LABOR: Back to Papa?

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If old Sam Gompers could speak from the grave, he undoubtedly would tell his heirs in U. S. Labor to get shut of the Wagner Act, of Federal Wage and Hour regulation, of all dependence upon courts, politics and politicians. Until he died in 1924, the founding father of the American Federation of Labor preached that unions should trust first & last in their own economic might, never in transitory laws and governments.

Last week Labor had the look of an errant youngster who suspects that pa was right. A. F. of L. and C. I. O., concluding their respective conventions in Cincinnati and San Francisco (TIME, Oct. 16), were a-twist with statutory cramps. Each had fattened on the Wagner Act; neither was ready to go all the way back to Sam Gompers and confess that what ailed them was an overdose of law. Both blamed the National Labor Relations Board for their gripes, each complained that craven administrators had favored the other. But angry John Lewis and his delegates came close to admitting that they knew the cause of the Labor pangs in C. I. O.'s belly. Said they: "Since the enactment of the [Wagner] Act organized Labor has been inclined to rely far too heavily upon the law. . . . This convention commends to all C. I. O. affiliates a most sparing and considered use of the Wagner Act in the future."

Compared to these signs of a dawning suspicion that Papa Gompers had been right, all else that Labor did in its final convention week was of minor importance.

The Federation:

>Declined to wrap Franklin Roosevelt and his whole New Deal in a blanket endorsement, elected the Carpenters' arch-Republican William Hutcheson first vice president of A. F. of L.

>Tacitly rebuked William Green for pledging A. F. of L. to support the President's neutrality program. The convention approved cash & carry sales to warring nations, stayed neutral on repeal of the arms embargo.

>Put snow-haired, weeping octogenarian Secretary-Treasurer Frank Morrison on pension ($6,000) after 43 years of service, replaced him with 45-year-old President George Meany of the New York State Federation of Labor.

>Reelected President Green to his 16th (and perhaps his last) annual term in the office which Sam Gompers held for 41 years.

C. I. O.:

>Pointedly failed to answer, much less heed, Franklin Roosevelt's renewed demand for Labor Peace.

> Warmly approved John Lewis' cry: "War will not come because the Congress may juggle the words in the Neutrality Act. War for America will come only as a result of developing circumstances which convince the American people that there is no other alternative. If this be true . . . it is then futile and absurd for the Congress . . . and the population of the entire country to become confused and convulsed in a discussion of the varying definitions of actual and assumed neutrality. . . . No other citizen has knowledge which equals the President's knowledge of the facts which concern . . . peace, war and neutrality. The President's program upon neutrality should be supported . . . the caviling should cease."

> Icily suggested that if Mr. Roosevelt wanted C. I. O. support for his domestic policies, he should also support C. I. O. aims in toto—a flat indication that Lewis & Co. are not confirmed Third Termites.