Press Release, Message of President Harry S. Truman to the United States Congress

380 #393 HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE December 3, 1945 The following message to the Congress must be held in strict confidence and no portion, synopsis or intimation is to be given out or published until reading of the message has begun in either the Senate or the House of Representatives, probably at 12:00 o'clock NOON, TODAY, MONDAY, December 3, 1945. The same release applies to radio commentators and newscasters. CAUTION: Extreme care should be exercised to prevent premature publi- cation. CHARLES G. ROSS Secretary to the President TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: All who think seriously about the problem of reconversion -- of changing our economy from war to peace -- realize that the transition is a difficult and dangerous task. There are some who would have the Government, during the reconversion period, continue telling our citizens what to do, as was so often necessary when the very life of our nation was at stake during the period of world conflict. NARA That however is not the policy of the Government. The policy : is to remove wartime controls as rapidly as possible, and to return the free management of business to those concerned with it. It was for the express purpose of getting away as soon as possible from some of the wartime powers and controls that the recent National Labor-Management Conference was called in Washington. Instead of retaining in the Federal Government the power over wages and labor agreements and industrial relations which a global war had made neces- sary, the top leaders of management and labor were invited to recommend a program under which labor relations would be turned back into the hands of those involved. It was decided that full responsibility for reaching agreement on such a program would be left with the representatives of labor and management. Accordingly the conference was made up of leaders of labor and management only. Government representatives participated only as observers, without vote. The agenda and the entire program were worked out by the leaders themselves. In opening the conference I said: "I want to make it clear that this is your conference -- a management-labor conference -- and not a Government conference. You have not been chosen by me or by any Government official. You have been selected by the leading labor and industrial organizations in the United States. There has been no interference by Government in that selection "The time has come for labor and management to handle their own ffairs in the traditional American, democratic way. I hope that I can give up the President's wartime powers as soon as possible, so that management and labor can again have the full and undivided respon- sibility for providing the production that we must have to safeguard our domestic economy and our leadership in international affairs.' I am sure that it was the hope of the American people that out of this conference would come some recommiendation for insuring industrial peace where collective bargaining and conciliation have broken down. The conference is now closed. The very fact that the top leaders of labor and management have met and worked together for more than three weeks. is itself some progrêss. (OVER)