative. The cooperative plan, with its dispersal of ownership and control, is the truest form of free enterprise."

Rep. Wright Patman (D-Tex) urged extension of the REA type of economic organization to telephone, housing, steel production, medical care and other economic fields.