LABOR: Proper Pitch

John L. Lewis is the most even-tempered man in Big Labor—he is always in, emerging from or entering a mood of righteous fury. But even John L. had a hard time last week thinking up some new way of showing his contempt for the big bosses of the American Federation of Labor. Since he had called them “fat and stately asses” and “debased cravens,” and they had reduced him to size at the A.F.L. convention two months ago (TIME, Oct. 27), Lewis had stewed angrily, working himself up to the proper pitch for the next explosion.

Last week the moment came. Surrounded by 30 yes-men of the United Mine Workers’ executive council, Lewis grabbed a scraggly scrap of paper and a blue pencil. He wrote:

Green A.F.L.

We disaffiliate.

12/12/47

LEWIS

The Great Man called a hireling—the custodian of U.M.W.’s building in Washington—and sent him off to deliver the message to William Green. But Bill Green was not in his office to receive John Lewis’ final insult, and the messenger had to slip it under the door.

Thus, for the second time in a dozen years, John Lewis turned his back on the house of labor he could not dominate. Truculent and unrepentant of having formed the secessionist C.I.O., he had returned to A.F.L. 22 months ago in the hope of twirling its leaders around his little finger. The formal reason for his curt note of divorce was his split with A.FL.’s officers over methods of combating the Taft-Hartley Act.

There were contributing reasons. The United Mine Workers’ hodge-podge District 50, which tries to organize everybody from shoe clerks to clam diggers, had roused A.F.L. leaders’ bitter complaints that it was poaching in their fields. Now Lewis was free to pour into District 50 the $200,000-plus which U.M.W. has been paying yearly to the A.F.L. treasury. In District 50, headed by John’s 58-year-old brother, Denny, the’ Great Man had a juggernaut to propel, if he chose, toward a third major labor organization.