By Law & by Dicker

Winter's first major assault, a vast cold air mass from the Arctic, swept across the nation this week. Florida felt the chill fringes of it. In Grand Forks, N. Dak., the temperature dropped to 17DEG below zero. Around the stark deserted tipples of the coal mines from West Virginia to southern Illinois, a northwest wind whooped. John L. Lewis had a new ally.

From the Executive Mansion, Harry Truman could watch the bare trees on the White House lawn bending under the assault. But Mr. Truman himself was not bending. He was determined to fight his battle out at whatever cost. He had ordered John Steelman, his "labor adviser" and Lewis' solicitous friend, to stand in the corner. The President conferred principally with young Clark Clifford, his special counsel, who seconded Mr. Truman's assertion that now was the time to stand firm. That was the word Clifford passed along to Interior Secretary Julius Krug and Attorney General Tom Clark.

In this deadlock the nation made various frantic efforts to save itself.

Fines & Fears. Mine operators turned to a punitive clause in the Krug-Lewis agreement under which the Government was operating the mines. They began to fine miners $1-$2 a day for every day they stayed out. Fines, retroactive to Nov. 21, could be deducted from miners' pay when they finally went back. The fact that fines will be turned over to the United Mine Workers' medical and hospital fund would not soften the resentment of individual, hungry miners. Nor would it get them back to work.

Bankers and industrialists debated with heat. Cleveland Banker Cyrus Eaton, who wanted operators to negotiate with Lewis, lunched with him. So did Big Steel's Harry Moses. Eaton, director of the coal-carrying C. & 0. railroad, wanted to get the coal moving again. He was also vehemently sure that if the strike was strung out and coal shipments were completely stopped, European nations would be thrown into the lap of Communism. There was at least some basis for Eaton's international fears. All the world watched. In cold & hungry Asia, in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Saigon and Singapore, among the hopeless of Europe and the always hopeful of the British Isles the coal strike was front-page news.

Lights Out. The Civilian Production Administration turned its attention to consumers. Theater and store owners were warned that unless they dimmed their lights they would be subject to a $10,000 fine or one year in jail.

The nation dolefully watched as its recently hopeful reconversion record--with durable and nondurable production setting new records last month at 214% (durables) and 168% (non-durables) of 1935-39 average production--wobbled and sagged. Industry slowed down. By week's end, 675,000 (including 400,000 miners) were out of jobs as a result of the strike.

John Lewis sat and watched. Labor's uncritical friend, PM, regarded him "with repugnance." But there is no law against being repugnant. Nobody seemed to know what to do. The Lewis trial (see below) would settle very little; the real peace would come by dickering. While the nation and the world chafed and sweated, Lewis went his extraordinary way, insisting on his extraordinary right, if he liked, to be repugnant.

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