The Wilmington morning star., 1946-11-25
Lewis Ninth Strike

OOAAAA NO'N
United Mine Workers, goes into court
today to answer a contempt citation
charging that he failed to withdraw
his strike order when instructed to do
so by the government. While this hear
ing is under way, twenty-one states
have been told to observe the Drown
OUT as employed during the war, gov
errors of all states have been told to
the %dwindling supplies of coal
in their separate jurisdictions and
President Truman, back from his Florida
junket, contemplates calling a nonparti-
san conference to determine what steps
should be taken to get the miners back
to work in the pits.
In the meantime it is appropriate
to search out the seasons for Lewis
decision to call a mid-winter strike,
with all it's accompanying suffering for
private and industrial consumers. Be-
cause John L. Lewis is obsessed with
the ambition to be rated chief of all
labor leaders and dictator to the gov
eminent may we'll be considered one of
his reasons-probably his first reason.
Another is that a showdown on the
Krug-Lewls agreement, under which
the government has been operating the
mines since May, was inevitable sooner
or later, and Lewis obviously believed
he had a better chance of winning be-
fore the new Congress assemblies in
January, when labor legislation drafted
to control or to prevent just such situa-
lions as he has now created, would be
rushed through by the republican ma
jority. Lewis doubtless believes this the
last chance he will have to use the Tru-
administration to gain his OBJ
j%ective.
We may conclude then, that he call
ed the strike to satisfy his lust for
more power and secondarily to have a
with the government while
his existing power is unimpaired. That
hundreds of thousands, perhaps mil
lions, of workers will be idle and thou
sands of individuals subjected to i'll
ness because they cannot heat their
homes means nothing to this man.
He has failed to take into considera-
ton that whatever the nations de-
tendency upon coal has been in the
past, coal is not the only fuel available,
and as a result of his repeated strike
calls he is driving industry, hotels,
apartments and better-fixed home
to install oil burners. One mid
west railroad executive puts it in a nut
shell when he says: John L. Lewis is
the best salesman for o~il-burning diesel
locomotives this industry has ever
A prominent Chicago real estate
operator says most large apartment
houses are going to convert to oil as
soon as they can get equipment" "Peo-
pie can't depend on COAL" says the secre-
ta~ry-treasurer of the Oil Heat Institute
of America-"it's a mighty sick indus
Quoting from a survey by the Wall
Street Journal
The Philadelphia Electric Co. has changed
over two of its six plants from coal to Oil
within recent weeks, anticipating trouble
ahead in the coal fields. 1t plans to convert
to oil at another, and a fourth-at C%onowinso
is already hydro-electri~. The majority Of
Philadelphia's industrial plants depend on this
utility for electricity to power their machines
and assembly lines.
In the same city, two of the largest
laundries switched to oil shortly after the
springtime coal strike. mo more dependence
on coal for u.s." says an executive. of one of
these. That last experience was enough. It
took two weeks after the last strike ended to
straighten out our delivery schedules" Four
other Philadelphia laundries are now talk
ing OF a changeover in their fuel.
Ihls sentiment seems nationwide. Harry
Gilbert, president of the Boston Real Estate
Board, says there's no question the coal field
crisis is making apartment house owners think
more OF switching to oil. In Cleveland, K. l..
Bliss, properties manager of the Cleveland
securities Corp. says he completed conversion
OF the Commodore and Alcazar hotels last
week to oil.