Site Ed. Note: Rendering moot much of the news on the front page, it was reported in a late dispatch that the rail strike had been settled on the President's proposal of May 22, which included an 18.5 cents per hour wage hike in exchange for dropping demands for changes in work rules.

At the same time, the President requested to address a joint session of Congress, scheduled to occur at 4:00 p.m. this date, to urge passage of emergency strike legislation.

He would reportedly ask the Congress to make it a Federal offense to strike against Government-run operations of an industry and to permit drafting of men to work in such industries. The penalty provisions for violation appeared to carry only loss of seniority and retirement benefits, not other punitive sanctions such as jail. The proposed bill was said to be one which would be directed only at the coal and rail industries and would be temporary to deal with the present crisis.

Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn stated that the House would be prepared to act within 40 minutes of the President's speech, following a Rules Committee vote to give the Speaker almost unprecedented power to call for consideration on the floor only of the Administration's proposed legislation, barring all amendments, thus streamlining the process of debate and passage. House Majority Leader John McCormack and Minority Leader Joe Martin, both of Massachusetts, had conferred and given their assent to the process, indicating bipartisan support for the emergency legislation.

At 10:00 p.m. the previous night, the President had delivered to the nation via radio a message indicating a policy of new toughness toward the railroads, a decision only reached the previous afternoon, with tough language inserted only minutes before the broadcast.

Despite the President's demand that the railroad employees return to work under Government operation of the railroads, by the morning of this date only sporadic operation of the railroads was reported. New York rail stations were said to be standing virtually empty.

David Robertson, head of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, accused A.F. Whitney, head of the Trainmen's union, of grasping for power in calling the strike together with the Locomotive Engineers. The eighteen other railroad unions, including the Firemen, had not struck and earlier this date had agreed to a new contract on the President's May 22 terms. The Firemen had agreed to go back to work, running the trains for the Government, prior to the announcement of settlement of the dispute.

Mr. Whitney, in a letter to the President, the text of which is presented on the page, had offered to go back to work provided the President accepted a temporary contract agreement to include a 16-cents per hour wage hike, retroactive to January 1, plus seven rules changes, with the ability to negotiate for further changes. This proposal was consistent with a previous Government mediation board proposal. There was no indication that the President responded to this offer prior to the final settlement.

Secretary of Interior J. A. Krug communicated the Government's offer of settlement of the coal strike to John L. Lewis, the terms of which were not made available, but presumably included a wage hike of no more than 18.5 cents per hour, that of the steel settlement, and establishment of some form of welfare fund for the miners. The deadline for the two-week truce in the strike was at midnight this date. Mr. Lewis had not responded.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to impose a 60-day cooling off period before a strike could be called and for creation of fact-finding boards, as proposed months earlier by the President.

The Senate Banking Committee voted to eliminate price controls on meat, poultry, and milk, effective June 30. It included elimination of controls on feed products manufactured from milk. Whether it included bull's milk, and would also apply in the Intercourse triangle in Pennsylvania, was not reported.

On the editorial page, "Sequel to Persuasion" finds that the President's address the night before on the railroad strike had exceeded expectations. He had condemned A. F. Whitney of the Trainmen's union and Alvanley Johnston of the Locomotive Engineers, and urged the members of the unions to return to work.

"A Poor Way to Boost Revenue" reports of a proposal before the City Council to have salesmen in the city assessed a $25 licensing fee to operate. It would apply only to Charlotte salesmen operating within the city with authority to close deals without resort to out-of-state offices, and would not apply to on-the-premises sales personnel in stores.

"The Road to Strike Was Paved" recaps the ground which led to the strike of the Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and concludes that the Railway Labor Act under which the President had sought for a year to prevent such a strike, was only good to delay a catastrophe. While eighteen of the twenty unions had not participated in the strike, it only took the two major unions to halt the nation's railroads.

Drew Pearson reports of a conference Monday between John L. Lewis and Secretary of Labor Lewis Schwellenbach at which Mr. Lewis stated that the miners would remain on the job after Government seizure of the mines. Mr. Schwellenbach explained that negotiations would begin regarding terms of a new contract once the Government took over the mines.

