(3 of 5)
At length deciding that to face John Lewis, the man-eater of the Mine Workers on the stage of the Rialto would only add indignity to misfortune, Bill Green called in reporters. He gave them copies of a 4,000 word defense he was sending to Washington. Denying the treason charge "unqualifiedly and without equivocation," Miner Green spoke over Miner Lewis' head to the rank& file and their pocketbooks. He asked as a union "stockholder" by what authority the U. M. W. board had loaned $2,000,000 to C. I. O., adding: "It is a serious matter to stockholders when the entire tax for six months, every penny and every dime, is turned over to the C. I. O. for other purposes."
Expulsion? If Mr. Green is ousted by the United Mine Workers, labormen were prepared to see that expulsion followed by others. For a big faction of the A. F. of L. Executive Council is eager to expel the now "suspended" C. I. O. unions. Indeed, Mr. Green and the rest of the A. F. of L. Executive Council were in Miami to ponder just such action. And their temper was not improved by another cavalier peace offer from John Lewis. With tongue in cheek he purred to his Mine Workers:
"If the American Federation of Labor want peace I will recommend to the 4,000,000 members of the Committee for Industrial Organization that on the first day of February 1938, they march into the American Federation of Labor horse, foot and dragoon. . . .
"If that proposal be not pleasing to the American Federation of Labor we offer the alternative proposal that on the first day of February 1938, the entire membership of the American Federation of Labor, horse, foot and dragoon march into the Committee for Industrial Organization. . . ." After a little chuckle, he asked: "Fair enough? Fair enough, boys?" The miners clapped, and then uprose to howl approval as they got the point—that with C.I.O.'s voting strength John Lewis stood to win either way. Even Bill Green in Miami chuckled when he heard the proposal—and dismissed it as "impossible."
From the start A. F. of L.'s strategy against Lewis has been to split off C.I.O. unions, undermine him with his rank and file. Only real progress made in that direction has been to make David Dubinsky, head of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, impatient of Lewis' failure to make peace (TIME, Jan. 10, et seq.).
Offsetting the Dubinsky gain, A. F. of L.'s Teamster Tobin last week blamed the A. F. of L., in part at least, for the collapse of the peace negotiations. But the question of war and peace hung mostly on the division within the A. F. of L. itself. In the Executive Council a man's importance depends on the number of votes he can command. Moderate Matthew Woll (who all last week was in touch with C.I.O.'s Moderate Dubinsky) has only 8,700 photo-engravers behind him. Moderate George Harrison has the backing of 135,000 railway clerks. But Lewis' implacable enemies number such men as William ("Big Bill") Hutcheson who alone pays A. F. of L. the dues for 300,000 carpenters.