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Show Brucltart't Washington Digest i Lewis' Violent Blast at Garner j Wrecks Influence as Labor Leader I!c-ciitmi-rit Sjrrail.-i Quickly and Things IJegin to Hap- J pen; Reaction in Hon-: I.aljor Committee Starts; Slrcnglliejn V ice l're.iiderit's Political Position. Ily WILLIAM EIIUCKART ' VVNU Service, National I"ress liltl?., Washington, D. C. j WA.'.lflNOTO.';. Thi.-re htive been .o many iiinijiirr-s in hLtury win-re , r i r act or onf? cxpr'-s uri, or one urn i i-.ion, has chant!'''! the course of ( Vi-nl i that it is ni'i'c'.sary hi re to make mention only that such things ha; n. Kvcrymc has seen them. In only a few instances, however, have tlioa: on the scene been able to make a guess as to the far-reaching far-reaching con.'iequences. On the other oth-er hand, a number can be recalled which obviously were going to raise cam from the start. It is one of the latter type about which I write now. When John L. Lewis burst forth with nnt'ry violence and referred to Vice President Garner as "a labor-baiting, poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, whiskey-drinking, old man," he wrote "linis" for his long career as a labor leader. lead-er. Kvon with his ability to shake his bushy hair and wrinkle his beetled bee-tled eyebrows and evolve the most biting of all language into a description descrip-tion of his enemies, even with this capacity and a million or so workers work-ers paying him dues, John Lewis is through as a political inlluence in behalf of organized labor. It is not meant here that Lewis will not continue to shout and tear his hair and accuse everyone of being be-ing unfair to organized labor; he still has his vicious tongue, and he is still president of the Congress of Industrial In-dustrial Organizations. As long as he has that title he can go places and make speeches and drive home threats and yell "bloody murder," and, of course, he will get newspapers newspa-pers to print his statements. What I am saying is, however, that Lewis has created such resentment around the capitol building as seldom has been seen, and instead of having weasel congressmen obey his dictates, dic-tates, their greetings to him hereafter here-after are likely to be of the thumb-to-nose variety. Reaction Comes Quickly In House Labor Committee As an illustration of how these things react, mention may be made that immediately after the Lewis eruption of political lava, the house labor committee decided to go forward for-ward with legislation amending the federal wages and hours law amendments to which Lewis was violently opposed. True, there was no member of the committee had the guts to give Lewis a call-down in the hearing, but they did' vote to send the legislation to the floor for debate and. in elTect. tell Lewis to take his marbles and go home. It was the second time that Lewis has pulled stupid boners, actions so dumb that they seem inexplainable when they come from a man who has had the build-up given Lewis as a labor leader and politician. It will be recalled how, a year ago, Lewis walked into the oftiee of Speaker Tiankhead of the house, and announced an-nounced what the house must do about some labor legislation. Mr. Bankhead, a thoroughly level-headed Democrat from the deep South, fixed things right up for the labor leader to make sure that Lewis would lose out. One would think that Lewis would have learned his lesson from the dictatorial arrogance arro-gance he displayed on that occasion, occa-sion, but he came back for more. Perhaps, the circumstances of the Lewis statement should be related to give a clear picture of the consequences con-sequences that seem certain to flow from his personal attack on Mr. Garner. The house committee invited in-vited Lewis to appear as a witness wit-ness to give the C. I. O. views on the amendments that were proposed. pro-posed. Lewis spent a few minutes in discussing the text of the amendments amend-ments and then launched into a sour-puss sour-puss tirade about the Democratic party. He asserted that the party, after having accepted labor's gifts C. I. O. having supported President Koosevelt with money and men in both presidential campaigns had : now turned out as a traitor. He argued that he never had looked for help from most of the Republicans Republi-cans but had believed the Democrats Demo-crats would stick by him and his dues-paying workers. But through the lust year or more, however. Lewis found someone in the Democratic party who was ."searching for the heart of labor" and that individual, he shouted in red-faced anger, is "a labor-baiting, poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, evil old man. named Garner." The vice president was the "genesis" cf a great campaign against labor, so Lewis declared. News Travels Rapidly and Then Things Begin to H appen Well. I have witnessed fast traveling travel-ing of news around the halls of the Capitol many times, but I never have known word to get from ofnee to