LABOR: Back to Work

The "sick" switchmen played out their hand to the bitter end. Some of the strikers responded to Charles Wilson's appeal to return (TIME, Feb. 12). But it took Harry Truman's stinging rebuke and the threat of a club to get the rest of them back and the trains running. The Army, theoretical boss of the roads since they were seized last summer, did what no private boss can do: it ordered the workers to work or be fired.

That did it. One of the most damaging strikes in recent years ended.

But the Railway Labor Act, once the model machinery for...

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