Hip & Thigh

John L. Lewis' defiance of the President jarred the whole U.S. From left & right, commentators smote him hip & thigh. Cried the pinko New Republic: "The magnificent megalomania of John L. Lewis has reached its apogee." The cartoonists of the nation with almost unexampled unanimity took their pens and demolished him (see cuts).

In the House, Texas' Sam M. Russell, lank and rawboned, making his first full-dress speech, rose to accuse Lewis of treason, added: "Surely common sense dictates that we can't allow dictator-minded individuals ... to stifle the very breath of our vital industries. ... I feel that now--not next year . . . but now. we should prepare to deal drastically with such men as John Lewis." Virginia's tall, dour-faced Howard Worth Smith summoned some 30 fellow Democrats to his office. They arrived with stealth, dripping with fury, to debate how they might push through Congress one of the many anti-strike bills already in the Congressional hopper.*

The public temper could be judged by a Gallup poll, taken before the coal-mine dispute. Even before John Lewis staged his Ajax-defying-the-lightning act, 73% of voters agreed that the Government should forbid strikes in defense industries. Report of a survey taken among union members themselves should have given Labor Leader Lewis pause. Workers voted 56% in favor of forbidding defense strikes; only 39% were opposed; 5% undecided.

* Among dozens of proposals: measures to mete out life imprisonment, even death to those who foment strikes in defense industries. Only bill that has a chance of being acted upon: the Vinson Bill, which allows the Mediation Board to freeze the status of a plant, pending the Board's decision on a dispute provides for a 30-day "cooling off" period.

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