Guests Continued

Elizabeth Rowe, executive secretary, International Labor Office, Washington Branch.

Ross S. Shearer, Budget Examiner, Bureau of the Budget, Executive Office of the President.

Hilda W. Smith, Committee for the Extension of Labor Education.

Joseph M. Tone, legislative representative, International Association of Machinists.

Bernard Wiesman, director of international labor, social, and health affairs, Department of State.

Mr. SCHWABE. We thank you, Mr. Fernbach.

Mr. FERNBACH. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SCHWABE. The committee will recess, but the hearings will probably be continued at the call of the chairman, perhaps after another week or 10 days.

(Whereupon, at 15:50 p. m., the committee adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.)

LABOR EDUCATION EXTENSION SERVICE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 1948

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE No. 1,

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Wednesday, May 19, 1948.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., Hon. Edward O. McCowen (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. McCOWEN. The committee will be in order.

For the purpose of the record will you state your name and your connection and address?

TESTIMONY OF ADAM K. STRICKER, JR., OF GENERAL MOTORS CORP., DETROIT, MICH.

Mr. STRICKER. My name is Adam K. Stricker. I am connected with the General Motors Corp. in Detroit. I live at 1227 Bishop Road, Grosse Pointe, Mich. I am employed by the General Motors Corp. central office at Detroit, Mich., in the industrial economics section of the personnel staff.

I have requested this opportunity to appear before your committee to relate a personal experience which I believe is relevant to your consideration of H. R. 6202.

The testimony of preceding witnesses refers to the University of Michigan program for workers' education. Witness after witness before your committee has advanced the Michigan program as a prototype for the kind of educational service to be set up under the proposed bill. I have had some experience with the program which the Detroit representatives of this workers' educational service have provided under the auspices of the University of Michigan. I have come here to tell you about that experience.

In the course of our ordinary business we receive circulars on the various seminars, special classes, and conferences on economic subjects held in our area. Late in March I learned that the workers' educational service, University of Michigan Extension, was offering a public course in industrial economics.

Mr. SCHWABE. Mr. Stricker, was that in March of this year, 1948? Mr. STRICKER. That was about the 28th or 29th of March 1948 and the course started the 1st of April 1948.

Since we have a problem of presenting complex economic data to the public and to our own employees, I believed it would be interesting to learn more about how such a subject as economics could be effectively presented to workers. Therefore, I decided to enroll in the course. I paid the registration fee to the University of Michigan

for this particular course in industrial economics and was duly enrolled at the Rackham Memorial Building in Detroit. The first session of the course was held on Thursday, April 1, 1948.

My impression was that the course would be taught by an accredited university professor or instructor to industrial workers. I was accordingly surprised when I entered the classroom to see the instructor go to the blackboard, place his name on the board and write underneath it "UAW-CIO." The instructor was Mr. Sam Jacobs, a member of the educational department of the United Automobile Workers. He stated in his preliminary remarks that he had formerly been with the OPA in Washington and now was an assistant to Victor Reuther, educational director, UAW-CIO.

Mr. Jacobs, in outlining the purpose of the course, pointed out that economics was being taught in business schools for business groups and he thought it only proper that economics should be presented also from the standpoint of workers. The instructor in his introductory remarks gave us to believe that there were different brands of economics-one brand for one class of people and other brands for other classes of people.

My university training in economics, in addition to 20 years' practical experience, has confirmed my belief in the philosophy that has made America the great Nation that it is the philosophy that there is only one kind of economics-that which studies the ways by which the greatest wealth can be produced for all the people. I was surprised to find a classroom where the Marxist idea of class economics was being presented with the support of public funds.

Mr. Jacobs then outlined the subjects of the course which included (1) a review of the national budget, (2) wages, (3) prices, and (4) taxes. Mr. Jacobs indicated that other subjects of which he did not specifiy the content would be added at a later date in the progress of the course.

Most of the statistics used in presenting the subject of the national budget were partial quotes from the President's Economic Report. Mr. Jacobs presented the argument that the country always has inflation even during periods of business depression. He did not support this claim, however, with factual data. He discussed employment and said there were 6112 million people in the labor force in the United States during the last year with only 58,000,000 employed. This left a float of 312 million people in the United States unemployed. Mr. Jacobs said that this was too much as the float should be reduced to 112 million so there would not be excessive competition for jobs.

It is a fact known to everyone that our present condition is one of practically full employment. It is significant that Mr. Jacobs did not quote that part of the Economic Report of the President which states "unemployment was even lower than in 1946 and reached what was probably the practical minimum.”

Further data with respect to the apparent bias of the instructor became evident in his discussion of various other phases of President Truman's economic report to the Congress. He criticized the President in his report for what he claimed was the misstatement of corporate profits. The instructor said that many businesses were not corporations and their earnings were not included in the corporation account. He cited two instances to illustrate the point, namely the Ford Motor Co. and the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., which he said

were owned by individuals and the profits accordingly not included in the President's report of corporate profits.

I pointed out to Mr. Jacobs that the Ford Motor Co. was a corporation and paid a corporate tax of 38 percent on its profits. Inasmuch as the figures in the President's report were compiled from data collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Ford profits were, of course, included in the figures presented by the President. Mr. Jacobs appeared confused and asked how this could be true as Ford stock was not publicly listed. After considerable discussion he finally conceded that he could be misinformed on this point, as he was not a professional economist.

Such misstatements, made to factory workers who have no training or experience to protect them, obviously can lead to radical misunderstandings on their part and contribute to greater labor trouble rather than assist in creating an atmosphere of labor peace.

During the two sessions of the course which I attended, Mr. Jacobs personally distributed union pamphlets at each session. During the first session he distributed a UAW-CIO pamphlet entitled, "The Economics of Inflation," which served as a text for his remarks. The other booklet that was passed out by the instructor was entitled "Prices."

The attention of the committee is respectfully directed to the pamphlet Prices, pages 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 38, 39, and the pamphlet, The Economics of Inflation, pages 22, 23, 32, 33, and 43. These pamphlets contain lampoons, derogatory cartoons, and inflammatory attacks on such men as Senator Taft, Senator Wherry, Senator Eastland, Senator Moore, Senator McClellan, as well as Congressman Wolcott, Congressman Crawford, former Congresswoman Sumner, Congressman Flannagan, Congressman Taber, Congressman Gossett, Congressman Rankin, and private citizens such as Mr. Irving Olds, chairman of United States Steel, and Mr. C. E. Wilson, president of General Motors.

The pamphlet on prices, including unfriendly cartoons of Senator Taft, Senator Wherry, and Congressman Taber, is a publication of the CIO Political Action Committee. The booklet instructs the reader "to fight against Congressmen who fought against us" and asks for a campaign contribution for the PAC.

There is not only the question of vilification of public officials and private citizens by instructors admittedly not professionally qualified to teach the subject advertised in the curricula. There is also a proven perversion of an historical quotation. May I call your attention to the alleged quotation from Abraham Lincoln on the back page of the pamphlet entitled, "The Economics of Inflation." Dr. Mearns, Director of the Reference Department at the Library of Congress, has searched exhaustively through the Lincoln literature and can find no such statement. In one of the historic debates with Douglas at Alton, Lincoln used language which resembled this alleged quotation. The actual wording was quite different and Lincoln was referring to the question of slavery and not to the relationship of capital and labor. Mr. GWINN. You are referring to these words on the back of the pamphlet, the Economics of Inflation, which are:

There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it.

A. LINCOLN.