I Wandered Lonely .. .

Members of the A.F.L.'s beefy executive council had cat-footed through the first stages of their convention in San Francisco, nervously aware of a cloud, no bigger than a ham, hanging on the horizon. The cloud was John L. Lewis, eleventh vice president of the A.F.L.

John was determined to take the A.F.L. headlong into a struggle with the Government over the Taft-Hartley Act. The council was just as opposed to the Act as he was, but unwilling to fight on John's line, which was a technicality over signing an anti-Communist affidavit. The council members wanted to avoid the issue by wiping out their titles of vice president, a technicality which would relieve them of legal responsibility under the law. What would John do? One raucous day last week, he strode to the platform and thundered: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the. corn." Then, for 58 minutes, while President Green blinked and occasionally closed his eyes (see cut) and while gallery squatters yelled, "Pour it on," Lewis sizzled and poured.

Stately Asses. He called the Taft-Hartley law "the first ugly, savage thrust of fascism in America," and shouted: "Is it true that the leaders of our movement are to be the first to put their tails between their legs and run like cravens before the threat of [that] bill?

"I am reminded," he said, "of the biblical parable, 'Lions led by asses' ... intellectually fat and stately asses. . . .

"I will not be a candidate for election to this debased [executive] board. Perhaps you will say, 'John Lewis is trying to hold a gun to the head of the convention.' I don't think that the federation has a head. I think its neck has just grown up and haired over."

Belly-Crawlers. John had indeed tried to hold a gun at the haired-over neck, but it didn't go off. Uncle Dan Tobin, boss of the teamsters, rose up to cry: "Delegates and fellow belly-crawlers . . . the Brotherhood of Teamsters never crawled in their lives." George Meany, ex-plumber and secretary-treasurer of the A.F.L., declared:

"Of course the president of the United Mine Workers has upheld the position of the United Mine Workers in regard to Communism. With his right hand from 1935 to 1940 [when Lewis was boss of C.I.O.] he has upheld the position of the United Mine Workers in uncompromising resistance to Communism; but with his left hand he made a fellowship with Harry Bridges, Julius Emspak, Michael Quill, Lew Merrill,*and all the other stinking American-haters who love Moscow."

Meany sat down amidst loud applause, the "delegates overwhelmingly passed the motion abolishing their vice presidents.

When the time came for the formal election of the 13 council members, John L. had disappeared. He would have nothing to do with a "debased, denatured and dehydrated council." Daniel Tracy, boss of the electrical workers, was elected to his place. John L. had failed in his effort to dominate the A.F.L. But he had, as usual, held the spotlight.

*Bosses respectively of C.I.O.'s longshoremen, electricians, transport workers. Merrill recently retired as president of the office workers.

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