The union times., 1946-09-21
Elect Friends Is Nationwide Slogan of A.F.L.
LBegins Block-By-BIock Campaign To Bring Out
 Voters For Election

 ganized labor in every section Of the country turned on the steam this week and intensi- fled it's political activities more than ever before, with the Mo- vember elections less than three months away.
 Intensely aware that the Repu5li- can Party is "Set for a kill' nation ally and desperately determined that the new 80th Congress shall not be the same sort of anti-1abor wreck ing crew that junked almost every piece of progressive legislation this year, AFL and CIO unions in every state have frightened their lines and consolidated forces.
 AFL Intensifies Work
 AFL unions in cities from Oregon to Florida have organized house-by- house and block-by-block campaigns to see that citizens get out to regis ter and vote. AFL President Green and international union leaders, brand ing the 79th Congress record "shame- ful", have urged AFL members in every part of the country to turn out the vicious Congressional reaction aries and elect friends of labor.
 Veterans organizations were also preparing to make their weight felt behind progressive candidates in the November elections. The American Veterans Committee campaign for Every Veteran A Voter" was spark ed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, IT,, son of the late president and a member Of the AVC's planning committee.
 Declaring that ''veterans are on the march," Roosevelt said, "A new day is dawning in American pOI- ties. From Central Falls, R. l., to Athens, Tenn, to Milwaukee, Wis.,, to every district tnd precinct in the country veterans are running for office, managing campaigns, mak- ing the entrenched machines fight for their very political life. Vet erans appear to be voting in 'blOcs' for their own candidates" ROOse- welt said. ''Wherever veterans have concentrated on their own pre- cincts, wards and districts, they have met with success"
 Primaries and party conventions throughout the country ran true to form. In New York the well-oiled Re- publican machine renominated Gov. Thomas E. Dewey and named Irving M. Ives, state Assembly majority leader, as candidate for senator. The Democrats, set for the toughest bat tie in decades, nominated Sen. James Mead for governor, and former Gov. Herbert Lehman for senator. Mead, who gained nationwide fame during the past eight months for his vigorous exposure of war profteering, won the support of PAC and receievd an ova- tion at the AFL state convention that exceeded Dewey's although the con- vention refused to go on record in support of either candidate.
 Dewey, with his eye on the I948 presidential nomination, told the at Saratoga Springs that the big issue was between the Re- publican Party and dictatorship of either the fascist or Communist brand.
 The American Labor Party, of New York, joined the Democrats in Mead and Lehman at the ALPS convention in New York City. The party's platform denounced the of "reactionary Demo crats and Republicans dominating the 79th Congress that blocked every bill to put into effect the Roosevelt eco homie Bill of Rights" The ALP charged that "This combination -hwarted a long-range housing pro- gram, a 65 to 75c minimum wage, permanent FEPC, an anti-poll-tax pill, an anti-lynch bill, a national health insurance program and pro- oosal for supplementary insurance benefits. It callously gambled with the tate of the nation and the living stand ards of the people by emasculating price and rent control in the interest of reckless profteers."
 Labor just missed having another in the Senate when Rep. Howard Smith (D., Va.), one of the worst reactionaries in Congress, lost lis bid to fill the unexpired term of he late Senator Glass. The Virginia tate Democratic convention meeting n Richmond named Rep. A. Willis Robertson on the third ballot. Smith, ,o-author of the notorious Smith -onnally Act, was opposed by both AFL, CIO and railroad brotherhoods the state RobertSon's nomination, in this poll-tax state, is to election.
 Herbert Scored
 In Louisiana, CIO, AFL and inde- ,endent unions were gunning for Rep. :, Edward Herbert, who has boasted 'f perfect anti-labor and anti-price ontrol voting record in Congress. Practically all unionists are backing Sidney Massicot to ouSt Herbert.