The Wilmington morning star., 1947-03-12
PeglerS Sees 1t
By WESTBROOK PEGLER

Dy OAAoO L M
Copyright, by King Features Syndicate, Inc.)
John L. Lewis may seem erratic and con.
Trajectory in attacking the national govern.
ment as an armed policeman for the coal
industry and it would take a bold and grace
less interpreter to try to read constituency into
his attitudes since the first new deal. AT
present he condemns the seizure of the mines
as a step toward the specialization Of private
industry. The authority to do this as a war
time expedlent was even more angrilv op-
posed. however, by capitalists, at a time when
Lewis seemed to approve this lie galistic strata.
gem. AS an emergency measure, the govern
ment was authorized to seize and operate any
facility necessary to the war effort at which
a labor dispute arose. That meant that il
any minority of communists threw a picket
line around a newspaper, the government
might take 1t over and send a general and
a staff of specialists to edit and publish the
paper. Thus we would have an official govern
ment press censored and edited by the Army.
In the Montgomery Ward seizure in Chi
cago, the War Department detailed to- the
ludlcrous little army of occupation as press
officer a newspaper reporter, then a lieu
tenant-colonel, who had been in civil life a
member of the American Newspaper Guild
and thus a member Of the CLIO, which had
caused the labor dispute and brought about
the seizure. His press releases appear to have
been fair but they could have been political
harangues and the company would have been
helpless.
The objection then was that the government
could and did seize properties and operate
them because unions had. created disputes.
There was no such authority to seize a union.
Any union, theoretically, could cause the seiz-
ure OF almost any property merely by kicking
up a plainly artificial row with the manage
ment.
Now Lewis repudiates the whole business
and puts the mine owners in the position of
oenetlclarles Of a trick that was originally
rugged in favor of the unions over the pro-
tests Of property owners.
Lewis is a republican. having gone over tn
Wendell Willkie in the 1910 campaign. Before
that. he had been a Roosevelt democrat. To-
day, he would write, if he could be persuaded
to do his memoirs, a ~contemptuous opinion
of Roosevelt, giving him little credit for any
Of 'labor's gains" the actual validity of
which is now being argued so fiercely in COM
mlttee hearings. Lewis loyal n obedient
subordlnates contend that Lewis, not Roose-
welt, deserves credit for the advances in the
miners pay. The rank and file would not be
unanimous on that. Many Of them still be-
HeVe Roosevelt was their great friend. But
few of these would deny Lewis a great share
of the praise.
There has been a legend that Lewis himself
donated $500, 900 of the mine workers money
TO the second Roosevelt campaign in 1886.
Lewis then was still a fstrong, though not
necessarily loyal, Roosevelt man. Loyalty
would suggest personal devotion. which he
would deny. He would put it otherwise. He
would say that he favored a president who
was at that time helpful to unionism for prsc-
teal reasons Of his own and with no credit
to Roosevelt for idealism.
Lewis can correctly deny that. he made this
OFT If y-ar ittho,I- L..
mlre workers convention in February, 1886
The resolution said Roosevelt had upheld
human rights, called him 1.-The greatest hui
manltarlan of our time" and
that the international executive officers. led
by Lewis, of course, be authorized to make
such contributions as might be necessary to
reflect him. Lewis and others were author
lied to call on Roosevelt and tell him so
and, pursuant to this resolution, the miners
did give $500, 900 to the campaign fund. Once,
during the campaign, Roosevelt sent Harry
Hopkins to the union office to make touch.
The miners never got any of it back.
Lewis would insist that this demonstration
was that of a great parliamentary BODY ex-
pressing the vii! OF the members, not obedient
10 orders from the top. Yet John controls by
appointment the administration of about two
thirds of the districts of the UNIV. Under
this system apparently consistent with the
union constitution. John runs the union and
permits no impudence. He is a consummate
apple-polsher. for he maintains his popularity
among the miners by fighting for them. He
%lustltles his government of a controlling group
of districts of the UNI. W. by pointing to him
self as a diligent worker who simply will not
tolerate loafing Or incompetence in others. If
they shlrk, bungle or steal. out they 20. but
always In the interests of the rank and file.
The fact that this method permits him to
control the entire union is incidental.
During the rise of the CLIO. with Lewis
as chairman the mine workers contributed.
one way and another, more than 81, 900. 900
to pay the expenses of organizing industrial
unions. In 1912, after Lewis had quit the
CLIO, the miners presented a bill for reim-
bursement. Almost 81. 1000, 900 of this repre-
sented "SerVlces of executives, field directors.
trained organizers, attorneys and other such
costs.
One paragraph said, 1.-The chairman of the
clio. negotiated each of the several loans
with the secretary-t1easurer of the United
Mine Workers."
But Lewis was chairman of the C.LO., ne
g%otlatlng with his own secretary-treasurer of
the M. w. and the loans were made by au-
thorlty of the executive board, which he con-
trolled, approving their own actions, all under
their ''constitutional powers 1t was an inter-
locking directorate making sad loans to a
hobby of President Lewis.
The public has never seen a detailed ac-
counting of the expenses of organizing the
CLIO. In those riotous days in Ohio, Penn
sylvania and Michigan, when communists an
peared on all the fighting fronts. Lewis then
was suspected of conlmunistic leanings but he
has since fought the communists and in an
earlier phase he threw them out of the n,ina
workers.
So if Lewis is inconsistent, then he is con-
sistently John L.. Lewis.
A few days ago. in repartee with Senator.
Taft. he said: Its a question whether vo,,
want to create liberty Or security, h Sou
fers elderly now, rejecting .securitv.,p g.
a sort of bondage under socialism. hit ths a.
1886 resolution authorizing the none fox
Roosevelts c.mpalen distinctly said: the