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SEPTEMBER 1955  61

(Washington Post, October 9, 1953).  The appointment was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on January 19, 1954.

The Department of Labor was created March 4, 1913 and is charged with enforcing statutes "designed to advance the public interest by promoting the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, improving their working conditions, and advancing their opportunities for profitable employment."  Included under its jurisdiction are the bureaus of standards, labor statistics, veterans' re-employment rights, employment security, wage and hour and public contracts division, and the women's bureau.

The New York times (October 25, 1953) commented that "there are more Government functions and employes outside the department dealing with labor than there are in the department... the department has nothing to do with the Taft-Hartley Law except to receive union financial reports.  It has nothing to do with the Railway Labor Act or the mediation of labor-management disputes."  Mitchell has said that he wants to see "the department strengthened and broadened."

On November 13, 1953, he told the National Council of Negro Women that he welcomed the banning of racial discrimination, effective November 15, 1953, in all contracts made with the District of Columbia government and that he was "particularly gratified" with progress toward ending racial segregation in the armed forces (New York Times, November 14, 1953).

Addressing the convention of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in Cleveland, Ohio, the Secretary recommended widening the national wage structure which leaves 63,000,000 working people without safeguard of a minimum wage and advocated "an increase in the present 75-cents-an-hour minimum" legal wage (New York Times, November 19, 1953).

Mitchell claimed that the Administration's policy "of leaving to labor and management the solution of their own labor relations problems" had resulted in a "smaller loss of man-hours" and led to "more genuine collective bargaining" (Washington Post, January 3, 1954).

In a speech before the New Jersey Republican Committee, Mitchell asserted: "Good industrial relations cannot be created by laws.  At best, the Government can only provide the framework in which labor and management operate.  Employers and employes themselves must develop better relationships at the plant level and settle their own differences without dictation from Washington.  The Government's sole interest is that of protecting the public." (New York Times, January 14, 1954).

Secretary Mitchell urged the enactment of the fifteen revisions suggested by President Eisenhower to the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947.  One request of the Administration was for Federal Polls of strikers.  The other proposed changes including relaxation of the ban on the secondary boycott prohibition in certain instances, prohibiting of an election immediately after a strike called for economic reasons was effected, providing a union and an employer to make a contract before employees are hired and legalizing the right of such a contract to require employees to become union members in the construction, amusement and maritime industries, a non-Communist oath for employers until Congress infiltration generally.  (In August 1954 Congress passed a bill outlawing the Communist party.)

Secretary of Labor Mitchell conferred with George Meany, president of the American Federation of Labor on February 4, 1954 at the AFL executive council meeting in Miami, and discussed minimum wage law changes.  Both men were agreed that the wage law should be raised from its present 75-cents-an-hour level, but major disagreement was on the question of time.  Mitchell said the changes should be made "at the appropriate time" and that "this is not the proper time". He said he looked for a rising trend in the national economy by the end of the year.

On August 26, 1954 President Eisenhower created the Committee on Migratory Labor, and named Mitchell chairman of the committee.

The Secretary of Labor has served as a special mediator of the New York State Board of Mediation, as chairman of the employee relations committee of the National Retail Dry Goods Association and of the executive committee of the Retail Labor Standards Association of New York, and has been a member of the executive committee of the National Civil Service League.  He is a Republican and a Roman Catholic. Fordham University conferred the honorary doctor of laws degree on the Secretary of Labor in 1954.

Married to Isabelle Nulton of Roselle Park, New Jersey in 1923, Mitchell has one daughter, Elizabeth.  He is six feet tall and weighs 196 pounds.  Time describes him as a man with "deep-set blue eyes,... huge shoulders and bristling hair."  Among his hobbies is deep-sea fishing.

References
N Y Times p10 Je 11 '51; p14 O 9 '53
N Y World-Telegram p22 O 12 '53
Time 62:27 O 19 '53
U S News 35:16 O 16 '53
Washington (D.C.) Post p2 N 8 '53
Who's Who in America, 1952-53


SEIF-UL-ISLAM ABDULLAH, PRINCE
1912-Apr 14, 1955 Yemen government official;
diplomat; became Minister of Education, later governor of the Touhama district of Yemen; represented his late father, the King of Yemen, at various Arab conferences; was chairman of Yemen's delegation to the United Nations in 1947; became Foreign Minister; rumored to have replaced his brother as King of Yemen briefly in 1955 after a coup d'état and was reportedly hung after return of brother to throne.  See Current Biography (Dec) 1947.

Obituary
N Y Times p3 Ap 22 '55