oosevelt Admi erlod icnheme Planned In U.S. INE WW XCORIC (EP) =A few. nation wide health plan | 5 5 juring good medical care for every man, woman and child the country within their ability to pay was announced . 5 by a conference group of wellknown doctors, econo- tS, administrators and repre- tives of organized labor. lorence C. Thorne of the AFL earch Dept. and CIO Re- @ch Director J. Raymond sh helped draw up the plan. eh proposes a national sys- ef health insurance to which Joyes, employers and self- m loyed persons would be re- med by law to-contribute in Hortion to earning capacity. @iddition, low income families mid be provided for by sup- ientary taxation. he project provides for a na- al rather than a state system use so many states lack fin- al resources to carry out ct own plans. ft differs from health insurance part of the #@mer-Murray-Dingell bill, al- feiacked- by labor, in providing @ a decentralized administra- ® with local units exercising Mnomy under national stand- j@, vecognition of existing Mutary hospital and health in- mnce plans and the determin- Ma of policy by groups in Sh both the public and the @ical profession would be ip eSented. Will steps are taken to safe- iid the status of physicians Wj the quality ci medical care co encourage group practice the most efficient and e¢co- ieal way of supplying medi- service. “Basic freedoms” in- We the right of patients to Wit their own doctors and hos- Mis by individual or by group fice and the right of doctors iiccept or reject patients, to i part in a public system or i) xwise. ( Plauding loudly. ae resolution declared that @ hereby reafirm our deter- ation to fulfill our pledges @he government and to the Tile of the U.S. and the mem- % of our*’armed forces, that will give every possible Bstance in prosecuting the ent war to a victorious con- Vion That we renew our n0- @ce pledge and reaffirm our Irmination to continue sting in financing the wat, as soldiers in the army of luction give full service in P production of the implements War. Collection of funds will be linked to general secial security collections. Pointing out that the average American family — al- ready spends three percent of its doctor and hospital bills, the conference group says this plan would call for little new outay. of money but would merely regularize existing pay-— ments. Medical service would in- elude hospital care as well as preventive, diagnostic and treat- ment services from doctors for bed, ambulatory and home pa- tients. income on CORDELL HULL Who has resigned his position as United States Secretary of State owing to ill health: Saturday, December 9, 1944 — Page 9 istrati lenty For n Plans ostwar By TRAVIS Kk. HEDRICK Evidence seems growing that the new Roosevelt admin- istration is pointing toward a sharpened policy of a postwar period of plenty, guarded by new and stromger social legis- lation on state and national levels. => Another way of expressing that would be that enough facts have been developed since the election to demonstrate that Franklin D* Roosevelt intends to close the book on his political life with more sparkling proof that he, as nobody before him, is the real champion of the common man. Any number of reasons can be asSigned to support this belief. RECORD DEMONSTRATES As we have set out before in Four recent developments sup- port this feeling that Roosevelt Lis again ready to prove that, like Admiral Perry, he “hasn’t begun to fight.” 1. The chief himself, Whité House news Nov. 21, said war workers should remain on the job to shorten the ‘struggle- and save lives. That in his Unions Run Canteen For Services Dispense Coffee and Goodwill HARRISBURG, Pa.—(FP)—It’s 1 a.m. and nothing is moving in this steel town except the wind blowing rain and dirty newspapers down the deserted streets —- and a couple of sailors shivering under a street lamp, wishing there was somewhere they could go to kill the hours before their bus leaves. sure hit the spot but every joimt in the town is shut. Might as well go back to the bus. station and sweat it out, just a couple. of sad sacks with wet feet. Hey, wait a minute .. there’s a place all lit up! What’s that sign say _—USO Labor GClub—open all night—c’mon Joe! Gonceived and sponsored by AFL, CIO, and railroad and in- dependent unions of Harrisburg and operated by the Natl YWCA and the Natl. Jewish Welfare Board, the USO Labor Club here ® NEW ORLEANS—(FP)—Labors ® enthusiastically reaffirmed Nov. D Brention in a rising vote with every is living proof day and night to | o-Strike Pledge Reaffirmed Inanimously At AFL Nieet no-strike pledge 9 by the 64th AFL delegate on his feet (ees SE eee = ee &Rut that we also insist upon the government and upon in- dustry to respect our rights, pre- serve our agreemetns and apply them in good faith, and that cur no-strike pledge must not be used as a subterfuge to de- prive us of lone established rights and privileges.” Immediately upon passage of the resolution, President William Green announced that cables telling of the action would be dispatched to both Generals Douglas MacArthur and Dwight PD. Hisenhower- A hamburger and a cup of coffe would thousands of servicemen that unions are