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Show Czar John L. Lewis Very few people realize what John L. Lewis has done to white-collar workers, to old people living on government pensions and to the rest of the labor movement. To get a bird's-eye view of Lewis' operations, you have to go back to the days of the New Deal when it was recognized that all old people in the United States deserved some kind of security. Accordingly the' social security act was passed, providing pro-viding unemployment compensation and old-age pensions. Today these pensions have become be-come most woefully inadequate, and one factor helping to make them so has been Lewis and his never-ending, inflationary demands for wage increases and miners' pensions. For instance, when Lewis gouges a multimillion-dollar welfare fund out of the mine operators, the operators op-erators in turn pass the cost on to the oldsters and everyone else in the country, whose pension then becomes be-comes less valuable. Thus the miners become a privileged class set aside from the rest of the American people. Not only do they get three and four times the pensions given ordinary citizens, but other citizens citiz-ens have to pay for the miners' pensions. Thus the widow who tries to make both ends meet on a meager government gov-ernment pension of $30 a month, has to help pay for the miner's pension of $100 a month because-the because-the increased price of coal is passed on to her. ANOTHER THING: Lewis now can bulldoze wage increases for the miners which certain other unions un-ions can't. For instance, the railroads rail-roads have their rates set by the interstate commerce commission. As public utilities they are not free agents to decide what they will charge the public. Actually, coal is just as much a public utility as the railroads. It is essential to the lifeblood of the nation. But while the railroads rail-roads are regulated by the ICC; the electric power and gas companies com-panies by the federal power commission; and the radio, telegraph and telephone companies compa-nies by the federal communications communica-tions commission, the coal Industry In-dustry remains unregulated. STILL ANOTHER THING: Private Pri-vate industry cannot get together and conspire to fix prices. To do so violates the Sherman anti-trust act. Yet Lewis can get all the miners to-gethei to-gethei from West Virginia to Utah, and from Ohio to Alabama, and present, uniform demands on all coal operators, big and little, mechanized me-chanized and unmechanized without with-out violating the Sherman anti-trust act. PREDICTION: 1. The Supreme court in a year or so will reverse its previous ruling and make labor la-bor unions subject to the anti-trust laws. 2. Congress, recognizing that the coal industry is just as much a public utility, as the railroads will set up a commission regulating both coal wages and coal prices. In other oth-er words, Lewis will kill the goose that laid his golden eggs. Special Session Some White House advisers are strongly urging the President to call congress back for a special session. They tell Mr. Truman that he should insist on enactment of major legislation, such as the Taft-Ellen-der-Wagner public housing bill, which, though blocked in congress, was indorsed in the G.O.P. convention conven-tion platform. Friends tell Mr. Truman that if G.O.P. leaders continue to block housing during the special spe-cial session, he then could charge them with failure to carry car-ry out platform pledges. Other advisers, however, have told Mr. Truman that it would be wiser politically not to call a special spe-cial session, but to let these Republicans Repub-licans stew in the juice of their congressional mistakes. . Since the President plans to make congress his No. 1 campaign issue if renominated, the latter is probably prob-ably what he will do. Ill-Fated Venture Harry Truman has taken a lot of ribbing about that failure in the haberdashery business. But the other day the President told on himself the story of how he had had still another ill-starred business experience as an oil prospector. Pie told the story to Frank P. Douglass, able boss of the national mediation board, who called at the White House to report that he had nothing to do with efforts of friends to get him named secretary of labor. la-bor. "I can understand your position," posi-tion," replied the President. "Ton know I was once in the oil business myself on a limited scale." Truman grinningly related how he had had an interest in two oil wells, both of which proved dry on the first drilling. "The project went broke and my partners and I were forced to sell out," he added. |