Citizen & Sovereign

On several occasions during the hearings, John Lewis had had to reassert the majesty of his person. On Wednesday, when a cameraman tried to take his picture he swung his cane and dented the cameraman's reflector. On Friday, when a bailiff had the temerity to tell him to take off his hat as he stalked back into Judge T. Alan Goldsborough's court after lunch, he simply ignored the fellow. He removed his coat, folded it with exaggerated care. When he was good & ready, he took off his large hairy black hat and sat glaring in front of him, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth to dislodge leftover particles of his lunch.

Lawyer Joseph A. Padway, barrel-shaped and bull-voiced, had taken up the morning with his arguments for the defense. The presence of Padway, A.F.L.'s brightest legal light, gave John much inward satisfaction. The A.F.L. hierarchy might hate and fear Lewis for the way he had assaulted them in the past, but they had to come to his support on an issue like this. Padway was the big opening gun in the battery of defense.

People in Cemeteries. Lewis needed a big gun. It was a hot legal spot where he sat. Despite a contract with the Government (nominal operator of the coal mines since May 21), he had sent his miners out on strike. Judge Goldsborough had tried to restrain him from doing just that, but he had done it anyhow. So Goldsborough had charged him with contempt of court. Now Padway was trying to prove that, because of the Norris-LaGuardia anti-injunction act, Goldsborough had no right to issue the restraining order, therefore Goldsborough could not hold Lewis to have been in contempt. In short, said Padway, the court had acted outside its jurisdiction.

"The court is the judge of its own jurisdiction," said the judge.

"If that is so," orated Padway, "not only should Mr. Lewis be punished for contempt but his lawyers as well, for we advised him wrongly."

Smiling Judge Goldsborough recalled a story: "Harry Sinclair once said he acted the way he did because his lawyers told him to. He was reminded by the judge that 'the cemeteries are full of people who took their doctor's advice.' "

People in Servitude. From his carefully prepared brief, Padway, a labor lawyer for 31 years, traced the history of injunctions in the U.S. For years management had made full use of that weapon, persuading the nation's judges, backed by the militia and the police, to enjoin labor from making any offensive move. The practice became so notorious that Congress tried to limit it in 1914 with the Clayton act. But the judges were reluctant to give up their power. In 1932 Congress tried again with the Norris-LaGuardia anti-injunction act.

"I was in Congress at the time," mused Judge Goldsborough. In fact the judge voted for the bill, Padway recalled. The act specifically outlawed use of injunctions in a labor dispute. Wasn't this case a labor dispute? "Calling it a labor dispute does not make it one," said the judge.

Gradually the arguments came down to that: was the case actually a labor dispute? And did the Government, as the "sovereign," come under the jurisdiction of the Norris-LaGuardia act?

Padway, attempting to prove it a labor dispute, pointed out that terms and conditions of employment were involved; that the Government seized the mines last spring under the War Labor Disputes act; that Government operation of the mines is actually a legal phony.

For good measure Padway argued that the restraining order also violated constitutional rights --the right to picket, for instance--and subjected men to "involuntary servitude."

John Lewis sucked on a cold cigar cupped in his hand, occasionally yawned, occasionally belched.

Expert Witness. The Government's case was argued briefly by young (34), handsome John Sonnett. Once he caused Lewis' lawyers to sit up straight. He quoted what Lewis himself had said about the Krug-Lewis contract, under which the miners had gone back to work after last spring's 59-day strike. Posing with Krug for the newsreels, John had proclaimed: "It settles for the period of Government operation all the questions at issue." Wasn't Lewis going back on that statement when he demanded in October that the Government discuss a new contract--and when the Government balked, pulled a strike? Lewis chewed his cigar.

As for the Norris-LaGuardia act, Sonnett recalled what onetime Congressman and labor expert Fiorello LaGuardia had said during the 1932 debate: "I do not see," LaGuardia said then, "how in any possible way the United States can be brought in under the provisions."

The Judge Rules. After two and a half days of argument, to no one's surprise, Judge Goldsborough ruled that Judge Goldsborough had been well within his rights when he had tried to restrain Citizen Lewis. In support of himself he quoted law author Henry Campbell Black:

"General words in a statute do not include nor bind the Government by whose authority the statute was enacted, where its sovereignty, rights, prerogatives or interests are involved. . . ."

Said Judge Goldsborough: "In this case what society, what the sovereign power, was endeavoring to do was hold . . . the labor union from taking the contemplated action which would amount to a public calamity, until there could be a judicial determination of whether it had the right to take such action."

John Lewis, who had challenged that sovereign power by defying it, would have to stand trial for contempt.

John's face was a grey, unsmiling mask. This week, he silently clumped back into Goldsborough's small, dimly lit court. The trial for contempt was little more than an unloading of technicalities. It was pretty clear that Judge Goldsborough's mind was made up. This week he found John Lewis guilty of contempt. Lewis' legal position now was really hot. But his bargaining position got better every day as the coal mines remained empty.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.