Crossroads For America (1947)

Dave Nelson was one of the millions of American workers who turned out the production that helped win the war. With the war over, Nelson expected a lot of things for himself and his family. Not some of the things that happened. In certain countries, people were saying fascism had taken over America. That this nation was built on social injustice. Class against class. Creed against creed. Race against race. Yes, these things happened. But Nelson knew they didn't represent American democracy. Not by a long shot. What this he did know. With the end of the war, labor management cooperation dissolved into a wave of strikes that swept America. The cost of living went up by leaps and bounds. Like millions of others, Dave Nelson was troubled. Hi, Shelly. Hi, Dave. Hey, how much are eggs? 35 to 85 cents a 85 cents? Better save your pennies, buddy. We're headed for a crash that's going to tear this country wide apart. Hot. Communist. That was something else Nelson couldn't dope out. If you didn't like someone, his politics, his race, the color of his skin, if he spoke out too loudly for the common good, you called him a communist. Name-calling that helped only to throw up a smoke screen behind which the real communists could operate in America. But, who is a communist? What is he after? What makes him tick? These are a communist bible, the writings of Karl Marx and Lenin. Doctrine upon which communist ideology is founded. The iron discipline, the tight knit organization of the American Communist Party stems from men like Ed Reem, Communist Party organizer. To the Communist mind, our economic system is as dead as yesterday's sunset. Here is the way the Communist looks at history. The worker against his enemy. Oppressor and oppressed. The communists have a timetable for the destruction of our democracy. The hour is long overdue. So, the American communist's job is to lend history a hand. Then a dictatorship with the state supreme. Followed in ages to come by a classless society where property rights belong only in a museum. 1917 to the communist, the birth of enlightened time. What had been to Lenin a dream suddenly seemed on its way to reality in a nation that covered 1/6 of the earth. The other imperialist nations were next in line. So, the communist has one loyalty, one drive, one obsession. But, let's get a better look at the American communist. Let's go down the years with the official organ of his party. Roosevelt and Mussolini are blood brothers. Roosevelt and his New Deal represent the Wall Street bankers, finance capital. 1934, the communist welcome fascism because fascism hastens the revolutionizing of the workers, destroys their democratic illusions, and thereby prepares the masses for the revolutionary struggle for power. But, Nazi Germany developed almost overnight into a first class military power. Now, the Communist sought a united front against the Nazi threat to Russia. With his quarantine speech against aggressor nations, Roosevelt, formerly the tool of Wall Street, now qualified for the Communist Hall of Fame. Heroes of American history were dug out of the mothballs. Communism is 20th century Americanism. The Communist kept storming for collective security against Nazi Germany. Then came the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact. It took the world by surprise, including the American Communist. With time, he recovered. Roosevelt became a warmonger. Drop the economic boycott against Germany. Keep America out of imperialist war. To block the Allied war effort, the Communist fomented strikes in America. Demonstration. On selective service, vote no. On national defense, vote no. Until that momentous day in June 1941. Cut short, the American Communist took another deep breath, did another right about face. The war was no longer imperialist, but anti-fascist. American labor was besieged to keep lend-lease rolling off the production line. Suddenly, the American Communist sang a strange tune. It is my considered judgment that the American people are so ill prepared subjectively for any deep-going change in the direction of socialism that post-war plans with such a name would not unite the nation, but would further to it. For this heresy, with the war about over, Earl Browder got the sack. Today, well, the party is back in its old corner, selling its old wares, the revolutionary class struggle. And so it was a case of against Roosevelt. For against selective service. For for fascism. Against for the class struggle. Against for vote no. Vote yes. Yes. No. No. Yes. For all these twists and turns, what was the solution? On a new job, the Communist is usually a hard worker. He catches on rapidly. He's quick to size up conditions within a plant. He works hard to gain the friendship of someone he can use, someone like Dave Nelson. It wasn't long before Nelson's admiration for Ed Reames made him a target for communist ideology. Oh, come on, Reames. Gunter's not such a bad guy. You're groping in the dark, Dave. Your employer is your class enemy. You've got to learn to hate him. Ideas like that and others found root in Nelson's mind. Don't be blind, Dave. Capitalism is on the way out. See what's happening in the rest of the world. But things didn't jive for Nelson, not altogether. For one thing, there was his home. Nelson didn't know that the living standard of our people is more than 50% higher than