A. F. of L.'s 53rd

Matthew Woll. vice president of the American Federation of Labor, had to call off a strike in a Long Island bronze foundry last week so that a statue of Samuel Gompers could arrive in time to be dedicated by President Roosevelt and the A. F. of L.'s 53rd annual convention.

There were strikes all over the country. Fifteen were shot, one killed when picketers and steelworkers clashed at Ambridge, Pa. Silk mill strikers marched 10,000 strong in Paterson. N.. J. Corset-makers and truck drivers struck in Manhattan. Grape pickers struck in Lodi. Calif. A strike of 10,000 machine tool and diemakers was on in Detroit. In Pennsylvania, 55,000 coal miners were still out (see p. 12). Philadelphia bakers left their ovens. Chairman Wagner of the National Labor Board barely averted a strike by 650 commercial air pilots. A dozen striking window washers pulled two men off their ladders in Independence Hall, beat them and fought police. A quibbling jurisdictional strike stopped work on the new Department of Labor Building, a few blocks from Washington's Willard Hotel, in whose ballroom the A. F. of L.'s convention was being held.

But the strikes did not worry Labor's representatives. Nobody strikes when he has no job. Strikes mean better times. When times get better. Labor is on the ascendant. Not since 1920. when Samuel Gompers was a person and not a statue. had the organization had so many members (4,000,000). Not since 1917 had the convention been attended by so many delegates (535). Not since 1917. when President Wilson addressed the Federation at Buffalo, had a U. S. President heard his name so thoroughly praised in an A. F. of L. meeting. At the Cincinnati convention last year Labor had been in a stage described last week by President William Green as ''innocuous quietude." Since then, U. S. Labor had suddenly found itself a partner, somewhat dazzled but quick to take advantage of its new position, with Capital and Government in the New Deal. In Washington. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, in her cocky tricorn hat, rose to tell the A. F. of L. that "thanks to the vision and courage of President Roosevelt in making possible the National Recovery Act. the present convention sees

Labor as an integral part of our modern State.''

The New Deal brought to the Federation's attention new responsibilities and new problems. These, with many an old A. F. of L. convention chestnut, kept the delegates busy in committee rooms and on the convention floor a fortnight.

Horizontal v. Vertical. NRAdministrator Johnson lost his right-hand man for industry. Dudley Cates of Chicago, when their views on NRA's backing vertical v. horizontal unions became irreconcilable (TIME, Sept. 11). Mr. Cates believed that horizontal unions, based on crafts, were obsolete. He wanted to see labor organized down through each industry vertically. Since the A. F. of L. is preponderantly an amalgamation of craft unions, Federation officials saw red at the mention of Mr. Cates's name, were glad when he retired from NRA. But last week the Federation found that the departure of Mr. Cates had not settled the issue.

The Brewery Workers Union, a dormant allied organization which woke up when beer came back, was ready to quit the Federation when it found that its teamsters, engineers and firemen were about to be handed over to the jurisdiction of A. F. of L. teamsters', engineers' and firemen's unions. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers, a strong independent organization with 130,000 members, was ready to add its numbers to the A. F. of L. But there was a hitch. A. F. of L.'s United Garment Workers demanded that Amalgamated unionists stitch no men's clothes. U. G. W.'s province.

Crisis came when Elizabeth Christman. secretary-treasurer of National Women's Trade Union League, arose with a resolution to revamp the Federation's traditional but awkward and archaic structure. She proposed a committee of seven "to map out general plans and policies for strengthening the united action of the regular craft unions, and at the same time for extending organization into those industries in which the present form of organization has obviously not been successful." The committee report on Miss Christman's resolution was likely to be epochal for the Federation.

"Cheap Dollars" were what "bothered'' soft-spoken President Green in his key-note speech. "Labor knows that this is a problem that affects us very vitally because we know that when dollars are cheapened commodity prices rise, but wages stand still. Until [the Government] can assure Labor that we will get more of these cheap dollars for the day's work we perform, so that it will conform to the increase of commodity prices, it is my judgment that Labor will stand unflinchingly against Inflation."

Laxity! Inefficiency! With one disgruntled voice, metal workers, shoeworkers, firemen & oilers, painters, paperhangers, electric railway employes, upholsterers and stage hands demanded that all $3,300,000,000 of the Federal Public Works fund be spent and spent at once. They truculently resolved "that this convention appeal to the President for the removal of those public officials . . . who either through their laxity or their inefficiency are responsible for much of the present unemployment . . . unless those now in charge show their willingness to carry out the intent of Congress!" Secretary of the Interior Ickes, chief target of this shot, replied sharply (see p. 12).

11 to 25. A. F. of L. conventions run smoother than most. President Green usually knows most of the delegates by name, listens to their proposals patiently, refers them to the limbo of his committees. One resolution which had a better chance of approval than most was a proposal to increase the Federation's powerful executive council from 11 to 25 members to democratize that body. Reason: the man who introduced it was President John L. Lewis of United Mine Workers, President Green's kingmaker.

Spleen. To enliven its conventions, the A. F. of L. does not put on Zouave parades or ladies' auxiliary bridge tournaments. It invites some foreign Laborite to give a good hell-raising address against some common foe. This year the guest was James Rowan, member of the general council of the British Trade Union Congress. His subject was Adolf Hitler. Said he:

"The Hitler movement claims to be a popular movement, sponsored by the overwhelming mass of public opinion. It alleges that its only opponents are Communists, internationalists, pacifists. Socialists and Jews. You have to know something of the origins of this Hitler movement to understand it for what it really is --a sinister, well-planned conspiracy on the part of the former ruling classes of Germany to regain the power they lost when they lost the War. . . .

"Make no mistake about it--the Hitler government is the instrument of the re-action these people have engineered. It is to serve their interests that the German trade union movement has been destroyed."

The American Federation of Teachers also denounced "Hitler's revolting sadistic orgies.''

An unlooked-for bit of spleen was vented by the Typographical Union, which denounced Father Charles Edward Coughlin of Detroit, radio preacher, for building his Shrine of the Little Flower with non-union labor, printing his tracts in non-union plants, advocating the open shop. The typographers asked the Federation "to find him no longer entitled to financial support from any trade unionist."

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