Reprieve

Federal Mediator Cyrus S. Ching, who hates to leave a nut uncracked, gave up on a tough one last week. He handed the coal mine dispute to the President and waited for something to happen. Nothing did.

Harry Truman, as he explained to reporters, felt that the time had not yet come to toss a Taft-Hartley injunction at the 480,000 United Mine Workers. John Lewis, it was true, had merely suspended his coal strike and was threatening to start it again Dec. 1. But there was no national emergency yet, at least as the President saw it. If one materialized, the Taft-Hartley Act would be trundled into use.

The mild wait-&-see attitude at the White House was not exactly what the mine owners had counted on.

Lewis seemed agreeably surprised, too, at this helpful gesture from Harry Truman, who has no more use for John L. than John L. has for him. White House aides had an explanation that accounted for the politics involved, if not the economics: the President, as the avowed pal of labor, was not going to get rough with labor or even with John L.--if he could possibly squeak by without doing so.

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