Marquis Childs discusses a proposal of William Benton, Assistant Secretary of State for public and cultural relations, regarding the Voice of America. Economic Stabilizer Chester Bowles had once been his partner in an advertising firm. Mr. Benton was proposing to put that experience to good use via shortwave broadcasts to inform Eastern Europe of America, with men sent to the embassies as information assistants. He disavowed any intent to use the medium for propaganda.

Samuel Grafton continues his observations of Ilya Ehrenburg, the visiting Soviet journalist, now in the town of Livingston, Alabama. Mr. Ehrenburg observed that the little town retained some of the national flavor of the past. He spoke of Gone With the Wind and Uncle Tom's Cabin. He found the former an artificial cake, but not badly made. He then discussed the novels of William Faulkner and Ellen Glasgow, Mr. Grafton finding himself ashamed to be surprised by the Russian's acquaintance with American literature. For he was not very much different from any intellectual the world over, save that his mind was more acutely attuned to political subtleties and would not accept half values or technical justifications for political errors.

By way of explaining how the Russians helped the Jews, he imparted to Mr. Grafton a story as they rode along the back roads of Alabama, looking for Moscow. During the war, a peasant woman married to a Jew hid her husband underneath the floor of the house, beneath the stove. She told her children that the eye peering out from the stove was a rat.

They continued to hunt for Moscow, but the road signs seemed to change every time they got close, and still had not found the way. They might, he says, have to go on to Mississippi rather than Moscow.

A letter from a veteran complains of the lack of help being given by the people to veterans in their attempt to readjust their lives, especially complicated by John L. Lewis, who he compares to the Devil.

A letter from another veteran, who had served 31 months overseas, praises the strides made by organized labor and the good conditions which unions had wrought, eliminating long hours and sweatshop conditions of the past.

He responds to the veteran who had written May 22, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, while condemning John L. Lewis, and says that he also recited the Pledge, and would return for another tour of duty if called upon to do so.

A letter writer responds to the Atlanta Constitution editorial reprinted May 21, titled "A Week to Try Men's Souls", in reference to the coal and rail strikes. It bemoans the fact that the newspaper had misspelled Thomas Paine's name with a "y" and finds it equally disturbing that The News had continued the error.

He quotes Benjamin Franklin as saying, "The pen of Thomas Paine made the sword of Washington possible."

It urges honoring Mr. Paine by at least remembering how to spell his name.

The editors note that it was not the error of The Constitution, but rather that of Etaoin Shrdlu, a notorious staff member in the type-setting department who, on occasion, had his way with words. They offer apologies.

We ourselves caught the "error" but, thinking it merely an alternative spelling, common in the days of the Revolution and earlier, the use of the English "y" for "i", left it as Mr. Shrdlu had it. We prefer it and offer no apologies whatsoever—just as Mr. Payne did not.

It is a matter of common sense that no idiot struck with the true spirit of the Revolution would give a good tinker's dam about an innocent misspelling of a name which nevertheless communicated proper identity. If there had been in the Revolution some prominent person named Thomas Payne, then there would be ground for such querulousness.

Put another way, the orthographical representation receives instruction, without violence performed to the dialectic enthusiasm posed by the revolting letter writer, from the variations, for instance, between Champaign, Champlain, campaign, and champagne. Context will restrict the imagination, properly constrained in the first instance by reason, to ascribe the proper meaning even to the malapropian garish in florid prose, as in sparkling nectars of Champagne, Ill., or winning the confused camplaign spoken against the opponent, or, yet again, the staked tension within the cramped campaign causes them to shade their tents in the present sense.

As Mr. Smrdlu's sister, Ettu Brute, has said, with rapier insight of God wot and probity anent the matter, "Chum nca eb neraled, ro tno, fmro progahaiclypt sorrer, neev pinal sliplegnisms."

A letter writer advises freezing the bank accounts of the unions participating in strikes—never minding that the Government had no such authority with respect to American citizens.