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.

Henceforth--"Good Faith." He did not have long to sit. George Love who had held the operators together for nine months hurried to call on Lewis at Washington's Carlton Hotel. Throughout the negotiating, Lewis had never once stated his terms; but he was understood to want an increase of 15-c-to 35-c- a ton royalty for the welfare fund, plus a flat $15-a-day wage. The operators had already offered a 10-c- increase in the royalty; Lewis accepted. Love and Lewis finally agreed on a 70-c- increase in the wage scale, to $14.75 a day.

Operators agreed to wink at the union shop, though the miners have not held an NLRB election on it and a union shop is therefore illegal under the Taft-Hartley Act. The famed "willing and able" clause in this contract was changed to "good faith," i.e., miners would work only when Lewis decided the operators were acting in good faith -- a clause that gave Lewis the right to call out miners on a whim. The contract would extend until July 1, 1952, with the right to reopen for wage changes after April 1, 1951. Rumbled John Lewis proudly, "We have benefited all labor and we have benefited all citizens who live under our flag." This week the country's economy brushed off its knees (see BUSINESS). The miners, virtually pauperized, started back to work. Lewis' fight had cost them around $400 million in wages -- an average of around $1,100 each. The permanent damage to the coal industry, already groggy from constant conflict and losing more & more business to competing fuels, was difficult to assess. But the Marengo cam paign was certainly one of the greatest victories for burly 70-y ear-old John Lewis, whose formidable tonnage had not been washed away yet by any psychological waves.

-The nip & tuck battle in Italy which finally led to the capitulation of Austria to the Corsican conqueror.

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