office and to the far corners of every building any faster than the Lewis statement. And things began be-gan to happen Before the afternoon was over, the T'-xas delegation had met and had taken a resolution condemning Lewis Lew-is arid expressing the "deep resent- merit and indignation" at his "bitter, personal attack" upon the vice president. pres-ident. There was talk around the house and senate later about a proposition prop-osition to bar Lewis from any further fur-ther appearance before congressional congression-al committee hearings but that faded fad-ed away. Nevertheless, my guess at this stage is that if and when Lewis does appear before any congressional con-gressional committee again, he will be subjected to a grilling that will tan him to a deep brown. Now, thus far, this column has dealt only with Lewis. There is more. Wherever politicians gathered around Washington during the week following the intemperate action by Lewis, one could not fail to hear conjecture as to its elTect upon the movement to make the vice president presi-dent the Democratic , presidential nominee next year. The feeling was almost unanimous that "Cactus Jack" could have had no better break, politically. That is to say, an attack by Lewis, who led the sit-down sit-down strikers and who has been tied in like a hand in a glove with certain cer-tain of the radical elements, could not fail to swerve voting support behind Garner. Most of the politicians politi-cians know now that the C. I. O. is a crumbling and disintegrating mass of badly led workers. Throughout the rural areas and in the small towns, he has hurt the cause of union labor .beyond compare. Factions of Democratic Party Split Further Asunder The influence of the Lewis statement state-ment does not stop there, however, for there is a definite cleavage in the ranks of the majority party already. al-ready. It is to be remembered in this connection that the backbone of the Democratic party has been the "solid South." The South, generally gen-erally speaking, has clung to conservative con-servative ways and modes of living and has maintained traditions which have served its people well. That viewpoint is quite contrary to the New Deal and to the President's advisors of this month. Nor have the President's advisors enjoyed the knowledge that a lot of Mr. Garner's friends have been pushing him very hard for the party nomination in 1940. Naturally, these folks around the White House are the leaders in the plan to have President Roosevelt Roose-velt seek a precedent-breaking third term. They do not like to see a man become too popular or who might oiler real resistance to a Roosevelt nomination. From these facts, it becomes more or less obvious that the Lewis attack at-tack on Mr. Garner constitutes something of a bombshell in splitting the two factions of the Democratic party further asunder. With the Lewis record of support of everything every-thing new dealish, it cn not fail to convince voters of the brand of Garner Gar-ner democracy. There is still a further phase or sphere of influence to be mentioned. Mr. Garner has long been knovn as a conservative Democrat and he has long been powerful in the councils of his party. To enter upon an assumption, assump-tion, then, that he may be the Democratic Demo-cratic nominee next year, where does that leave the Republicans? Republican Re-publican leadership has been steering steer-ing to the right, to the conservative side, as far as they have shown their hand. The question t,o be asked after that statement is. where does that leave the New Dealers? Lewis Does More Harm to Labor Than Any Other Man One could follow these questions on down into the state political situations situ-ations and a merry time would be had by all. I have no guess as to which way the thing will come out. Probably Mr. Garner will not be the Democratic nominee at all. But these conjectures I have been making mak-ing have been thrown more as proof of the assertion that Lewis demonstrated demon-strated his lack of political ability than for any other reason. And in making that statement I still entertain enter-tain a belief that Lewis has done more harm to organized labor's cause than any other one man in America. One has only to realize that the Lewis prestige already was on the down grade. The leadership he ha been exerting has been shown in its true colors. When these are coupled with the fact that he stooped to make the personal life of a national figure the subject of his remarks, some think he started the machinery machin-ery to drive himself into oblivion. I have known Mr. Garner many years. I believe there can be no question about his integrity. His ability long has been recognized. If, then, by any chance. Mr. Garner should be the Democratic nominee, where does that leave John L. Lewis? Lew-is? From this rail fence, it appears that Lewis has led his faction of union un-ion workers into another blind alley. (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) |