Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 10, Number 30, DeMotte, Jasper County, 13 June 1940 — GENERAL JOHNSON Scys: [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GENERAL JOHNSON Scy s:

Washington, D. C. GESTURE WITH GOOD SELECTIONS The Knudsen-Stettinius-etcetera board is not a council of national defense. It is an advisory commission to the statutory council which is composed of Secretaries Woodring, Edison, Ickes, Wallace, kins, and Perkins. Only these New Dealers have authority. They, added to the New Dealers on the commission—Leon Henderson, Sidney Hillman, Chester Davis, William Mcßeynolds and perhaps Harriet Elliott—make a total of 10 or 11 New Dealers. There are only three non-New Dealers, Knudsen, Stettinius and Budd, and only the New Dealers have any power. Yet the setup is being widely represented as “nonpolitical” several commentators insisting that Knudsen was “nominated” by Republicans. I don’t know about that but I do know that this column—which is not Republican—began before anybody plugging to have him brought in months ago, and has frequently urged it since. I fear the thing is just a gesture which won’t work and perhaps wasn’t intended to work. It starts just where w r e started in 1916 before we knew how and began two years blundering before we learned how. It includes not one single veteran of that effort. It studiously avoids every lesson of the past and stupidly repeats every blunder. Yet it must in fairness be said that the selections are excellent. If World war experience is any in-

dication and these men should be given any authority, the metal people may howl at having their industries headed by the head of U. S. Steel and the other automobile companies may not care to be rounded up by the head of General Motors. The New Dealers who like to scream: “Wall Street! Du Pont! Morgan!’’ at every patriotic effort by a business man, will find material for all three cries of anguish. In view of the splendid personalities here none of these objections is valid. Subject to these qualifications these selections are so good that it will be a pleasure to find at least something to support in the defense effort which has been so fumbling and inefficient to date. Sometimes men can be so good that they can make even a bad plan and organization work. A war psychology is growing in which much * can be done by the three industrialists by mere suggestions and agreements among business men. Stettinius, Knudsen and Budd can do that as well as any three Americans alive—if Thurman Arnold will let them do it. This is a point of real importance. Since the Supreme court decision in the hot-oil case it is dangerous to do anything by agreements in industry at the suggestion of the government. We need a statute validating such agreementsjor national defense when made at the demand of the President. Because of the rift in the ranks of labor, there was no other possible choice but Sidney Hillman. He is brilliant, patriotic, co-operative and has the confidence of labor and of every industry with which he has dealt. I brought Leon Henderson into this government from obscurity to an important post. I believe that he is too biased and pinkly partisan for his job in SEC and with the monopoly committee, but he will be, I think, ideal for this job. Of course, Henry Wallace isn’t going to let Chester Davis do anything in agriculture, any more than Muddom Sec will permit Sidney Hillman any initiative in labor, but Mr. Davis is, by all odds, the very best selection that could have been made. I don’t know the lady who is going to protect the consumers. It is a tough and almost impossible job. I do know all the rest of these selections, most of them intimately and well. From my experience from working with them under high pressure they are the cream of the current crop. Whether we think this curious and illogical organizational contraption, which failed so dangerously in 1917, will work or not, it is at least a faltering step in the right direction. Everybody will wish it well.

Biggest Hat in the Ring Carmack in Christian Science Monitor.