Get Taft-Hartley Out of Politics, Recommends Cox

"Take the Taft-Hartley Act out of politics," urged Archibald Cox '34, professor of Law, at the sixth Law School Forum of the year, last night.

In answer to the forum question, "What to do with Taft-Hartley," Cox recommended that the law be turned over for study to a commission made up of members of the House and Senate labor committees, and representatives of labor and management.

"They would come out with more thoroughgoing and wiser answers to the problem of industrial peace than whether Senator Taft is pro or anti labor," he declared.

Robert N. Denham, former general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, offered a more explosive solution.

"Repeal the law, abolish the agency, fire everybody in it, and start all over again," he expostulated. Denham pinned the failure of the Taft-Hartley Act not on the law itself, but on its administration. He said the basic principles of the act are sound, but its execution is poor.

Feller Disagrees

David E. Feller, assistant general counsel to the C.I.O., disagreed with Denham, claiming that the fault was one of "a basic false premise of a statute." He said that the government had no right to regulate the terms of collective bargaining between labor and management.

The purposes of the law should be reviewed, and the whole statute brought back into "proper perspective," said Leslie E. Woods, director of industrial relations at the Raytheon Manufacturing Co.

Donald H. Wollett, professor of Law was moderator at the Forum.