Code for Mellons

No ordinary hearing was that on the aluminum code in Washington last week. The code was to include a basic industry which consists of a single corporation. There are manufacturers of aluminum pots, pans, propellers, but only one U. S. producer of virgin aluminum--Aluminum Company of America, dominated by Andrew William Mellon & Family. The hearing soon settled down to a clean-cut fight between the independent fabricators, who must not only buy from Alcoa all their aluminum (except scrap) but also market their wares in competition with Alcoa, which is by far the biggest fabricator. The independents objected to three things in the code which the Association of Manufacturers in the Aluminum Industry had submitted:

1) That the code was to be administered by the Association, at whose council tables Alcoa's voice is loudest, instead of by a government administrator.

2) That the code's clause banning sales below cost contained no provision that Alcoa must figure its costs of fabricated wares on the price it charges for raw aluminum. If Alcoa based the price of its fabricated products on the price it charges itself for raw aluminum, the independents claimed that Alcoa could undersell them at all times.

3) That there was only one code. The independents wanted one for themselves, another for Alcoa.

Alcoa went on record at the hearing as the first industry to ask for minimum wages lower than the existing scale--25-c- an hour for a 40-hour week against 30-c-. Pressed for details on former wages, Vice President Winthrop Neilson stated that Alcoa was paying as low as 20-c- an hour or $8 a week until it voluntarily jumped to 22-c- "in an attempt to cooperate in re-employment." When Alcoa signed NRA's blanket code, wages were boosted to 30-c- an hour. "We accepted 30-c- an hour for what we hoped would be a very brief period in order to get the Blue Eagle," explained Mr. Neilson. Asked about Alcoa-owned Bauxite, Ark., Mr. Neilson described it as a "model mining town" with "excellent sanitary conditions," but admitted that the houses had no plumbing.

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