THE PRESIDENCY: Spectacular Ruins

The day after Thanksgiving, a relaxed John L. Lewis trundled aboard an ocean liner and headed for South America. This was a clear indication that Lewis was certain of something that most other people could only suspect: that Harry Truman had already agreed to overrule his mobilizer, his stabilizer and his Wage Stabilization Board and to grant Lewis’ United Mine Workers a $1.90-a-day pay raise.

Lewis and the coal-mine operators had agreed on the increase last September, but the Government’s stabilizers chopped it down to $1.50 a day as an anti-inflation measure. The miners struck. With the election coming on, Harry Truman called John Lewis to the White House and promised that the case would be “reviewed.” The miners went back to work, and John Lewis went back to supporting the Democratic ticket. From that day on, the only real question was what Harry Truman would say when he paid his political debt.

Just for Ike. Last week Truman announced his decision with an explanation that out-Trumaned Truman. If he didn’t grant the $1.90, he said, there would probably be a coal strike for Dwight Eisenhower to deal with right after the inauguration. Said Truman: “I am not willing to take an action that will create such a crisis for my successor.”

Along the way, he made another startling statement. He said he had “a firm intention to continue a strong stabilization program and turn it over to the new Administration as a functioning, effective entity.” All he really had left to turn over was a spectacular set of ruins.

The Truman stabilization program from its inception was never actually an “effective entity.” Direct controls were never able to counterbalance the Administration’s own inflationary policies, and the controls themselves were weakened by political compromise. The Administration and Congress refused to establish effective control of farm prices. Progressive holes were punched in credit controls. There was never effective control of wages, a situation sharply illustrated when the Administration leaped through hoops to give the steelworkers exactly what they wanted last spring. Another illustration: the new increase to the 375,000 soft-coal miners, making their base pay $18.25 a day, gives them increases totaling $3.50 a day in less than two years under “stabilization.”

“Sham & Mockery.” After Truman made his coal announcement, his WSB chairman resigned, the fourth man to leave that post within two years. Then five board members and two alternates, all industry representatives, quit.

In their resignation statement, the seven WSB men—all Truman appointees—said that “the wage stabilization program is now nothing but a sham and a mockery.” They went on: “The consumers of this nation . . . will be called upon to pay for this special privilege to the coal miners . . . This action will result in wage increases so widespread and so large that millions of dollars will be dumped into the consumers’ purchasing pool with resultant upward pressure upon all prices … It is impossible to turn over an ‘effective’ program after it has been emasculated . . . What is being turned over to the new Administration is nothing but a ghost of what might have been . . . We cannot escape the conclusion that political expediency was a factor in this action.”