National Affairs in The Sunday Times
Chester Bowles radio address urging patience on clothing shortages and the House vote to suspend the draft made Page One, as did a brief on GM employment figures, up despite a strike.
Truman's plan to unify the Army and the Navy had run into resistance and observers felt that his recent outburst over Navy opposition was not likely to help his effort with Congress.
With the war over, workers across the United States were calling for better wages, benefits and working conditions. A strike against bituminous coal mines called by the United Mine Workers union, headed by the powerful and controversial John L. Lewis, was in its second week with both sides seen as unyielding. No immediate problems were foreseen from this strike, unlike the situation earlier that year when buildings were closed due to lack of coal for heating. Coal burning furnaces were still a major source of heat in the city in 1946. Government conciliators were trying to avert the East Coast sugar refinery strike that had been called by AFL longshoreman and CIO local industrial unions. The government had curtailed shipments from Cuba to prevent warehousing. Sugar was one of the few items still rationed at this time. The National Electrical Contractors and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers had negotiated a national employees benefits fund to be administered by management, union and public representatives.
The National Association of Manufacturers, which had launched an aggressive campaign against price controls, accused the Office of Price Administration of "deliberate vicious distortions." Chester Bowles in his radio address had accused the NAM and others of deceptive propaganda. The NAM was resolutely anti-Union, anti-New Deal and pro-Protectionism and pro- tariffs. While relegated to the position of loudmouthed nay sayers during FDR's terms in office, it became influential again when the Republicans took over Congress in the 1946 elections. With business supposedly in such a sad state who was buying all those furs and jewelry advertised in The Sunday Times?
Eversharp, Eberhard-Faber and Eterpen Sociedad Anomina sued an LA company, its four principals and Bullocks department store for infringing their patent and exclusive rights to the wonderful new invention, the ballpoint pen. Actually, there had been ballpoint pens around since the end of the 19th century but they leaked, clogged and left uneven impressions on paper and consequently had not been very successful. Eversharp and Eberhard-Faber bought the American rights to a pen designed to overcome these problems developed by a Hungarian refugee in Argentina. But an upstart company had beaten them to the market with a similar design. Meanwhile the Bic pen was being developed in France. The ballpoint really took off in the 1950s.
The Republican National Committee issued a 12 -page appraisal of the Truman administration, accusing Truman of policies that it said had caused confusion in both national and international affairs. The response from the Democratic party struck a familiar chord. Robert E. Hannegan. chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a strong Truman ally, acknowledged the Republican response to his letter to them with thanks. He said that his own letter had "asked what the Republican party proposed to do about certain major questions facing the nation. These were: Inflation, housing, strikes, defense, health and the proposed loan to Great Britain. In your answers I find not a single proposal for positive and specific action. Your reply performs a service in making it clear the Republican party proposes to do nothing at all."
Yale University revealed that more than 600 volunteers were used as test subjects during the war in experiments at the university to measure the effect of high altitude, oxygen deprivation and extreme cold on humans. The volunteers included students from the Yale Medical and Divinity Schools, Berkeley Divinity School and local high school and members of the civil air patrol and the New Haven YMCA. They were all between 16 and 52 and were sworn to secrecy. They had to pass a thorough physical before participating.