Truce Revived

The War Labor Board came right out and said this week that John L. Lewis' defiance of the Government "gives aid and comfort to our enemies." The law has a word for giving aid & comfort to the enemy in time of war. The word is treason. If the Government meant what it said, its next step would be to place John L. Lewis under arrest.

Evidently the Government did not mean it. All the ingredients for a full showdown were assembled, but instead of arresting John Lewis, the Government, through another branch (Harold L. Ickes) asked Mr. Lewis not to strike against it. Mr. Lewis, with a great show of patriotism, agreed to extend the strike truce till May 31, sending out 5,000 telegrams over the overburdened telegraph lines to tell his lieutenants the strike was postponed, thus ending two weeks of buildup.

First the Government had begun by backtracking. Economic Czar James F. Byrnes had restored to WLB some of the prerogatives taken from it in the President's hold-the-line order of April 8. The Board thus reacquired power to correct "gross inequities" in wages and to make wage adjustments in order to promote "the effective prosecution of the war." This provided loopholes for concessions to Lewis. It also had strategic value: it silenced the cries of A.F. of L. and C.I.O. against the hold-the-line order and realigned them on the side of the Government against John Lewis.

Then the Board ordered Lewis to resume wage negotiations with the operators under its jurisdiction. Lewis did not obey. Finally this week, 60 hours before his self-imposed strike deadline, he made a flat refusal.

At this the Board came out with its accusation of giving aid & comfort to the enemy: "The issue now confronting the nation in this dispute is whether Mr. Lewis is above and beyond the laws which apply to all other citizens. . . . Mr. Lewis is defying the lawfully established procedures of the Government of the United States. This is not only a defiance of our laws, but it is also the only thing that stands in the way of the working out of a new [mine] contract by orderly, peaceful procedure. . . ."

John L. Lewis had been playing with fire but the Government had been playing with John L. Lewis. It looked as if John Lewis was the more dangerous to play with.

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