LABOR: Miners v. Miami

Constitution Hall, the only auditorium in Washington big enough for the biennial convention of the United Mine Workers of America, is owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution. There John L. Lewis’ miners met in 1936, there they expected to meet this year—until a few weeks ago when the D. A. R. changed its mind.

Upshots were that: 1) the Journal of the United Mine Workers announced “everyone knows that the Daughters of the American Revolution is an aristocratic high-hat institution whose members parade around like peafowls in silks and sealskins and imagine themselves the elect of the human race;” 2) catty whispers around D. A. R. headquarters intimated that one experience with miners had proved that the spittoon equipment of Constitution Hall was entirely inadequate; 3) the miners, 2,000 strong last week trooped through the dingy entrance of the old Rialto Theatre to attend their big meeting.

But the premises do not make the convention. There was little hyperbole in President Lewis’ opening speech saying: “The United Mine Workers of America in this year of 1938 stand unrivaled as an organization of labor, unparalleled in its strength and in its resources, rich in the loyalty in the hearts of its members, with a prestige among the people and in the councils of the nation never before reached or enjoyed by this union.”

With 600,000 members, the U. M. W. is the biggest union in the land. It has organized 95% of the coal industry and branched out through by-products and coal-tar derivatives into the chemical industry and even into perfume and cosmetics. It has $2,500,000 in its treasury —after contributing $500,000 to the National Democratic Committee in 1936, spending $550,000 on elegant new quarters in Washington and lending $2,000,000 to the C. I. O. and its various affiliates. Its vice president is Chairman Philip Murray of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, its secretary-treasurer is Lieut. Governor Thomas Kennedy of Pennsylvania and its president is the most potent labor leader in the U. S.

“My dear John.” Franklin Roosevelt announced that he was in favor of price reductions, opposed to wage reductions (see p. 7). John Lewis addressing his miners went further, opposed both kinds of reductions, fearing that one would lead to the other. Said he: “All we need now in this country to encompass and insure a complete and most devastating economic, social and political debacle is to reduce the prices of commodities and reduce the wage structure. . . . How many years did we try that policy during the Administration of former President Hoover?” At the word “Hoover”‘ the delegates sent up a mighty BOO.

But there was a suggestion of a smirk on John Lewis’ big face when he congratulated the miners for helping re-elect “the only President in our lifetime who has tried to give a square deal to the common people of this country.” The President’s regrets to the miners’ convention in 1936 began “My Dear President Lewis;” fortnight ago it began “My dear John,” but John Lewis has been something less than an enthusiastic Roosevelt admirer for nearly a year, has made no bones about his dissatisfaction with the President’s handling of Recession.

Revolving Stage. Quite as far removed from strictly union business as a third-term boom was the main drama of high labor politics in which John L. Lewis was engaged. It was a drama played on a revolving stage in which the scene shifted back & forth in the twinkling of an eye between the old Rialto Theatre in Washington and the Hotel Everglades in Miami. For simultaneously with the Mine Workers’ Convention in Washington, William Green was holding the quarterly meeting of the A. F. of L. Executive Council in Florida.

In Miami, with the 17 members of the Executive Council were about 100 lesser laborites and hangers on. To the vast annoyance of the all-night poker players the Executive Council sessions were scheduled for 9:00 a. m. However, they only lasted until 12:30 p. m. after which there was a daily exodus to the race track at Hialeah Park. One labor man lost $1,500 in two days.

Beneath the fun ran a muddy stream of intrigue and high politics. The Stage Hands were wangling for jurisdiction over the Screen Actors. Secretary Joe Obergfell of the Brewery Union was there to keep Teamster Dan Tobin from getting any more beer drivers. Lean, pale Charles P. Howard (who is C. I. O.’s secretary but whose union is still A. F. of L.), hovered in the background like an unbidden ghost, protecting his preserve from jurisdictional poaching by letting it be known that his Typographers might soon hold a referendum on joining C. I. O. But the most distraught man with the biggest problem on his hands was John L. Lewis’ old friend and new enemy, William Green himself.