any other nation in the world. But the newsreel at the neighborhood movie gave him a pretty good idea of the way people lived in the countries Reems talked about. How free was labor? How free was man? Get wise, Dave. You're no dumb kid. A few greedy bankers on Wall Street run this country. Snap their fingers and the government jumps. They own American business. Then you're just another number on the labor market. It's their nature to keep expanding, so they go out and conquer world markets. Keep their system alive, they start wars. For what? American democracy? Nuts. American big business. The distorted picture Reems painted had its fascination. Take any corporation, Dave. You'll find they own it lock, stock, and barrel. Well, how true is Reems story? Who does own American industry? To buy the tools that provide one factory worker with a job takes over $7,000. To create the tool power for millions of workers in American industry took over $140 billion invested in 468,000 corporations. That's a lot of money, about $1,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. Where did it come from? More than half from investors, people from all walks of life, businessmen, white-collar and industrial workers, people in retirement. In all, some 20 million Americans who've risked their savings to invest in our business system. The rest from banks with their 50 million savings depositors, insurance companies with their 70 million life insurance policy holders, trusts, institutions such as universities, hospitals, and charities. Every year, Dave, their profits get fatter and fatter. Well, the United States government has the facts. How much profit does American industry make? In 1929, American corporations sold 138 billion dollars worth of goods. Its profit was about 8 billion dollars. In 1946, over 250 billion dollars of goods were sold. Profit, 12 billion dollars. And over the years, as sales increased, profit, taking in bad times as well as good, has maintained about the same ratio, an average of 3 and 1/2% profit on corporate sales. Wage labor is slave labor. The biggest hunk of every dollar the company takes in goes to profit. Here is the sales dollar of a typical American corporation. How is it spent? 45 cents goes to buy materials and supplies. 43 and 1/2 cents pays wages and salaries to its employees. 4 cents to taxes. 3 and 1/2 cents to selling and administrative expenses, as well as to wear and tear on tools. Profit, 4 cents. Part of which is kept for company and job security. The rest paid out in dividends to the company's stockholders. Labor is the only source of production, Dave. Every dollar grabbed by the profit system is a dollar out of the worker's pocket. Dividends are payment and incentive for people to risk their savings to invest in the tool power that makes jobs, pays wages. In 199, wages to American labor went from 17 billion dollars all the way to 87 billion dollars in 1946. Over the same period, dividends ranged from 2 billion dollars to 5 billion. In 1946, for every dollar paid out in dividends by American industry, 17 dollars was paid out in wages. No, not as sensational a picture of American industry as Reems painted, but a whole lot closer to the truth. An industrial system with labor and management working together, using the savings of millions of people to serve their customer, the American public. An industrial system which in the last 40 years, spurred on by new investment, by technological progress, by organized labor's efforts on behalf of the working man, has brought about these changes. In 199, the American factory worker was producing one unit of goods per man hour. In 1946, he was producing almost three. With this result, in 199, he worked 54 hours a week. Today, his work week has been cut to about 40 hours. Over this same period, his real earnings, what he can buy with his wages, have steadily increased with his productivity. From 39 cents an hour in 1909 to $1.05 in 1946. That is the American economic system. Private business, labor unions, farms. A system in which all of our people have a stake as producers, investors, consumers. Over the years achieving greater economic and social progress and the highest standard of living in the world. One Sunday morning, Dave Nelson took a drive. He passed his brother's hardware store. Stopped for gas at the new station an ex-GI had opened. Reems hadn't told him that under our system of private enterprise, one out of every five Americans in the city and on the farm is his own boss. But all around he saw new stores springing up. Part of America's three and a half million businesses. Everywhere the earth was being upturned. The new school. The medical center. The community playground. America could stand improvement. But America wasn't standing still. Nelson didn't know why, but he drove out to the plant. Suddenly, he remembered how it was during the war. Everyone pulling together in the face of a common threat. Getting along, working all hours, all shifts. The feeling of being a partner, of belonging, of sharing in a great venture. The country was single-hearted, single-minded, single-willed. That was American democracy in action. Labor and management working together, within 2 years outstripping the production of the rest of the world combined. But, things had changed since the war. In many parts of the country, labor-management relations were charged with distrust. In