The ferment of Labor activity which, with the President fishing and Congress loafing, continued to make most national news, reached a pipsqueak peak last week in Manhattan when, in effect, Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor went on strike. Actual strikers were most of the 135 employes of Fleischer Studios Inc., producers of Boop, Popeye and other animated cartoons. Shouldering placards displaying the cartoon characters and such legends as "We can't get much spinach on salaries as low as $15," they blocked the sidewalk in front of the Studio's building in Times Square, scuffled with police and non-strikers, got 14 of themselves arrested.
Meantime across the continent in Hollywood a shutdown of the nation's major cinema studios remained all week in prospect as 6,000 painters, make-up men & scenic artists and members of eight other crafts, allied in Federated Motion Picture Crafts, continued on strike for union recognition and closed shops (TIME, May 10). With the help of strikebreakers, cameras ground away as usual, but over Hollywood hung the ominous air of strike-torn Detroit. Strikers, working in three shifts of 1,000 pickets each, shuffled around the studios, scuffled with non-strikers, tried to intimidate actors and others passing through the picket lines by snapping their photographs for a "scabs' gallery." Worst violence occurred when a gang of 50 men with hammers and clubs raided headquarters of the International Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employes, Hollywood's No. 1 labor group, which actively opposed the strike. After the battle, five I. A. T. S. E. men were carted off to hospital with cuts, bruises, broken bones. When the striking unions, all affiliated with American Federation of Labor, protested against the strikebreaking activities of I. A. T. S. E., also an A. F. of L. member, and demanded nation-wide picketing and boycott of cinema theatres, A. F. of L. President William Green replied that the strike was "not authorized." Ever alert to win converts, John L. Lewis promised the strikers the full support of his C. I. O.