The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-12-11
BEHIND THE SCENES 1
 IN WASHINGTON
U. S. at Last BaIks at Bag Holding for Britain |. Lets London take Lead in Slap at Japan Fate of Lewis Labor Drive May Hinge on Guffey Coal Act Ship Men Reach for Federal Pie.
By RODNEY BUTCHER Democrat Washington COrres-
 pOndent

By RODNEY BUTCHER
 Democrat Washington COrres-
 pendent
 Washington, Dec. 1.-The cracks at Japan taken the same day by Sir Samuel Hoare, British foreign secretary, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull may be taken as an- other example of the close collabora- tion between the two nations in current international politics.
 But it wasn't by accident that Hoare's warning to the Japanese preceded HullS by several hours.
 MT. Roosevelt and MT. Hull have never forgotten how, in the Hoover administration, Secretary of State StimSon stuck his neck out while automatically jumping on Japan for her Chinese aggression - and was left holding the bag by Brit ish government from which he had every reason to expect support.
 So when British Ambassador Ronald Lindsey hot-fo0ted down to the State Department to discuss Japanese promotion of the SeceS- sion movement in North China, the conversation resolved itself in to something like "YOu first, my dear Gaston!" and You first, my dear AlphOnse."
 Sir Ronald asked what Hull thought about it. Hull asked what Sir Ronald thought about it.
 Eventually Hull planted the idea that this country wouldn't holler first or even simultaneously, but would follow up quickly if Britain would unleash the first blast. Which was what happened. Coal Act Vital to Lewis
 To a very large degree the fate of the new labor movement-the Committee for Industrial Organi- zation under President John Lewis of the mine workers and other ag- gressive union chiefs-depends on the fate of the Guffey coal conser- vation act before the supreme court.
 With the Guffey act-which Lewis helped push through Con- gress-in force, labor conditions in the bituminOus field will be relatively stable, union wages will, be paid, and Lewis, instead of hav- ing to worry about his own un- ion, will be able to devote time. money, and organizers to union ming steel, automobiles, rubber, and other basic industries.
 3ue invalidation of the act would break first prices and then wages. Which would mean that Lewis, the strongest leader = and representa- tive of the strongest union - in the new labor coalition, would need all his time, money, and organizers to hold his own union together and fight operators.
 Andrew Mellon's Pittsburgh Coal Company Largest in the world saw the point. Although that cor poration supported the Guffey bill before Congress, Lewis had hardly made his spectacular fight for 1n- dustrial union organization before the A. F. of L. convention in At lantic City than the company struck at Lewis by filing suit to break the act.
 Mellon is heavily interested in steel-the first industry which the militant Lewis group will invade. Ship Men Reach for Pie
 Into almost daily secret huddles go Shipping Board Director James c. Peacock, Assistant Secre- tary of Commerce John Johnson, and Postoffice Department Solicitor Karl A. Crowley.
 They are trying to work out a ship subsidy bill which can be pre- sented with the Roosevelt admin istration's blessing to the next Con- gress.
 Crowley, genuine fighter against graft in ocean and airmail contracts and author of the Farley report which found most of the latter contracts subject to cancel lation on grounds of fraud, hopes to write something like the cOm- mandment, Thou shalt not Steal!" into the subsidy act.
 Peacock and Johnson know just what the ship operators and build CTS want, however, and Crowley is having a hard time. They repre- sent the merchant marine philoSo- phy under the influence of which Secretary Dan Roper has had such phenomenal success in perpetual ing the Slimy shipping scandals of previous administrations.
 Behind them is the ship lobby one of the most grasping and ef- fectiye, if not the most vicious. ever known here.
 Plays for Big Grab
 The lobby is still trying to get into the bill a proviso that in case subsidies specifically permit ted turn out to be mot enough" for builders or operators, the new merchant marine board may give the concern as much more as it likes.
 Under some proposed schemes saeh large concerns as the Stand ard and Gulf Oil companies would Ae subsidized with taxpayers mon- ey to build tankers for themselves.
 The Postoffice Department has so often been scorned as the patron age agency or political pie counter