“Perfidy.” During his entire career the A. F. of L. president’s franchise as a labor leader has been a union card that he holds in the Coshocton (Ohio) local of John Lewis’ United Mine Workers. After splitting with C. I. O. the A. F. of L. started to play ball with a rival union, Progressive Miners of America, and John Lewis threatened to kick Miner Green out of the United Mine Workers for “treason.” Since Mr. Green’s home town local, whose financial secretary is Mr. Green’s brother, would probably stand by him, Mr. Lewis proposed to try him before the International’s executive board, later before the full Mine Workers’ convention —where Mr. Lewis could employ to the utmost his flair for good theatre.

The Green trial is scheduled for this week but last week Mr. Lewis was already at work on the jury. To the assembled miners he sighed: “I know of but one member of the United Mine Workers of America who has fulfilled the function of a traitor to this great movement of ours. He is a poor little pusillanimous man who sees ghosts at night and pays his own penalty for his perfidy.”

In Miami, Bill Green desperately tried to make up his mind whether to rush to Washington to make a personal defense. If the miners kick him out, he will be left with an honorary card given him as a one-finger piano virtuoso by the Chicago Musicians Union. That is not enough to hold down the presidency of the A. F. of L., and he will have to join the Progressive Miners of America, which is flat on its back with 36 members sentenced to jail and a $117,000 fine hanging over its head (TIME, Dec. 27, et seq.).

At length deciding that to face John Lewis, the man-eater of the Mine Workers on the stage of the Rialto would only add indignity to misfortune, Bill Green called in reporters. He gave them copies of a 4,000 word defense he was sending to Washington. Denying the treason charge “unqualifiedly and without equivocation,” Miner Green spoke over Miner Lewis’ head to the rank& file and their pocketbooks. He asked as a union “stockholder” by what authority the U. M. W. board had loaned $2,000,000 to C. I. O., adding: “It is a serious matter to stockholders when the entire tax for six months, every penny and every dime, is turned over to the C. I. O. for other purposes.”

Expulsion? If Mr. Green is ousted by the United Mine Workers, labormen were prepared to see that expulsion followed by others. For a big faction of the A. F. of L. Executive Council is eager to expel the now “suspended” C. I. O. unions. Indeed, Mr. Green and the rest of the A. F. of L. Executive Council were in Miami to ponder just such action. And their temper was not improved by another cavalier peace offer from John Lewis. With tongue in cheek he purred to his Mine Workers:

“If the American Federation of Labor want peace I will recommend to the 4,000,000 members of the Committee for Industrial Organization that on the first day of February 1938, they march into the American Federation of Labor horse, foot and dragoon. . . .

“If that proposal be not pleasing to the American Federation of Labor we offer the alternative proposal that on the first day of February 1938, the entire membership of the American Federation of Labor, horse, foot and dragoon march into the Committee for Industrial Organization. . . .” After a little chuckle, he asked: “Fair enough? Fair enough, boys?” The miners clapped, and then uprose to howl approval as they got the point—that with C.I.O.’s voting strength John Lewis stood to win either way. Even Bill Green in Miami chuckled when he heard the proposal—and dismissed it as “impossible.”

From the start A. F. of L.’s strategy against Lewis has been to split off C.I.O. unions, undermine him with his rank and file. Only real progress made in that direction has been to make David Dubinsky, head of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, impatient of Lewis’ failure to make peace (TIME, Jan. 10, et seq.).

Offsetting the Dubinsky gain, A. F. of L.’s Teamster Tobin last week blamed the A. F. of L., in part at least, for the collapse of the peace negotiations. But the question of war and peace hung mostly on the division within the A. F. of L. itself. In the Executive Council a man’s importance depends on the number of votes he can command. Moderate Matthew Woll (who all last week was in touch with C.I.O.’s Moderate Dubinsky) has only 8,700 photo-engravers behind him. Moderate George Harrison has the backing of 135,000 railway clerks. But Lewis’ implacable enemies number such men as William (“Big Bill”) Hutcheson who alone pays A. F. of L. the dues for 300,000 carpenters.

