Potpourri

P: In Pittsburgh, Secretary of Labor Davis addressed the 47th Annual Convention of the Amalgamated Association of Steel, Iron and Tin Workers. He recalled his 35-year membership, hailed the new day of cooperation between employer and employe, admonished the workers to "ease up on such strict rules" as charging the employer a full day's wage for a one-hour job.

P: The Berwind-White Coal Co., big Pennsylvania operators who supply the Manhattan subways, reduced wages 20%. Workers have apparently accepted it on the grounds that the lower wage scale will permit regular operation of the mines, hence greater pay in the long run. The Company has always insisted on open shop.

P: A Strike of the Masters, Mates and Pilots' Association at Baltimore became effective. The 640 members of this association work the harbor tugs and tow boats. They demanded a raise from 56.7 to 80-c- per hour for masters and from 37 to 65-c- for mates. Ship owners declared that, in many cases, as long as fair weather prevailed, they could get their ships in and out of port without tugs.

P: John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers, flatly refused a request of Western Pennsylvania and Ohio coal operators for a meeting to discuss a downward revision of the existing wag? scale. "Nonunion competition is driving us out of business," said operators. "Anything but wage-reduction," said Mr. Lewis, in effect.

P: At the first luncheon-meeting of the Round Table, organized by the National Civic Federation, executives and working men ate side by side in the Roosevelt, new Manhattan hotel. "Eliminate Waste--Minimize Controversy," was the catchword. The speakers: Herbert Hoover; William Green, who succeeded the late Samuel Gompers as President of the American Federation of Labor (TIME, Dec. 29) ; Gerard Swope, President of the General Electric Co. (TIME, Feb. 23, BUSINESS) ; D. L. Cease, of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Marcus M. Marks, veteran clothing-merchant and labor-arbiter.

P: Some weeks ago (TIME, Mar. 2), the new President of the American Woolen Co., Andrew G. Pierce Jr., told stockholders that the company "would devote its time to the manufacture of woolen goods." He is keeping his promise. Last week, he abolished the Company's Department of Labor, which cared for the workers' welfare, published a magazine called The Booster, provided nurses and physicians for the sick, gave all employes' children a free two weeks' holiday at beautiful summer camps. All of these were hobbies of former President William Wood and his son, the vice-President, who resigned, recently, about the time the company "passed" a dividend.

It was also announced, unofficially, that several hundred workers' houses in the model village of Shawseen, Mass., would be sold at auction.

Subsidiary organizations, such as an electrical plant, a laundry, a dairy, a lumber company, were also expected to be sold or abolished.