Two Horses

The most nettlesome question at Madison, Wis., where 400 delegates of the American Federation of Teachers were convened last week, was, once more, whether the A. F. of T. would continue its longtime affiliation with the American Federation of Labor or switch over to the C. I. O. The C. I. O. partisans are, in the main, labor idealists. The antiC. I. O. faction is opposed to the idea of industrial unionization, which would lump them together with janitors, waitresses, cooks, furnacemen, everyone else who worked around a school. There were plenty of hot words on both sides. Potent pleader foi the A. F. of L. was Henry Ohl Jr., chunky, prey president of the Wisconsin Federation of Labor for two decades. Able, hardworking, a Socialist for 40 years until the Socialists got too deep a shade of red for him, President Ohl has led his State organization into profitable alliances with farmer-labor groups and La Follette progressives. Last week he snorted: "One cannot ride two horses simultaneously, unless, of course, he is a trick rider-- and teachers are not trick riders."

President of A. F. of T. is wiry, winsome Jerome Davis, onetime associate professor of practical philanthropy who was dropped from Yale's Divinity School ostensibly for budgetary reasons after publishing his Capitalism and Its Culture, and was paid a year's salary to stay away from Yale. "We must not," trumpeted Professor Davis, as the delegates arrived, "we cannot betray the organized workers of America by fighting the C. I. O. It is the historic mission of the A. F. of T. to support every progressive and successful labor movement. How can we possibly ignore the C. I. O. and be true to our heritage?"

Mr. Ohl: "Evidently unity was not the aim of the C. I. O. when, in violation of their own vote, they invaded Wisconsin to take possession of the movement in this State. Their every activity shouted treason to the world. . . The full drama of betrayal, as evidenced by events, exposes a treachery never before perpetrated in the annals of labor anywhere. Existing unions were disrupted by the C. I. O., funds were manipulated into C. I. O. channels wherever this could be accomplished."

When a motion was made to print Professor Davis' speech of welcome, Delegate James A. Meade of Chicago rose to shout: "I for one refuse to sit here and hear the president misrepresent the great body of American teachers. The rank and file don't want that kind of stuff. We're for the A. F. of L. regardless of what you want to do. You represent the C. P. but I don't know whether that stands for 'college professors' or 'Communist Party'." This gibe was greeted by a storm of boos and foot-stamping from the radical wing.

The 400 delegates represented some 25,000 members of A. F. of T., who in turn accounted for a little more than 2% of the country's over 1,000,000 teachers. The California, Pennsylvania and New York delegations were instructed in favor of the C. I. O. and the Chicago group against it, but delegates from other sections did not seem to know what their constituencies wanted, let alone the rank & file of U. S. teachers. Agitation for a referendum appeared, and a motion was made that the executive council conduct a referendum on C. I. O. affiliation "no sooner than Feb. 1, 1938." It was passed by a vote of 285 to 227.

This delay was hailed as a victory for the A. F. of L.-minded Chicagoans, but actually it was not, since the C. I. 0. enthusiasts had no hope of winning the convention over at this session, wanted chiefly to keep the question open while they got in further spade work. Moreover, the resolution condemned A. F. of L.'s suspension of C. I. O. unions as "undemocratic action," put the Teachers' Federation on record as refusing to pay special antiC. I. O. assessments levied by A. F. of L., commended "the great success" of C. I. O. in organizing mass production industries. Another sign of which way the wind was blowing was the re-election of C. I. O.-minded President Davis by a comfortable margin over a Chicago opponent named Charles B. Stillman.

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