Whither Lewis?

What John L. Lewis, as a potential man of destiny, thinks is a matter of great concern to his friends and enemies. In the course of a career filled with action rather than ideas, he has rarely decided on tomorrow's problems today. But John L. Lewis, having cut himself adrift from old-line organized labor and far offshore from the President on whose election he spent half a million, now revolves in the centre of a swirl of social forces that cannot go on swirling indefinitely. If he wants to dominate these forces, he must soon decide not only for what ends, but also how they are to be achieved.

Last week, at the invitation of British Broadcasting Corp., Mr. Lewis disburdened himself to interested Britons in the fourth of the "America Speaks" series inaugurated last month by Secretary Ickes. Much more interested than Britons, however, were Americans who listened carefully for an answer to the question, "Whither Lewis?"

Prophet of Doom. Sitting in his huge office in the United Mine Workers' new, half -million -dollar headquarters, John Lewis thinks expansive thoughts and formulates them into the resounding sentences so suited to the undulating rumble of his voice: "The fabric of culture which has been built up by mankind through enduring centuries of painful toil and sacrifice is menaced today as never before. . . . America is menaced, not by a foreign foe that would storm its battlements, but by the more fearful enemy of domestic strife and savagery." Certain it is that Mr. Lewis' horizon is broad. He is concerned with "the future of endangered civilization," "the ideal and practice of human freedom," "our responsibilities to the future of our race."

In specifying the nature of the menace, Mr. Lewis, a former Republican, offered as sweeping an indictment of capitalist economy as has ever come from a labor leader who is not an avowed Marxist. "We do not intend that our children shall starve in the midst of plenty," is the familiar Leftist battle cry which the C. I. 0. chief raised last week. "Hundreds of thousands of the people of this nation have for years on years been exploited, oppressed and denied the exercise of those rights guaranteed to them under our Constitution. . . . They have been little more than industrial serfs. . . . Thirteen million Americans are now unemployed. Their numbers are steadily increasing, as the nation drifts with terrifying and deadly sureness to the never, never realm of financial bankruptcy, economic collapse and human tragedy. This is appallingly true, despite the fact that Government has dipped into the public purse to make possible the granting of huge subsidies to industry, agriculture, banking and finance. . . . Our national internal economy has attained the amazing condition where it appears that practically all of our major enterprises are unable to exist or function on their own resources. . . . America is moving in economic reverse."

"Council of Reason." How long we have been going backward Mr. Lewis does not say. But in apportioning the blame, he goes back only to June 1937. Since then: ". . . Neither industry nor Government has come forth with constructive proposals designed to meet the problems of the depression. The Federal Congress, lacking adequate or competent leadership . . . has failed to devise or enact a single statute that would cause a glimmer of hope to penetrate the minds of millions of despairing Americans. . . ."

"Reason calls for a change," Mr. Lewis insists. But this change is no revolution. "It is time for capital to recognize labor's right to live and participate in the increased efficiency of industry and the bounties of our national resources. It is time for labor to recognize the right of capital to have a reasonable return upon its investment. It is time for statesmen to recognize their nation's peril and to decide to cooperate with labor and industry. . . . Labor is willing to co-operate--now. Let the leaders of the nation's business step forward. Let the statesmen of the nation do the same. Let the council of reason and mutual toleration be convened."

When the council of reason meets, labor's interests will be identical with those of the country as a whole: "The future of organized labor . . . is in a broad sense the future of America . . . [the workers] desire to benefit not only themselves, but all other citizens of this country. . . ."

But just what Mr. Lewis would have labor propose to the council of reason is still either his secret or his unsolved problem. However, Washington observers agreed with the Baltimore Sun's J. Fred Essary that Mr. Lewis' speech to the British Empire was "his most sensational bid for both labor and political leadership in this country and his most savage attack upon the Administration."

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