Cunning John

In Wilmington, N.C., 15 Liberty ships, loaded with food and fuel for Italy, remained tied up at the docks. No coal. Around the country, open hearth furnaces began to shut down. Production of pig iron, the raw material of industry, gradually declined. Washington extended its 25% cut in coal-burning passenger locomotives to the country's coal-burning freight engines. Some 400,000 soft-coal miners had already lost $60 million in wages. At week's end the coal strike was in its 14th day.

Acting under the Taft-Hartley Act, the President appointed a fact-finding board. It was composed of Federal Judge Sherman ("Shay") Minton, onetime New Dealing Senator from Indiana; Mark Ethridge, liberal publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal, and Dr. George W. Taylor, professor of labor relations at the Wharton School of Finance, onetime chief of the War Labor Board. It was a board which could hardly be called prejudiced against labor. Taylor was a veteran of many coal disputes.

The board summoned the operators and John Lewis. The operators obediently appeared. But not John. Until he did, the Taft-Hartley machinery was stalled. Cunning John, who hates the Taft-Hartley Act, knew that the longer he delayed, the more the nation's coal stockpile would dwindle, the more effective his bargaining position would be. Meanwhile the nation could whistle for its coal, the miners could whistle for their wages.

This week John wrote a letter to the board pointing out the reasons for his "disinclination" to appear: "The cavilings of the bar and bench . . . will consume a tedious time. . . . Two members of your board [Taylor and Ethridge] are biased and prejudiced. . . . [Taylor] is inherently incapable of determining the distinction between a fact and a scruple. ... In attendance is Ching [Cyrus Ching, Federal conciliator], a truly remarkable man, who sees through the eyes of United States Rubber." The board read the letter and subpoenaed him. Still John declined to appear. Then Federal Judge Richmond B. Keech ordered him hauled into court.

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