LABOR: The Marengo Campaign

LABOR The Marengo Campaign For John Llewellyn Lewis the week began in acute suspense. It ended in one of the greatest victories of his thunderous career, after a battle which John pompously compared to Napoleon's bitter campaign on the plains of Marengo*

For the third time in its history, his United Mine Workers had been brought to trial for contempt of court. A conviction could have forced his union to pay a daily fine until it purged itself of the charge by getting its 370,000-odd soft-coal miners back to work. Such an order might have bankrupted the U.M.W.'s $15 million treasury; at least it could have brought John Lewis to his knees.

In a federal court in Washington, Assistant Attorney General H. Graham Morison presented the Government's case:

The U.M.W. had shown only "token compliance" with Federal Judge Richmond Keech's order to send the miners back to work. It was self-evident that the strike was inspired and directed mass action. "It is simply unreasonable to assume that 372,000 men in 28 different states could have acted as individuals in exactly the same way and at exactly the same time."

Argued the U.M.W.'s frog-voiced little Lawyer Welly Hopkins: it was not unreasonable at all. Each miner, sore at the operators' refusal to come to terms with Lewis, had simply laid down his tools and refused to work. As for complying with Judge Keech's order, the U.M.W. was also "disappointed" when the men didn't do as Lewis had twice told them and go back to work.

John Lewis—who handpicks his local officials, uses goon squads to maintain order, and ordinarily brooks no defiance from his aides—lugubriously denied outside of court that he had any more real power than any other citizen of the U.S. "Tomorrow a psychological wave might pass through the minds of the mine workers and wash away whatever influence I have."

Judge Keech decided that the union was innocent.

Waiting Game. "It may be," the judge said, "that the mass strike of union members has been ordered, encouraged . . . or in some wise permitted by means not appearing in the record; but this court may not convict on conjecture."

The court recognized the theory that a union "must be held responsible for the mass actions of its members." But in effect he absolved the union from actual responsibility for its members so long as union officials appeared to be doing their best to keep the men in line.

The decision stunned Government attorneys and operators. The miners had worked out a way to beat the Taft-Hartley Act injunction, which was designed to handle labor disputes in a national crisis. While Welly Hopkins received the congratulations of friends, President Truman took the only course that was still left open to him. Shaking his finger with mild indignation at the union and the operators, he asked Congress for authority to seize the mines. The power he asked for could put the mines under Government ownership until July 1, 1951. With such a chilling prospect before the operators, Lewis knew that all he had to do was sit back until they came to him. He knew furthermore that the operators' united front was cracking. His strategic waiting game was all but won.