National Affairs: Shattered Peace

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Except for growling by Arizona's labor-baiting Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, an almost millennial peace marked the early days of the Kennedy-Ives labor-reform bill. After the Senate Labor Committee voted it out a fortnight ago by a bipartisan margin of 12 to Goldwater, nobody in Washington took up Goldwater's cry that the bill was "milk toast." Labor chieftains kept a discreet silence—understandably, since Massachusetts' John Fitzgerald Kennedy had consulted A.F.L.-C.I.O. brass while he was drafting the bill.

Designed to dent the labor-union corruption and thug rule exposed by Arkansas' John McClellan's labor-management racketeering committee, the Kennedy-Ives bill required unions to 1) hold periodic secret-ballot elections, and 2 ) submit to the Labor Department full reports on their financial and other dealings. Tough-minded John McClellan himself endorsed the bill as a ''first step" that would "give important protection to the rights of workers, of management and the public."

"Illusory Protection." Suddenly last week the peace was rudely shattered by a missile from Geneva. Switzerland, where Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell was attending an International Labor Organization conference. Declared Mitchell: The Kennedy-Ives bill is so full of omissions and loopholes that it would be "completely ineffective legislation." providing "only illusory protection."

Fighting back, Kennedy called a joint press conference with New York's Republican Senator Irving Ives, labeled Mitchell's outburst "completely inaccurate and irresponsible." With war declared, other Republicans charged in. armed to the teeth with amendments. On the Senate floor, a bill that had seemed to be headed for a quiet passage ran into the noisiest partisan brawl of the session.

"Let's Fight." Back in Washington, Secretary Mitchell insisted that his longdistance blast had nothing to do with politics. "I am interested." he said, "in getting out a bill which will be effective for the working people of this country. I am not interested in a campaign issue for Republicans." But by a remarkably providential coincidence. Mitchell's surprise attack fitted in perfectly with a decision reached at the White House earlier in the week at the urging of Goldwater. California's Bill Knowland. New Hampshire's Styles Bridges and other right-wing Republicans. With the McClellan committee's sordid revelations still vivid in the public mind, argued Goldwater & Co., it was good election-year politics to assault the Kennedy-Ives bill and try to pin a soft-on-labor rap on the Democrats. Decided Dwight Eisenhower: "Let's fight." Said Goldwater: "It's the only political issue we have."

Whatever the political value of the Republican offensive, it at least resulted in a stronger bill. With help from liberal Republicans, the united Democrats easily fought off most of the Republican amendments, but Kennedy accepted without a struggle important changes that: ¶Empowered the Secretary of Labor to subpoena union officials and records during investigations.