Seizure

"The mystery of where Truman has been heading," noted one political commentator* recently, "can be answered simply. All his skills and energies--and he has been among our hardest-working Presidents--have been directed to standing still ... to work himself back close to the center spot of indecision from which he started." In his abrupt seizure of the nation's $10 billion steel industry last week, Harry Truman decisively brought to an end the immediate threat of a critical strike. But his action left the dispute over steel itself, and the future of the whole wage-price stabilization program, right where it started: tangled, confused--and more embittered than ever.

The midnight strike deadline was only 90 minutes away when the face of the President appeared on the nation's television screens. The voice of Harry Truman came through the loudspeakers: "I have to think about our soldiers in Korea . . . the weapons and ammunition they need . . . our soldiers and our allies in Europe . . . our atomic energy program . . . our domestic economy." Said the President: "We are faced by the possibility that at midnight tonight the steel industry will be shut down. This must not happen."

Compounded Errors. If Harry Truman had acted on that sound premise to force a settlement in steel, no one could have questioned his course. After five months of negotiations, hearings and mediation, the steel dispute had come to a dead stop. It was a deadlock compounded of errors and intransigence on all sides: steel's long refusal to make any wage offer at all without the guarantee of a price increase; the C.I.O. steelworkers' insistence on the full recommendation of the Wage Stabilization Board (a wage package of 26.1-c- an hour plus the union shop); the Government's overoptimism about a settlement.

But Harry Truman did not see that the blame for the deadlock rested on all three parties. The man who two years ago thought he had no authority to seize the coal mines now claimed the power to take over the steel mills "by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States." Then, in a flood of intemperate language unmatched since his rawhiding of the striking railroad workers in 1946,* the President launched into an angry dressing-down of the whole steel industry.

Letting 'Em Have It. As the President told the story, the recommendation of the Wage Stabilization Board was entirely "fair and reasonable." The steelworkers had accepted the WSB proposal. The companies had not. Why? Because they want "to force the Government to give them a big boost in prices."

Truman went on to examine the "facts" of the industry's profits (see BUSINESS). They were high enough, he insisted, to absorb the full cost of the union's demands. He did not mention other facts: that the profit figures he used were profits before taxes; that the union shop was one of the major stumbling blocks in the whole dispute. Instead, in his best (or worst) fighting style, he let the companies have it:

"The steel industry has never been so profitable as it is today--at least not since the 'profiteering' days' of World War I. And yet ... the steel companies . . . now want to double their money . . . The steel industry wants something special, something nobody else can get ... and they are apparently willing to stop steel production to get it."

By the time the President had finished talking, Commerce Secretary Charles Sawyer had reluctantly taken over the job of running the mills. Out went telegrams to 71 steel companies. Up went the symbols of federal possession: the U.S. flag, seizure orders on company bulletin boards. In the crowded taverns and along the main streets of grimy steel towns like Homestead, Pa., steelworkers celebrated the outcome, ready to stream back to work. About 800,000 tons of steel had been lost by banking the furnaces in anticipation of a strike. But after a few angry murmurs from steelmen, the mills headed back to full operation.

"Hello, Boss." Next morning in a Washington courtroom, the companies made their first legal move to regain possession of their properties. Their request for a temporary order to restrain the President from seizing the mills was promptly rejected by District Judge Alexander Holtzoff. He was not sure whether or not his court could issue an injunction against the President of the U.S. A glum collection of steelmen stalked into Secretary Sawyer's office. Cracked U.S. Steel's Ben Fairless, with a sour grin: "Hello Boss."

Still smarting that night, Inland Steel's President Clarence B. Randall spoke for the seized companies over another radio and TV hookup. He hit back as hard as he had been hit. He disputed Truman's "shocking distortion of facts" up & down the line. Cried Randall: Truman has "transgressed his oath of office ... abused the power which is temporarily his ... seized the private property of one million people without the slightest shadow of legal right . . . This evil deed, without precedent in American history, discharges a political debt to the C.I.O. . . Phil Murray now gives Harry Truman a receipt marked 'paid in full.' "

By the next morning, even Harry Truman seemed to feel he might have gone too far. In an explanatory message to Congress he hinted that, while he had all the authority he needed to seize the steel industry, he would be only too happy if Congress wanted to pass some laws confirming his action.

This week steel and union negotiators met in the office of Acting Defense Mobilizer John Steelman to try once more to work out a settlement. The odds, of course, were now heavily weighted in favor of the steelworkers. If management refused to accept the workers' demands, the Government-operated plants could always agree to accept wage increases proposed by the Government.

*Samuel Lubell, in The Future of American Politics, published last week. *The man mainly responsible for blocking the President's scheme to draft the strikers into the armed forces: Ohio's Senator Robert A. Taft.

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