Like corn, the strike crop grew in August. Man-days lost on Army contracts alone totaled 421,000, up nearly one-third over July's figure of 286,000.
Bewildered by last week's War Department figures were those observers who had thought labor troubles would vanish after Hitler invaded Russia. Their arguments then: Communists were at the root of the most disputes; with Russia fighting alongside the democracies, Communists would be anxious as anyone to speed rearmament.
The not-so-simple answer was that 1941's labor troubles sprouted out of the 1941 U.S. economy. Majority of demands were belly demands. Money poured out of Washington, manufacturers' profits-before-taxes soared, and labor...