The Wilmington morning star., 1946-05-14
Fair Enough
BY wEsTBRooK PEGLER
Copyright by King Features Syndicate, Inc. }

OF all the LOUD ABUSE OF John L. Lewis on
the occasion Of his latest disturbance OF ma
tional economy, convenience and peace, the
most impudent and hypocritical outburst
comes from Harold Ickes.
Mr.. Ickes says Lewis is arrogant and in
s%ultingly dictatorial. These compliments come
from a man who has described himself as a
curmudgeon, meaning an avaricious. misery,
churlish fellow and, by extension, a surly one,
boorish and Inbred. Thus the defects of one
personality are balanced by those of the man
who points them out and SO, with repartee dis
posed Of. we may proceed to the truth.
From Mr.. Ickes, a member of the cabinet
throughout the Roosevelt rule, we now hear
that Lewis collects and disburses the dues of
the coal miners at will, that he hires and
fires MS subordinate national officials with
only a pretense of electoral process and that
President Truman ought to ''put him in his
place."
This is a new frame of mind in Ickes, for
Lewis was ever thus, even when he and Ickes
and the late President Roosevelt were politi-
cal allies.
In 1886, Lewis contributed half a Million
dollars from the miners treasury to Roose-
velt's campaign fund. This was done arbitrar-
lily but the money was welcome and Ickes
publicly raised no question.
Throughout the organizing campaign of the
CLIO, Lewis again arbitrarily and Wilfully
dipped into the miners treasury for money
to promote the fight. This campaign degener-
ated into violent instruction against local and
state governments in Ohio, Michigan and
Pennsylvania in which Communists led organ
lied combat teams, factories were Quilted,
whole cities were terrorized and lives were
lost. This was no affair of the coal miners.
Their union was legally supposed to exist for
the sole purpose of bargaining with their en-
ployers. Instead, however. their treasury was
financing a gigantic new political and econom-
ic power which was to be the ally of the
Roosevelt party. Ickes held his tongue.
At a certain stage, Lewis left the American
Federation of Labor and fired William Green,
its president, from the office of secretary
treasurer of the United Mine Workers. This
was an early notorious example of that whim-
steal hiring and firing of subordinate national
officials. Ickes indignation was controlled.
In 1910, having upbraided Roosevelt for in
gratitude for his $500, 900, Lewis supported
Wendell Willkie. When Willkie was beaten
Lewis resigned the presidency of the CLIO,
which paid no salary. He Withdrew mis- miners
from the CLIO and thus ceased to pay the
Clio a per capita tax of about $50, 900 a month.
Furthermore he sent a belated bill to the CLIO
for money advanced from the miners treas
ury to finance the organization campaign.
Philip Murray, a vice-president of the min.
ers union, insisted that this money had been
a contribution, not a loan. Lewis fired him
as he had fired Green, and Murray became
president of the CIO. BY this time, Ickes
should have been aware that Lewis handled
the money, wifully and hired and fired SUBJ
ordinate officers in the same way.
And now, Mr.. Ickes calls on President Tru-
man to put Lewis in his place"
What place?
Isn't Lewis in his place right now? And
who put him there but Mr.. Roosevelt with
the hearty cooperation and approval of Mr..
Ickes?
lckes was deeply implicated in the creation
OF this Frankenstein monster and all others
like him. Some of these others, similarly Gre
ated by the Wagner Act, have tied up the
natlon's reconversion in automobiles, %electri-
cal goods and communications and are now
Threatening strikes across the country on the
railroads, in the seaports and on American
ships everywhere. To date, by the same arbi-
trary. Wilful, dictatorial process, they have
dissipated the savings of millions Of wartime
workers and returned veterans, and by Great
ing an artificial shortage of goods have been
largely responsible for initiation and black
markets.
The only difference between Lewis and these
others, against whom no criticism is heard
from Ickes, is that Lewis is the ablest of
them all. He knows his legal rights, received
from Roosevelt. He stood toe-to-toe. with
Roosevelt and made him quit cold repeatedly,
even in war time. And he licked Ickes every
time they met.
Ickes' denunciation of Lewis is an admis-
sion that the Wagner Act gave him too much
power. Others, more honest than Ickes, warn
ed of that 10 years ago and were damned
as reactionaries and labor-baiters and Ickes
led the abusive chorus. Tbs only way to put
them all in their place is to remodel the
law.
Lewis should be thanked, not abused for
this dramatic and possibly disastrous demon
stration of the evil of the Wagner Act.
He demands a ton-royalty on coal payable
to the union which means, as Ickes saws IN
Lewis, to be spent as he pleases, even to
elect a Republican in 1948.
But why not?
Inc law allows him to do that and all other
unloners to do the same.
Dld Ickes, the miser, ever waive his legal
right to a dollar? Look to the probate records
IN Chlcago for your answer. Did the Roose-
Velts? Look to the inquiry at Albany which
pun the proposition that Roosevelt died on &C
tive military service and asked whether his
estate therefore wasn't exempt from the in
come tax.
The basic trouble in the current Lewis case
IS that he has refused to bargain with the mine
owners.
Well, why should he bargain if he doesn't
want to? The Wagner Act says he doesn't have
to bargain although the employers must.
They planned it that way" Roosevelt
Ickes and all the rest.