Speak Softly . . .

With both hands firmly clenched around a newly fashioned club, President Truman assured the jittery steel industry last week that there was no need to duck--yet. He "did not consider it appropriate" to invoke the drastic powers to control steel which the Republican Congress had unwittingly given him in a sleeper amendment to the draft act (TIME, July 5). Instead, the President asked the Department of Commerce to work out a voluntary allocation program to take care of military needs for steel.

His reasons were plain. The defense program needed only about 2% of anticipated steel production this fiscal year, and will need less than 3% in the following. For the sake of efficiency, the President assigned the job of filling such relatively small needs to the Department of Commerce, which is already supervising a number of voluntary programs, instead of to the Secretary of Defense, as he could have done under the new law. But he warned: "I have given serious consideration to the problems posed by this legislation. I am, of course, prepared to exercise this authority should it prove necessary."

The steel industry loosed a pent-up sigh. "I guess we're all relieved," said a U.S. Steel executive, "that the President took the easy way out. If he put controls on now, it would be as hard for the Government to administer as it would be for us to carry out. I think he got pretty good advice, for once."

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