Catalytic Agent

Swinging from talk into action about strikes, the President appointed a fact-finding board for the steel dispute, key to all of them. Its members: Law-Professor Nathan P. Feinsinger, University of Wisconsin; Roger I. McDonough, Associate Justice of the Utah Supreme Court; Chief Justice James M. Douglas of the Missouri Supreme Court.

Since the steelworkers' union has no pet theories on ability to pay (see below), and since a steel strike would be ruinous and hence is almost inconceivable in the 1946 U.S. economy, there was a good chance that the fact-finding board could bring about a settlement simply as a catalytic agent. At week's end the board asked the companies and the union to reopen negotiations; it would probably soon look into the matter of steel prices.

If OPA will raise steel prices a little, if the union will take a little less than it wants, if the company will give a little more than it wants, Harry Truman may get results--without ever getting "the facts."

Last week the President also: P: Signed a bill giving Veterans' Administrator Omar N. Bradley a free hand, unfettered by civil service, in choosing personnel for a new department of medicine and surgery.

P: Accepted "with utmost reluctance," the resignation of Vice Admiral Emory S. Land, crack boss of the U.S. Merchant Marine for eight years.

P: Dismantled the War' Labor Board, in its place established a six-man National Wage Stabilization Board inside the Labor Department.

P: Took Missouri's No. 1 license tag for 1946 away from Governor Phil Donnelly.

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