LABOR: Partisan League

Last April when word spread through the American Federation of Labor that elderly Daniel Tobin of the Teamsters’ Union would be reappointed chairman of the Democratic National Committee’s Labor Division, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers and Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers laid their shrewd heads together. Teamster Tobin, they knew, was a stanch craft unionist, one of the twelve A. F. of L. vice presidents who firmly opposed their Committee for Industrial Organization. Almost overnight C. I. O. Leaders Lewis & Hillman formed Labor’s Non-Partisan League. To give it a New Deal flavor, they invited in as president George L. Berry, custodian of the Blue Eagle’s bones. That the sole objective of the Non-Partisan League was to re-elect Franklin Roosevelt should, Messrs. Lewis, Hillman & Berry declared, “be sufficiently clear to anyone.”

Last week the League’s first national meeting was held in Washington, attended by representatives from 48 States. Wrote Franklin Roosevelt from Hyde Park: “I am sincerely proud that you are gathering in support of my candidacy.” Best measure of the League’s loyalty to Nominee Roosevelt was its violent opposition to Nominee Landon. “God help the American people,” roared John Lewis, “if all they have to depend on in the future is that degree of consideration which will come from this little man out in Topeka, Kans., who has no more conception nor idea of what ails America or what to do about it than a goat herder in the hills of Bulgaria.”A significant prophecy by President George Berry: “There will be a new political alignment before the 1940 election. I conceive it important that we who are opposed to the return of reaction . . . should prepare ourselves to meet the inevitable and not again accept crumbs from the table but participate in the feast that has to do with the permanent establish ment of a liberal party, if necessary, in the United States in 1940.” Should such a third party, the lifelong dream of many a U. S. liberal, materialize, it would be a tall feather in the miner’s cap of John Lewis. Last fortnight the long brawl between the A. F. of L. and his C. I. O. came to a head with the Federation’s Executive Council demanding that C. I. O. disband within 30 days or be suspended (TIME, Aug. 17). Last week Miner Lewis did exactly what every one expected, flatly and finally refused to disband, ordered his 500,000 miners to contribute $1 each for Roosevelt’s reelection, sailed for Europe.