Nelson's plant, the bosses and the union couldn't get together on wages. The right to strike will always exist in a free society. For Nelson and millions like him, the strike is labor's weapon of last resort to gain its objectives. A fair wage and better conditions of work. But, for Reems, a strike has a different meaning. His objective is always the destruction of our economic system. Dave Nelson's popularity with the boys is even greater than we thought. He's just taken over the strike committee. This is our chance to get a strong foothold in the union. Nelson will never make a real comrade, but he'll listen to me. He'll serve us well. Thanks. Very few strikes in American industry are communist inspired. But, a communist will always seek opportunities to prolong a strike. In labor-management negotiations, his role is to keep both parties at odds. To foment bitterness and discord in every phase of our national life. Bitterness that distorts management's view of labor. Laborers of management. The communist takes his guidance from Lenin. We must be able to agree to any sacrifice, and even if need be, to resort to all sorts of stratagems, artifices, illegal methods, to evasions and subterfuges, so as to get into the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on communist work in them at all costs. The communist will take all those hard committee jobs others slough off. He'll work day and night. Before a union meeting, he'll caucus. He knows every parliamentary trick in the bag. He and his supporters will vote as a unit. He knows how to break up a meeting. Delay a vote until early morning. Then take possession of the floor. Twist facts to suit his own purposes. So that even where his numbers are small, he may get his way. Hi Aaron. Hello Dave. Pull up a chair. The company's come halfway. The boys are ready to celebrate. What are you anyway, Dave? This is no kids game. This thing can't go on forever. The boys are getting hungry. So what? Let them starve. And they'll find out what kind of a country we're living in. I'll tell you Dave, we've got to hold fast. Don't give an inch. There's been a lot of talk about me down at the hall. I don't like it. It's time to call it quits. Wait a minute. If Owen Allison thinks could be a lot tougher for you. I'd like to know how. That's easy, kid. They're saying you're a wreck. You never wanted this strike to end, did you? Now, look, Dave. Rather, I'm just getting wise to you. What's your game, Reems? What are you after? Now, wait a minute, Nelson. You weren't interested in the pay raise. You weren't interested in the guys out there plugging along on the picket line day after day, rain or shine, eating their hearts out. Their kids don't eat. If their wives go nuts with worry, so what? They're just people. They don't count. You've got bigger fish to fry. What is it, Reems? What Nelson, I'm telling you. Sales talk about helping the little guy. Sure, there's lots of things wrong with this country, and I'm the guy who knows them. But I know this, too, that you weren't the one to fix them. Not your kind. Listen, you damn fool. Play me for a sucker long enough, Reems. But here's one sucker getting off the line. I'll go throw your hook somewhere else. Dave Nelson learned what a good many unions already know and are effectively fighting, that the real interest of men like Reems is not in the victory of a strike, not in the welfare of the men, but in creating the most bitter conflict, the worst frustration between American labor and management. Today, there are over 100,000 Ed Reems in America on a one-way track. For them, the breakdown of our economic system cannot come too soon. America learned its lesson in the '30s, when our depression brought loss of hope to millions of our people, loss of faith in democracy. Today, millions of people all over the world, hungry and desperate, are soft touches for totalitarianism. History is at a turning point. America has a mission. A mission of expanding our own strength and prosperity. American management and American labor must make our economic system work. To meet the needs of all of our people, we must turn out more goods, more and more services. By 1950, $200 billion worth. By 1960, 218 billion. These goals are well within our reach. Expanding productivity can bring to America an even higher standard of living. But America has a further mission. To help the world help itself. We must fight cold and hunger overseas. We must help in world reconstruction. But above all, America's mission is to pioneer the way for peace. These missions will be accomplished by the American people working through our democratic processes based on competition. Competition among businesses, competition in goods, competition in ideas. For America, in essence, is a great debate. With individual rights respected, individual freedoms protected. The law that guarantees this is the most revolutionary doctrine in all the world's history. It has caught the imagination of enslaved peoples everywhere. Because that law guarantees the right to worship freely, the right to speak freely, the right to print openly, the right to trial by jury, the right to choose our own government. Democracy gives more to the individual, but demands more from him. But in a dictatorship, only one man must think. One man decides. In a democracy, progress comes because enough people want it to come and act to make it come.