Who Won?

The third coal strike ended. The miners straggled back to work. Now it was time for Franklin Roosevelt, for John L Lewis and for every U.S. citizen to ask himself who had won.

One thing was certain. The U.S. people had not won. They could reckon their losses in simple arithmetic:

> 20,000,000 tons of coal.

>75-100,000 tons of steel--a loss that would cause incalculable delays in war production.

This loss was irretrievable. The coal, the steel, the time, had gone. Coal Boss Harold Ickes warned that coal might be rationed by year's end.

Franklin Roosevelt had won nothing. His Administration had underestimated the danger, had relied on labor's no-strike pledge and on a wishful hunch that the United Mine Workers rank & file would not follow Lewis. It had let the coal strike grow into such an issue that neither side could back down.

Fortnight ago, when Strike III began in defiance of a War Labor Board order, the President had no ammunition left. Only coal miners can mine coal. Then, suddenly, John Lewis, standing before crossed American flags, imperiously ordered his miners back to work. He set his own conditions: that the Government operate the mines; that the deadline for a new wage agreement be Oct. 31. The President was left with little to say or do.

In defeat, the President had been goaded into an awkward gesture: he proposed a law making all men up to 65 eligible for the draft, so that strikers could be put into uniform. This suggestion shocked the press, from liberal to labor-hating. Congress took a hand: by passing the Smith-Connally anti-strike bill over the President's veto, Congress in effect voted no-confidence in Franklin Roosevelt's unsure handling of the coal problem.

John Lewis had failed to get his miners their $2-a-day raise (though he may still get it under his portal-to-portal scheme). But he had 1) re-established himself as labor's most potent, if most hated leader; 2) successfully flouted WLB, which he hates; 3) harassed and embarrassed Franklin Roosevelt, whom he also hates.

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