National Affairs: Two Other Fellows

The Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes Act—the great trap which Congress designed to bring John L. Lewis crashing down into captivity—was a confessed failure. Having dug the pit in anger at the series of coal strikes called by Lewis in 1943, Congress was now filling it up in quiet shame.

In every respect, the Smith-Connally law had proved one of the most inept pieces of legislation in U.S. history. It had left John Lewis free to pursue a more arrogant path than ever, because it set up the machinery for dramatizing strike threats. It had angered labor, had prevented no strikes. It had...