LABOR: What Do You Think?

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For the first time since last May, before the strike in "Little Steel," John L. Lewis last week called at the White House. He was closeted with the President for nearly three-quarters of an hour—a far longer time than any White House visitor is likely to remain unless the President is eager to talk to him. Only twelve days previous in sonorous phrases unmistakably intended for the ears of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the leonine Mr. Lewis told the nation: "It ill behooves one who has supped at Labor's table and who has been sheltered in Labor's house to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both Labor and its adversaries when they become locked in deadly embrace." Since during the steel strike the President had called down a "plague o' both your houses" it looked as if John L. Lewis and Franklin D. Roosevelt had finally broken.

That relations between Mr. Lewis and the President were running the normal course of creditor and debtor appeared last winter during the automobile strikes when the C. I. 0. chief bluntly reminded the Democratic Party that his United Mine Workers had contributed $500,000 to last year's campaign fund. For his pains he got a public rebuke. The split was widened by Mr. Lewis when he demanded that the Administration chastise the Southern Democrats who were scuttling the Wages & Hours Bill. For the past two months the stories about an imminent break have been inspired by none other than John L. Lewis. Meantime William Green has been a more frequent and conspicuous White House caller—a fact which has not helped the C. I. O. organizers in the field. And then came last week's meeting.

Whether it signified a return to warmer relations only the participants could say. To the press Mr. Lewis called it "a very pleasant conference." Asked whether the President called him "John," the Laborman growled: "What do you think?"