The Stomachs Decide

The dingy yellow brick union hall at Monongah, W. Va. was thick with tobacco smoke, the smell of close-packed bodies and the growls of discontented men. "My wife told me this morning to let's have us a showdown and with that I am agreeing," shouted an Italian coal digger. "Let's strike in the old way--no contract, no work." The 1,500 miners packed into the tawdry room and another 500 clustered outside in the cold afternoon air cheered robustly.

The miners around Monongah, as in many other shires of John L. Lewis' coal kingdom, were balking at a "suggestion" made by the boss they had followed so faithfully so many years. Impatient with his desperate fumbling of negotiations, 90,000 miners, most of them in western Pennsylvania, had stayed away from the pits last week. Big John advised them to go back to work--on a three-day week--while he continued his battle with the operators. And, to see that he was obeyed, Lewis had rushed troubleshooters into the mutinous areas. At first, operators skeptically discounted the mineworkers' mutiny. After all, they had been fooled before: Reported revolts had too often proved to be just another of wily John L.'s bargaining tricks.

A Bitter Cry. But this time the mutiny seemed real. Organizer Rinaldo Capellini, who had been sent over from Fairmont to talk to the Monongah miners, fidgeted on the platform while the rank & filers hooted and ridiculed every suggestion that they return to work. They weren't turning against John L. Lewis: but they did want him to change his tactics. They were tired of seven months of the lowpaying, exasperating three-day week, broken by some total stoppages. The miners wanted either full-time work with a contract or a full-time strike against the coal operators, who since June had stubbornly held out against the U.M.W.'s contract demands and finally had begun to withhold payments from the miners' welfare funds.

After listening restlessly to their com plaints, Organizer Capellini took the floor. "Brothers," he began, "don't forget that the enemies of this great union split us once before . . . We've sent telegrams to your locals telling you to get back to your jobs." A bitter, taunting cry rose from the miners; somebody flung an obscene suggestion at him and Brother Capellini lost his temper. "These Hitlerites, these hunchback leaders who are trying to take you out on strike . . ." he foamed. The miners broke into a roar and surged towards the speaker. There were cries: "Git the S.O.B. gitim, gitim!" The miners' district leader jumped to the microphone to quiet the crowd. "I forgive him," he shouted. "He just didn't know what he was saying." While the miners grumbled in indecision, the district boss banged his gavel, adjourned the meeting and escorted Organizer Capellini to his automobile. Capellini got out of town.

An Old Shoe. At Brownsville, Pa. 40 miles from Monongah, 3,000 men of John Lewis' District 4 gathered the same day to rail at District Leader William Hynes, threatened to dump him in the Monongahela River and dusted one of his lieutenants with an old shoe for trying to talk them back to work.

Union leaders decided to put it up to the men. With their credit being shut off by the company stores and their cupboards bare, the diggers were invited by their leaders to choose between no pay and the skimpy pay of three days' work. "Let your stomachs decide," was the advice of Leader Hynes as he ordered a poll of the rank & file. By week's end, the stomachs had decided. About one-third of the rebellious miners decided to go back to the pits and trust in the maneuverings of King Lewis, unrewarding and incomprehensible though they were. Another 57,500, staying on strike, still had no stomach for John L.'s tactics.

In Washington, portly Robert Denham, general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, tried to stop John L. Lewis with the Taft-Hartley Act. He went to court at the urging of the operators to get a court order against the three-day week. He got little thanks for it. As a West Virginia miner said: "Paper don't cut coal." Said Harry Truman: Denham is on his own. Said Robert Taft: "We didn't intend to give anyone the right to send people back to work--except when there's a national emergency--when no contract exists."

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