The Threat Comes True

Our economy is being gradually stagnated. As the days progress, tonnage will go off the railroads, factories will close and distress will come to the American people.

That was what John L. Lewis said a fortnight ago. He did not say it in sorrow or lamentation. He said it coldly--so coldly as General Carl ("Tooey") Spaatz had warned Germany of what the Allied Air Forces would do to the German economy and people.

Two weeks ago John Lewis' threat was a gambit in the war of nerves of his soft-coal strike. Now it was something more: a weapon by which he might win unusual gains. The master of strike strategy had made his moves slowly and cleverly. He had been careful not to arouse an apathetic Government and an even more apathetic public against himself--until he could exert the maximum leverage of all that his threat implied.

By this week--the sixth week of the strike--John L. had reached the crucial point in his strategy. His threat was coming true. Industrial stagnation had begun. Distress came in a rush.

"National Disaster." President Truman, warning the people of serious blows ahead, called it "a national disaster." Hundreds of factories closed; many hundreds more were about to shut down for lack of coal or materials. Partial paralysis was creeping over the rail lines. Belatedly, drastic measures were applied. The Government declared a rail freight and express embargo, effective May 10, on all shipments except food, fuel and a few other essentials. Most industries could no longer ship or receive materials. Rail lines were ordered to curtail passenger service by half, effective May 15. Several lines, close to the bottom of their coal piles, took off trains at once.

The great American productive machine was being throttled down. Steel production would soon be thinned to a trickle. Foundries went down in a wave of closings; soon almost every machinemaker would come to the last of his castings.

The Chicago area was under drastic coal and electric power conservation restrictions. Manufacturers and other large power users were cut to 24 hours of operation a week. Stores, theaters, amusement places were permitted only four hours' use of electricity a day. Large-scale layoffs of workers in the Chicago area had begun.

The wartime dimout was back in Washington, Philadelphia and some other cities. New York City's millions faced the prospect of subway service curtailment and a tightening food pinch.

The strike's effects extended to Europe. No U.S. coal had been shipped there in more than two weeks. Without coal, locomotives in France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy could not move food.

"Drunk with Power." Congressmen thundered denunciation of Lewis. Cried Virginia's Senator Harry Byrd: "[He is] drunk with power." Illinois' Senator Scott Lucas, usually on labor's side, said: "If this Government has not the power to outlaw strikes of this character, then this Government has no power of self-preservation."

Poker-faced John Lewis paid no heed, still played his hand slowly, deliberately. To Washington this week he called the United Mine Workers 250 policy-committee members. It was a play he had frequently made to get automatic approval of his strategy.

Pressure on the White House for Government seizure and operation of the mines grew by the hour. But there was serious doubt about how effective seizure would be. In 1943's seizure, miners had gone back to work after a plea by Franklin Roosevelt. But that was in wartime. In peacetime, the best disciplined union in the U.S.--an organization which makes the oldtime Wehrmacht look like a bunch of uncontrolled anarchists--would probably listen only to John Llewellyn Lewis.

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