THE power of compulsion by the President over the automobile industry is much more limited today than it was last summer, when the provisions of the National Industrial Recovery Act first were exposed to view.

This is because the dreaded licensing power, which could be invoked against companies that do not meet the regulations prescribed by the Chief Executive and might mean destruction of a single company, would have no practical effect now that all the motor car makers are standing together.

Even the threatened withdrawal of the Blue Eagle would be of little avail, for the Government needs motor transportation, and if all the motor companies were guilty of violating the tenets of Blue Eagleism there would be no place for the government to buy passenger cars or trucks except abroad, and the American people never would stand for the purchase of imported automobiles.

It develops, too, that the exercise of the licensing power that has been called for by President Green of the American Federation of Labor would as a practical matter be of little avail. This is because the law requires that before an industry or its units can be put on a license basis there must be a public hearing with due notice. Any such sensational procedure would take time and would mean that the hearing would afford an opportunity to try the case in the court of public opinion, which is something the motor car executives are anxious to do. For they could prove that as employers they have not exploited their workmen either on hours of work or rates of wages.

Rarely has there been a debate with official data on collective bargaining. The public has been led to believe that it involves merely the question of letting the workmen organize.

The motor companies have insisted they will recognize any labor organization which the workmen themselves set up. That is what the law requires. But who is to tell whether the workmen want one form of labor organization or another? It is as difficult to find the true will of a thousand workmen as it is the wish of a thousand voters in our large cities.

There has never been any public investigation of labor unions or their methods, what they do with their money and how throughout the country here and there, racketeers have got control and the principal officers of the American Federation of Labor either have been afraid or unwilling to purge their ranks of racketeers or racketeering methods. These are some of the things that would come out in a public hearing and American industry generally would not hesitate to fight such a battle all along the line if the motor car companies were successful in getting the facts before the American people.

Whether one agrees with the rightful effort of the A. F. of L. to increase its membership by threatening a strike or whether one sympathizes with the efforts of the motor car companies to retain the right to run their own business without dictation by persons who are not their employees, the fact remains that the public knows little about these big labor controversies and a broad investigation by an impartial tribunal, consisting of Federal Court Judges, would be the best thing that could happen to both capital and labor.