“Hip and Thigh,” No one relishes a good scrap more than John Llewellyn Lewis. He has been scrapping almost from the day he was born 57 years ago in Lucas, Iowa, the red-thatched son of an immigrant Welsh miner. In the years when young John was knocking around in the Midwest his brawn and wit became a miner’s legend. After he married Myrta Edith Bell, a country schoolteacher, and settled down in 1908 to professional unionism, he learned to fight in another fashion. Soon the Panama, Ill. local was known as the personal property of the Lewis brothers. Six of the eleven short years it took him to rise to U. M. W. presidency were spent as a crack A. F. of L. organizer. His 19 years in office have not been precisely peaceful. Of one turbulent period he recalls with gusto: “They smote me hip and thigh and right merrily did I return their blows.”

Bossing a miners’ union is no job for a man with a queasy stomach. The early years of the Lewis rule were one long series of revolts and ruthless suppression. In the eyes of liberals today the Lion of Labor is generally regarded as something akin to Progressiveness incarnate. But up to five years ago John Lewis was often looked upon as just another A. F. of L. stand-patter with a reputation for strong-arm methods and unscrupulous dictation.

Even today opposition within the United Mine Workers goes down before the mighty Lewis steamroller. No less than 218 locals introduced resolutions last week in behalf of district autonomy—an old union sore spot. Nearly every advocate of autonomy was loudly booed. When a Negro delegate from West Virginia named Hyden Smith rose to speak, Acting Chairman Van A. Bittner asked whether it was true that he had been a deputy sheriff when his field was nonunion. As the Negro tried to explain, delegates yelled, other Negro miners poured out execrations. He was given the bum’s rush. The question was promptly put and passed in precisely the form John Lewis wanted—autonomy with his consent.

By & large, however, his miners showed themselves satisfied. Up to the stage they filed and he greeted them one by one like a politician glad-handing his constituents. With a long tradition of fighting unionism behind them, the miners were ready to support with hard cash the lofty Lewis ambitions for C. I. O.

They had no criticism of his standing answer to Bill Green: that organizing the steel industry was worth $2,000,000 to the miners; no criticism of $550,000 spent to buy and remodel the old University Club as their Washington headquarters. The six-story opulence without a single spittoon in sight, its great marble staircase, its private office (a huge Il Duce affair) for John L. Lewis, its top floor suite (still incomplete) with lounge, library, dining room and kitchen for John L. Lewis’ hours of privacy, all are symbols of the United Mine Workers’ pride and power. So is his 16-cylinder Cadillac with chauffeur. Although in 1936 he refused to accept more than half his $25,000 salary, the delegates last week voted it again, urged him to take his back pay.

Social Somebody. For months the Washington society columnists have been trying to transform Labor’s Lion into a social lion. Already he is definitely a Social Somebody, the prize exhibit of whatever hostess gets him. If he does not rank above the British Ambassador in seating, he does rank above him in attention. But three nights out of four he spends at his colonial house in Alexandria across the Potomac from Washington.

Aside from his wife, his daughter, Kathryn, who acts as his personal secretary, his son John, who is in Princeton, and his brother Dennie, who works for U. M. W., John Lewis has few confidants. In the past few months he has become more reticent and reserved, and, with the possible exception of C. I. O. Counsel Lee Pressman, Phil Murray, vice president of the Mine Workers, seems to be the only person outside his family who shares his full confidence.

Yet John Lewis is as sure of himself as he ever was. He scoffs at the notion that C. I. O. is on the way out, for he and Sidney Hillman are prepared to support the organization alone if others desert. Like all unionists he has had to retrench—but in the process he laid off a disproportionate number of organizers who followed the Communist Party line. He has deep laid plans for reorganizing C. I. O. when Recession ends. He feels he has his contract with U. S. Steel Corp. sewed up for another year. And if worried about the troubles that depression brings to unions, he has only to think back to 1933, when with his last $75,000 he set out to rebuild a union which had lost 325,000 members in the previous ten years. Where his road now leads, no one dares predict, least of all himself. But never yet has John Llewellyn Lewis failed to come back from and misfortune stronger than before.