The Decision

Soon after the trains stopped running last week, President Truman went to a White House garden party, sipped some lemonade and calmly ate a dish of ice cream. It was a party for disabled war veterans, arranged several weeks before. Harry Truman shook hands with some 900 wounded men, many of them in wheel chairs. One disabled man asked the President how the railroad strike was going. Said Harry Truman: it was still on.

He knew at that moment what he was going to do about the strike and about the threat of a resumed coal strike. For weeks he had done everything he had believed it was possible to do, short of getting sore, tough and militant. But he still kept mum.

Next day the prestige of the U.S. presidency was at its lowest point in recent history. The nation was gripped by paralysis. The people's cry to Washington to do something was an angry cry of incredulity at an impossible, intolerable situation. In the eyes of most U.S. citizens Harry Truman's Administration had bogged down in ludicrous futility. Pointing up the fact on countless front pages was that silly picture of the President eating ice cream.

High Pressure. That morning the President told his Cabinet members that his mind was made up; he told them his plan of action. He set the timing himself: he would make a nationwide broadcast to the people that night, personally take specific emergency anti-strike proposals to Congress the next day. The usually cool Missourian had his dander up. Late in the day he had a swim and his periodic physical checkup. Reported his physician: the President's blood pressure was "way up yonder."

Four hours before he was to broadcast, the President, sitting in the spacious White House study, began to put down in longhand what he wanted to say. He discussed it with his advisers, and Judge Samuel Rosenman, summoned from New York, put some razor-sharp edges in it.

Then Harry Truman went on the air.

The New Truman. With his very first words, the President's 25,217,500 listeners* heard a Truman they had never heard before. Said he: "The crisis of Pearl Harbor was the result of action by a foreign enemy. The crisis tonight is caused by a group of men within our own country."

The gloves were off, and the rough, clenched hands which had once guided a plow through the rich Missouri soil were there for all to see. Having compared the Trainmen's Alexander Whitney and the Engineers' Alvanley Johnston to enemy agents, the President went on to denounce them in the strongest language he could use over the radio. Time & again he referred to "these two men," "Mister Whitney and Mister Johnston,"--with mounting scorn.

He told what they had done. They were bringing industry to a standstill. Home-building was interrupted. Other men--good union men--were being thrown out of work. Stopped production was aiding inflation.

The President's voice, determined but quivering at first, grew more assured. "I shall always be a friend of labor," he said.

"But in any conflict that arises between one particular group, no matter who they may be, and the country as a whole, the welfare of the country comes first. It is inconceivable that in our democracy any two men should be placed in a position where they can completely stifle our economy and ultimately destroy our country. The Government is challenged as seldom before in our history. It must meet the challenge or confess its impotence. . . .

"This is no contest between labor and management. This is a contest between a small group of men and their Government."

And, as head of that Government, Harry Truman then firmly announced his intention to break the strike--with the Army and any other means at his command.

Next morning, Harry Truman's resolve was strengthened by about 2,000 telegram--30 to 1 in favor of his tough tactics. He called off any further conferences with Brothers Whitney and Johnston, did not even deign to read a letter from them which still sought extra concessions.

"Obstinate Arrogance." When he went before Congress, just 18 hours after his address to the nation, he got his biggest reception as President. The legislators--and the packed galleries--rose, cheered, clapped, whistled.

Above his dark blue summer suit and white shirt his face was grey. A grim, tight-set jaw had replaced the Truman grin. Once again, he excoriated the "obstinate arrogance" of "these two men." Once again, he named them. Once again, he avowed his friendship for labor. He did not want permanent, restrictive anti-labor legislation. But he asked for the power and means to stop any strike against the nation. The Congress, its blood pressure up too, cheered, and cheered again. (But not all joined in; among the silent: Democrats Pepper, Kilgore and J. Murray; House Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr.)

Halfway through the speech, the President got word that the rail strike had been settled--"on the terms proposed by the President.''*

*By Hooper estimate. The comparatively small number of listeners was due to the broadcast's last-minute announcement.

*The terms: a 2 1/2-c-an-hour increase (added to the 16-c- boost previously offered) in lieu of changes in working rules for one year (see Labor).

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