The union times., 1948-04-24
By MAX LERNER Reprinted from The Newspaper PM)


 What would you think of engineers or techni- clans who brushed aside halfcentury of expert with the problems of production and insist ed on starting from scratch? And what would you think of military General Staff which proposed to return to the technology of the l89Os as the principal method of national defense? Both of them would be greeted by mountainous waves of disbelief and ridicule.
 Yet the fact is that this reversOn to the past is exactly what is now happening in the area of la- bOr relations Justice Alan ColdsborOughs victiOn of John L. Lewis and the Mine Workers is notable chiefly because it fouts the national perience of half century. When l look at it against the background of American labor history, the decision strikes of those grotesque tableaus of mummery and buffoOnery you might expect to at Gay Ninetes ball. Except that it is in dead earnest, and is a symbol of the way American labor relations moving toward dis aster.
 The Assistant Attorney General, representing the Justice Dept, spread lot of damning evi- dence the record against John L. Lewis. He showed pretty well that there was no strike trou- ble in the coal fields before Lewis proclaimed that the operators had voided their contract. He made good, if obvious, point that it was difficult to imagine 400, ,OOO men making individual deci- sions to stop work. And Justice Goldsborough was right in ridiculing the now classic Lewis telegram to the miners: Your voluntary cessation of work should now be terminated.'' In short, it would be hard for any sensible and realistic person to take seriously Lewis contention that he is not linked with the WalkOut in coal don't quarrel with any of these facts. And don't defend Lewis as a labor leader. On the pension question he managed in the end to get from Sen. Bridges, as impartial arbitrator, terms not quite good as he could have got in the beginnings without a work stOD- page, from Thomas E. Murray as arbitrator. That is not exactly brilliant labor leadership.
 But the question is not John L. Lewis skill as leader. 1t is not even, except in very narrow sense, John l.. Lewis deeds and misdeeds. It is the question of how you best organize labor rela- tiOns, not only in coal but in all crucial indus tries, at a time dangerous and anguished as ours The method used under the Taft-HartIey Act, of which the Lewis and the Coldsbor- Ough decision the dramatic instance. stands out an extraordinarily stupid and waste both social principle and social experience at a time when to ignore the principles and the expe- rence of democracy is to court disaster.
 The Record on the Experience
 Consider the record on American experience with the labor inunctiOn. The Norris-LaCuardia Act of 1882 passed because of the overwhelm- ing tide of resentment against ''government by in- junctiOn'-the use of the court in junction method break strikes and settle labor disputes. The sentiment from all sides, from Republicans well Democrats, from decent conservatives as well as from labor and the liberals. It mounted for the simple reason that decades of experi- the method of the labor injunction had proved dismal failure had increased disputes instead of settling them, had embittered labor rather than served to introduce order into labor relations. Now have this same system of blun- dering by injunction back again. Whatever Justice Coldsborough's of judicial integrity and no doubt it is high-he is starting again the old process of building up bitterness against the arbitrary power of the in labor disputes. It looks as if we never learn anything and never forget anything.
 The Taft-Hartley Act brought back the system of the labor-injuncton, and I can understand Justice Coldsborough saying that he is there to enforce it. He probably feels pretty cocky because the U. s. Supreme Court backed him up last March the earlier contempt involving Lewis And he also feels that the entire mai iesty of the law is involved and that he can make no compromises with that majesty. That is exactly