In Jasper County

Great is the name of Maytag in Jasper County, Ia. In Newton, the county seat, is Maytag Co's 14-acre plant, where last year some 1,500 workers turned out $16,984,966.28 worth of Maytag washing machines. In Newton, too, is many another reason why the memory of the late Frederick Louis Maytag still is green. Newton's 11,500 residents get their water from a Maytag-built system, their electricity from a plant which he established. They play in a $450,000 Maytag park, have a $1,000,000, air-cooled Maytag hotel, office and opera building. Their sick are tended in a $200,000 hospital which he sponsored. Their children may attend three Iowa colleges which he aided financially. Newtonites who on Frederick Louis Maytag's 75th birthday in 1932 were working for The Maytag Co. shared a $153,000 gift from him. After he died last year, 79, rich and full of good .works, some 200 Newtonites got legacies of $1,000 to $50.000. All Maytag employes of three years' standing who missed out on the birthday largesse received $1,000.

In these circumstances, Son Elmer Henry Maytag, president of the company, might have expected to escape labor trouble. But another name is also great in Jasper County. John Llewellyn Lewis was born 50 miles southwest of Newton 58 years ago, has in Jasper County much strength and one of the oldest locals of his United Mine Workers. So last year beneficent Maytag, caught in the union wash, signed a contract with C. I. O.'s United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America.

That contract having expired, and President Maytag having displeased his workers with a 10% wage cut, the company has been deep in labor trouble since May, was in deeper than ever last week. And so were the union and all Newton. After persuading 350 sit-inners to surrender the plant, Iowa's Governor Nelson G. Kraschel proposed that they accept the cut and return to work, was promptly turned down by the union. At that, Newton officialdom and business went into action. Businessmen asked Sheriff Earl Shields to recruit 1,000 deputies, encouraged a back-to-work movement which by last fortnight claimed 611 adherents among Maytag workers.

Said Chamber of Commerce President Frank Drake: "Newton is not big enough for The Maytag Co. and the C. I. O. The businessmen have decided they'd rather have The Maytag Co." For standing up for the strikers, Congregational Pastor E. A. Remige was asked to resign, did so last week, saying: "I have simply maintained there are two sides . . . but one can't say that in Newton without getting into trouble." For contempt of court in connection with an injunction restricting picketing, the union's young (27) international president, James B. Carey, and two other officials, were fined $500, given six months in jail, told by Judge Homer A. Fuller that they need not pay a cent or serve a day if they called off their strike. As astounded by this remarkable punishment as attorneys in Judge Fuller's courtroom, C. I. O.'s Carey appealed, chose imprisonment but was released on bond, announced: "I was faced with six months in jail . . . [or] a lifetime with my conscience. . . ." This week an arbitration board set up by Governor Kraschel proposed that Maytag take back all hands at full pay, pending negotiation. Maytag having refused, back-to-workers went back to work, strikers continued their strike.

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