OK. Seventeen thousand GIs from all over the counzvry—recruits straight from the induction center, men with overseas rib- bons waiting for reassignment, sailors stationed here at the largest naval supply depot in the world—enter its doors each month. And out of its doors each month go 17,000 Gis whom mo newspaper can ever convince again that unions are a menace. The unions themselves thought of it first. They noticed a need for a place in the center of town where servicemen could relax, get a shower, food, write a let- ter, talk to friendly people. There were four USO clubs, but none right in the heart of the city and none open all night. First the unions were going to start their ow servicemen’s cen- ter. Then they went to the USO. : Labor raised $5,000 to reno- vate and remodel a building and the USO matched the sum. It was dedicated June 4—the only USO club in the country with the official title and sign “Labor Giub,” operated by the USO with the cooperation of organized la- bor. More than 75 percent of the volunteer workers are from union families. Union wives bake the cakes and chicken pot-pies. Unions eontribute the food for the snack par. The junior hostesses who dance, play pingpong, talk to the GIs and on special occasions en- tertain with their own chorus are called Laborettes. The club (are inviting is manned from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. by men hosts—AFL paperhang- ers, garment workers, bartend- ers, CIO steelworkers and news- papermen, railroad porters, en- gineers and other unionists. One of the most popular places in the club is the cozy corner devoted to labor papers. The papers are sometimes carried off back to the camps, USO director Rosemary Reinhold says. Many of the boys who come in proudly take out their union cards—they are so glad to find people who know about unions, she says. Some say it’s the first time since they’ve been in the army that they’ve been able to read their union papers. Others come in who only know what they read in the newspap- ers about labor, like the boy from everseas who says bitterly: “oSmebody ought to bomb those unions off the earth.” Maybe he has a beer with one of the union hosts, or dances with a labor ette or just sticks around for a while—he learns the score about strikes. in wartime and labor’s part in the war effort, and then changes his mind about the bombing. The whole community has be- come interested in the Labor Club. The Rotary Club, Kiwanis, the Chamber of Commerce, the Womens’ Club and-church org- anizations have come around to help. And they are so impressed with the way union men and their wives do things that they them to join all sorts of civic boards which never knew unions existed before. conference 4 was big news for the dailies. But even more import from a post- war standpoint and in proving the point was another item. Roosevelt also said that recon- version. to civilian production would be much faster than the people expect. He said he be- lieved that paychecks, in totak™ take-home wages, would be as large in the peace period as they are today. : 2. War Manpower © Commis- Sioner Paul V. McNutt, in his fighting speech to the AFI con- vention in New Orleans, banned the thought of the labor draft or sanctions to get the job done and advanced a ringing call for advanced democracy. He demand- ed an end to all kinds of dis- crimination and prejudice and prejudice and supported with enthusiasm the prospect of world peace based on wholehearted co- operation among the United Na- tions. 3. Sec. of Labor Frances Per- kins, adding her bit ‘to the pic- ture, suggested a pretty whole— sale reshuffline of the various . labor agencies after the war to centralize control and make things generally easier to man- age and to understand in labor’s dealings with Washington. 4. Chairman Arthur J. Alt meyer of the Social Security Board presented a program be- fore the AFL convention calling for federal and state action to broaden the protection and bene- fits to all wage earners in both unemployment compensation and social security. _ NO BUNTING Now, what does all of this in- dicate? It seems reasonable to make these observations. GCer- tainly the end of the war- will halt overtime pay and paycheck and take-home wages equal to those of today’s war wages will not be on hand without a defin- ite and very real increase in hourly rates. That seems to dispose of how Roosevelt will act on the wage issue. So it is simply up to labor to speed ac- tion by, strengthening the hand of the chief executive. He’s had his say. Now it’s up to us. MeNutt, for his part, is up- holding the President’s position as outlined on several interna- tional oeecasions relative to the indivisibility of the United Na- tions. This means the end of isolationism and lends power to the thought that economic and political nationalism ean end only in poverty, misery and want. The consolidation of the ag- encies dealing with labor, of course, and perhaps the abandon- — ment of many of them, is a goal long desired by the workers and their unions. All in all, it would be a mis- take to think that Roosevelt is simply, waiting to be passed to first. And he isn’t going to bunt, — either. :