National Affairs: All Eyes on Steel

As the spokesmen for Big Steel and the United Steelworkers of America settled down to grim negotiations on a new contract in Manhattan last week (see BUSINESS), the President of the U.S. announced that he was looking on—and invited his 175 million fellow citizens to look with him. Dwight Eisenhower plainly wanted no settlement that would result in higher steel prices and another wave of inflation. And in saying so he came closer than ever before to transgressing his own stern rule against mixing in the private affairs of business and labor.

"I say this, and I say it and emphasize it," said he at his press conference. "Here is something in which not only Government but public, the whole public, 175 million people are involved, and their interests are going to be preserved or damaged or possibly even advanced by decisions reached by the employees and employers in this field. It is a basic industry, and whatever is done affects all the rest of industry, and I can only say this: that we must look to them for some good sense and some wisdom—I mean real business-labor statesmanship—or in the long run the U.S. cannot stand still and do nothing . . .

"I deplore the possibility of putting the Government into this field, either as a party in negotiations and certainly in establishing laws to fix the levels of profits and of wages and prices [but] I would again insist that the whole 175 million of us ought to make clear that we are concerned about this matter, and this is not something where we are standing aside and seeing ourselves hurt."

The rambling, off-the-cuff Eisenhower ambiguity left unclear just what Ike would do if a demand for higher steel wages resulted in higher steel prices—or, for that matter, in a prolonged strike. But seldom had the ambiguity served to better advantage: for without the thunder of a threat or the balm of a promise, the Manhattan negotiators began to feel the gaze of 175 million pairs of eyes.