The midland journal., 1946-05-24
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CLIO LEADERS MANEUVER
TO GUST COMMUNISTS
ByRAUL MALLON

movement within leftWlng labor 70
shake off the Communists is being
quietly helped by the White House.
What is behind it can now be set
forth as follows:
Since Mr.. Byrnes firmed his back
against further Russian encroach-
ments in world affairs, the more
radical CIO-PAC crowd has been
arousing criticism against President
Truman and the administration -.
or was until lately. Statements and
speeches from the southpaw people
took the Moscow line on pending
International issues, adhering to the
same technique as when a union
picketed the White House to call
Mr.. Roosevelt war monger for
helping Britain before Russia was
invaded, and more recently when
the state department was picketed
by union urging custer of Mr..
Byrnes for opposing Russia.
The latest rousing of criticism got
under Mr.. Truman's skin, as well
as some very big union labor hide.
Important labor leadership imme-
diately became involved in an in
ternal conflict, the ramifications of
which have not yet been disclosed.
The CIO-PAC director, Sidney Hill
man, has been conspicuously laying
low, while some unions in CIO have
been taking steps to revise their
constitutions to bar Communists
from office and membership. Hill
man has close relations with the
American Labor party in New
York, for whom the Communists
have been the most active doorbe1
ringers and vote-fxers. Apparently
this element of labor hates to lose
its Communist schemers with an
election campaign in the offing.
MURRAY TIRED OF IT.
But CIO Pres. Phil Murray is re-
ported getting tired of Communist
use by CIO-PAC, or what might
more accurately be called Russian
use of them for international policy
purposes. Some labor authorities
report him cool toward Hillman,
suggest Hillman may be replaced
as head of CIO-PAC or predict a
showdown between Murray and
Hi1lman.
Regardless of these reports, any
level eye can plainly see Mr.. Hill
man is caught in an enigmatic
whirlwind. If he let's the Com
munists go, he may lose his organ
ization; if he keeps them, the or
ganization may crack.
/ would not be surprised if the
White House aided in the cracking,
strange as this may sound. Latest
appointments of an undersecretary
and three assistants in the labor
department went the AFL way. CIO
has one labor undersecretary and
is pressuring Truman through him.
The latest appointments, however,
have been followed by reports that
AFL no longer intends to split adj
ministration patronage with CIO on
an equal basis, but will see what
it can get for itself.
Then AFL is going into the south
to organize unions on the greatest
scope of opposition it has yet pre-
sented. CIO plans in the south are
supposed to call for 200 experienced
organizers working under leader
ship of the Textile Workers union,
men who have been trained in the
Hillman school of action. In COM
petition with this activity, AFL is
planning an even greater organiz-
ing campaign in the south, and the
catch-all district so of John L. Lewis
has marked out an anti-CIO organ
izing campaign to get in all the
loose unions otherwise unclassi-
fable in AFL.
INTENSE RIVALRY COMING
Thus an intense organizational
rivalry is springing up which may
reach its bitterest proportions in the
fields of textiles, telephones, chem
icals and plastics. say these are
apt to be the sharpest fields be-
cause few observers expect the
rivalry in the south to be of great
industrial consequence. In the first
place, there is not much industry
in the south which is not already
organized one way or another. The
field there at least is limited by
comparison with the greater in
dustrial sections of the country.
Southern organizing. especially the
CIO-PAC kind, is apt to cover politi-
cal activity (ousting of southern
congressman and senators who have
resisted labor legislation) rather
than develop any great new num-
bers for the unions.
Out of this high pressured situ-
alton, observers are commonly pre-
dieting a new wave of many hum
dreds of small jurisdictional strikes
during coming months, and pc
riod of exceptional labor unrest.
want to find the man who
changed UNO to UN.
UNO is a collection Of letters in
euphonious order conveying the
thought of unity. 1t is not cumber-
some. It is accurate for the 'United
Nations organization"