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Fifty thousand soft coal miners were on strike in Pennsylvania, the Federal Government's whole recovery program was on the verge of being engulfed in a tidal wave of labor disputes, one evening last week as National Recovery Administrator Johnson climbed into a trimotored Army plane in Washington and flew off for a midnight meeting with President Roosevelt at Hyde Park. When General Johnson woke up next morning in Poughkeepsie's Nelson Hotel the coal strike had been called off for the time being. The recovery program was again moving forward on an even keel. By his night flight General Johnson had not only patched up a strike truce but had also hornswoggled out of Capital & Labor a high-sounding agreement to keep the peace while he did his NRA job. Almost overnight the Pennsylvania coal strike had flared up from a local ruckus in Fayette County to a national menace. Trouble started with H. C. Frick Coke Co., a subsidiary of U. S. Steel Corp. A few thousand Frick workers joined the United Mine Workers of America and struck in protest against the formation of company unions. The issue was whether the non-union Frick company would recognize the national union. It would not — on orders from the non-union U. S. Steel Corp. The strike spread so rapidly that many a miner was left down the shaft when his fellows abruptly walked out above ground. Because steel production had been booming for weeks, necessitating coal mine operation at full capacity, strikers had plenty of cash in their pock ets. They walked out as if on a summer spree, full of noise and good cheer and enthusiasm. Governor Pinchot ordered guardsmen to Fayette County to help keep the peace (TIME, Aug. 7). By last week the strike had closed every Frick mine in the county. Other companies were beginning to feel its pinch. Some mines of great Pittsburgh Coal Co. had to shut down. So did others belonging to Bethlehem Steel. Operators were in a panic. As most of them are Republicans, they felt politically stranded without a friend at Democratic court. They knew their old hard-fisted methods of fighting a strike with armed guards would not put their men back to work this time. Therefore the mine guards slouched at their posts while strike pickets romped all over company property, bearing U. S. flags, singing, jeering the guards. One picket was shot dead by irate deputy sheriffs, three others were severely wounded, two dozen others slightly injured. Scores of boisterous strikers were arrested for dis orders. And still the strike spread. General Johnson headed into the vicinity of this disturbance last week when he went to Harrisburg to deliver an NRA "pep" speech. Taking Pennsylvania's labor troubles and the stiff-necked anti- union attitude of mine owners as his text, he cried: "I don't see why blood should flow and men refuse to talk to one another when the whole world is trying to get to gether. You can't get together with a man by throwing stones at him. I'd talk to the Devil himself if I thought there was a chance of making hell cooler. These few fierce local troubles will seem to the rest of the country like some one blowing a fire siren in the midst of a symphony concert!" After his speech General Johnson was invited to take the coal strike into his busy hands, try to settle it before it swept out of the State into the Midwest fields. He agreed. Buttonholing Governor Pinchot he