Green to Perkins

Last week Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins again exercised her genius for aggravating U. S. Laborites. Her annual report to Congress so graveled A. F. of L. President William Green that he cried: "We hope an appropriate Congressional Committee will summon the Secretary of Labor . . . and wring from her the truth she has suppressed."

By an incredible slip, the Secretary of Labor got her facts mixed on the split between the Federation and John Lewis, erroneously reporting that the ten original C. I. O. unions were "expelled" in 1936. Hair-splitting Mr. Green reminded her that the ten were suspended in 1936, that only nine ever were expelled, and that the unexpelled tenth (David Dubinsky's Garment Workers) is edging back into the Federation. Fanny Perkins further irked Mr. Green by observing that both A. F. of L. and C. I. O. "claim" 4,000,000 members. "We do not 'claim, we report 4,000,000 paid-up members," snorted Bill Green, sneering that C. I. O. actually has only a fourth as many.*

What irritated William Green more than anything else was the Secretary's impartial distribution of blame between both factions for the continued war in Labor. Nor was he pleased by her justifiable notations that despite all the Greens and Lewises at the top, undeclared peace is steadily permeating U. S. Labor at the bottom. Between local unions in both camps, said she, "there is an increasing spirit of cooperation ... an unwritten but developing respect for each other's jurisdictions and joint action to protect certain rights and opportunities. . . ."

*A charge to which C. I. O. is in no position to reply, inasmuch as neither financial nor membership reports were published at its convention last September.

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