With the flat firmness of an operator saying, "Your time is up," nearly 340,000 of the country's telephone workers pulled the plug on the nation's long-distance calls this week. Labor Secretary Schwellenbach had called a last-minute conference of union and company officials. Union Attorney Henry Mayer cracked: "Mr. Schwellenbach thinks he pulled a rabbit out of the hat last year [when he settled a strike within a half-hour of the deadline]. He doesn't realize he is struggling with a horse this year."
Minutes before the deadline—6 a.m., Easter Monday—Schwellenbach's last appeal was spurned. In Manhattan's dawn Miss Eileen McDonnell removed her...