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But the strike had not been settled. Fayette County miners, suspicious of the truce, refused to return to work at once. Over the weekend Leader Lewis worked frantically to regain control of his men, implored them to honor his signature on the armistice terms. Animosity was directed principally against the Frick mines whose reopening, under threat of renewed picketing and warfare, had to be post-poned one day. The Fayette County sheriff talked of appealing for U. S. troops to maintain peace. To prevent a recurrence of the Pennsylvania coal troubles elsewhere NRA appealed to the country for a moratorium on strikes and lockouts. Approving this, too, the President declared it was "on a par with Samuel Gompers' memorable War-time demand to preserve the status quo." Appointed by him to adjust NRA labor troubles was one more board chairmanned by New York's Senator Wagner. Labor's Windfall. Despite the President's declarations, the all-important issue of unionization behind the coal strike and many a lesser strike in other lines throughout the land had only been postponed. That issue grows directly out of the National Recovery Act where, written into law, is Labor's right to organize and bargain collectively. How it is to exercise this privilege is one of the toughest questions put up to General Johnson. The great "open shop" manufacturers of steel, rubber and automobiles have their answer: company unions. The American Federation of Labor has its answer: national unions. Therein still lies the biggest germ of dissension in the whole NRA program. For the A. F. of L. the National Recovery Act was a windfall second only to the World War. In 1916 U. S. organized labor had about 2,800,000 members. By 1920 it had more than 5,000,000. This gain was not due to improved conditions inside trade unionism but to favorable outside factors, including a limitation on immigration, the absence of millions of regular workers with the A. E. F., a Democratic administration at Washington that pampered Labor as a means of keeping up Wartime production. After 1920 the A. F. of L. began to coast downhill. In boom times workers felt they did not need to belong to a local to get a job. With Depression they discovered that even their union could not provide them with work at a good wage. By 1932 U. S. trade union strength was back at its pre-War level and the prestige and power of the A. F. of L. severely deflated. Air-tight organization was maintained in only four fields—transportation (the "Big Four" railroad brotherhoods, outside the A. F. of L.), building trades, printing and the theatre. The rest of U. S. industry was pretty much wide-open shop. Plant Unions. The National Recovery Act, with its collective bargaining pledge, sent the A. F. of L. rushing headlong into open-shop industries to organize its own unions before employers could corral workers into company unions. Under the law either type of union is legitimate so long as it is the one workers want. A. F. of L. organizers hurried from plant to plant, harangued prospective members, offered to reduce or waive initiation fees if they would only sign up. In some cases they even misled workers by telling them they had to join national unions to get NRA benefits. In the South they claimed 150,000 enrollments in 30 days.