Lewis Rebuffed

"Legal! What the hell is legal?" snorted William L. ("Big Bill") Hutcheson, florid, mule-mannered czar of the 400,000 United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners.

In Chicago's white-gloved Drake Hotel, around a decorously felted table, A.F. of L.'s Executive Council had conferred long and windily over taking John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers back into the fold. On the first day they listened to taciturn Lloyd A. Thrush, president of A.F. of L.'s Progressive Mine Workers,* whose specialty is a passionate hatred of John L. Lewis.

Thrush demanded strict observance of the A.F. of L. constitution, which forbids the chartering of any union when one of the same jurisdiction is already in the Federation. But Thrush's 35,000 Progressive Miners looked pathetically unimportant beside Lewis' huge union with 600,000 duespayers.

Thrush and everyone else knew that the real issue was John L. Lewis, manipulator of the grab-bag District 50, which raids all kinds of unions, savage enemy of Franklin Roosevelt, contemptuous underminer of A.F. of L.'s wishy-washy president William Green ("I have explored the mind of William Green and I give you my word there is nothing there"). Lewis had made it clear that he expected the U.M.W. to be taken in "as is." This would give unlimited raiding opportunities to District 50 and set a precedent for readmitting other unions that have stretched their jurisdictions since leaving A.F. of L. With 600,000 obedient miners behind him, Lewis might be able to make the deals that would drive Green out of the presidency, force an out & out anti-Roosevelt policy on A.F. of L.

Most powerful sponsor of U.M.W. readmission was Hutcheson. The Carpenters' chief, Federation Republican war horse for the last three Presidential campaigns, shares Lewis' rancor against Franklin Roosevelt. A veteran hotel-room trader, Hutcheson heard the siren song of the A.F. of L. presidency in the deals arising from the Lewis application.

Most active wire-puller against Lewis was foxy Daniel J. Tobin, head of the Federation's biggest union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen & Helpers. Tobin is not without his own A.F. of L. presidential ambitions, has long been the Democrats' Hutcheson. On behalf of his good friend Franklin Roosevelt and of himself, Tobin wants to keep Lewis isolated.

After two days' wrangling, Tobin rushed out of the candelabra-lit conference room, chortled to the reporters, "Everything's happy." Next afternoon the council voted 10 to 2 to send the application, without recommendation, to the October convention of A.F. of L. in Boston.

The vote was a resounding slap at Lewis. Emphasizing the meaning of the council action, Green announced that $60,000 in advance dues was being returned to U.M.W., that any further preconvention move must come from Lewis.

* P.M.W. was organized out of a bitter revolt against Lewis' high-handed methods, waged organizing battles with U.M.W. plug-uglies in which more than a score were killed. They erected a $250,000 monument to a tubthumping, whiskey-loving woman organizer, "Mother Jones" from Pennsylvania, whose most celebrated saying was, "Let not that traitor John Lewis ever breathe the air above my grave." "Mother Jones" turned up for all of P.M.W.'s toughest campaigns. Annually a giant memorial is held at her grave in Mt. Olive, Ill.

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