, 1943-09-02
This Bourbonic Plague
By LEWIS 0

BY LEWIS BOOTH
rTVHE ACTIVITIES of John Z. Lewis in the past four
years have shown him to be opposed to the best inter-
: ests of the plain people of the nation and the world.
A pre-Pearl Harbor isolationist of the Wheeler-Nye
variety, Lewis, like Wheeler and Nye, seems bent on sabo-
tagging the war effort, stymying plans for a democratic peace,
scuttling any and all postwar blue prints which have a
democratic complexion.
Unstable John |: Lewis wooed and lost President Roose-
welt and Wendell Willkie. Now Drew Pearson tells us that
Lewis is aiming a cupid's dart at Governor Tom Dewey.
Dupont is another lame that has been added to the
Dewey presidential bandwagon. Third richest family in
the u. S-Ford and Rockefeller are one and two-and,
perhaps, the most potent family in the world today, the
duPonts, evidently concur with John I. Lewis in believing
that Roosevelt and Wilkie are progressive, that Dewey
is safe"
nosedive, and the General Observation-Disclosures boom
can't get started, Spokesman for the forces of black reaction
are planning to draft ostentatiously modest Mr.. Dewey.
Dewey's close associates call the duPont-Lewis en-
dorsement unfortunate" Political observers call it "two
strikes on Dewey" Others, more outspoken, consider it the
kiss of death.
Much public interest is being shown in the Religion and
Labor Mass Meeting to be held at Island Park Bandshell,
Sunday afternoon, Sept. 5.
Featured speakers for the occasion are A. F. Whitney,
president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and
Ava W. Taylor, executive secretary of the Southern Noun
tain Workers.
Whitney, known far and wide as one of the great, indie
fatigable liberals in the labor movement, has for more than
uIty years liSnuug liz Ddtue U tue ptdtu people O
the nation. The silver-haired, rudy veteran seems to thrive
on the daily brickbats he receives from the reactionaries,
because when I saw him at Washington last month he was
looking more clipper than ever. He had just come from a
private conference with President Roosevelt, who had asked
him to help settle some untoward labor problems on the
west coast.
Whitney's message at the Religion and Labor Mass
meeting is certain to be important and apt to excite much
comment. Not by any stretch of the imagination could this
man be called a mincer of words. Intensely a~nti-fascist, fear
less as all He'll, Whit never fails to call a spade a spade.
Alva w. TAYLOR. educator, author and world traveller,
is recognized as a fighting progressive in the field of educa-
ton, and a militant laborite. A doctor of social ethics, he
has served on the faculties of some of Americas great uni
versnies. Taylor is best known to Daytonians as an editorial
writer for the Christian Century, but he comes wellrecom-
mended as an inspiring and forceful speaker.
Recently in Washington at a luncheon chiefly for church
and labor leaders this columnist tried to define a course of
action for labor and the church, most of all attempted to
show the direct mutually of interests.
Perhaps a part of what I said there would have some
bearing on the forthcoming Dayton meeting of Religion and
Labor:
THE function of the church must be to increase the
sociology of the community, the nation and the world. The
church must take God away from the cartel kings, chambers
of commerce and the MAN, and return Him to the people.
1.-THE function of laborliberal leadership can only be to
help the common man-regardless of the color of his skin
or the shape of his nose-become the Hammer, instead of
the Anvil"