National Affairs: Cunning John

In Wilmington, N.C., 15 Liberty ships, loaded with food and fuel for Italy, remained tied up at the docks. No coal. Around the country, open hearth furnaces began to shut down. Production of pig iron, the raw material of industry, gradually declined. Washington extended its 25% cut in coal-burning passenger locomotives to the country's coal-burning freight engines. Some 400,000 soft-coal miners had already lost $60 million in wages. At week's end the coal strike was in its 14th day.

Acting under the Taft-Hartley Act, the President appointed a fact-finding board. It was composed of Federal Judge Sherman ("Shay") Minton, onetime New Dealing...

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