Cook Triumphant

A tense earnest little man whom Britons no longer fear, left London last week for Moscow, insignificant in a rumpled ulster, downcast beneath a worn felt hat. The midwinter Channel was unkind to him. The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, fled snow-clad and inhospitable past his window. Once he had been "Emperor" Cook, the man whom all England looked upon with fear lest he precipitate a strike so vast as to cripple the Empire. The strike came (TIME, May 10 et seq), and now the strike has guttered out (see p. 14). The Empire stands but the coal miners' unions of which A. J. Cook is General Secretary have been dealt a staggering blow. As he neared the Russian frontier Mr. Cook must certainly have wondered how he, the defeated strike "Emperor," would be received by Russian Communists who contributed some 11,600 000 gold rubles ($5,970,000) to the British strike funds.

At the frontier an eager Communist mob roared welcome. From his hard third-class bench in a standard-gauge Polish railway wagon Mr. Cook was escorted amid booming flashlight powders to the luxury of a broad gauge Russian salon car. There, toasting his soul at the fire of Communist adulation, "Emperor" Cook realized that his Russian friends were resolved to have at least a hero for their money.

At Moscow they rushed him through a throng which roared that he was "The Man of the Hour" to a suite of rooms at the Bolshaya Moscovskaya Hotel. Cinema cameras purred as though for Marie of Rumania in the U.S. Bewildered, dazed, Mr. Cook was spirited by limousine to the opening session of the Soviet Trades Union Congress which assembled last week at the onetime Imperial Opera, a vast theatre blazing with gold and crystal, where severely dressed Communists nestled into seats of reddest plush. There "Emperor" Cook found his voice, resumed the tone of Caesar:

"Those who think the coal strike is lost have overlooked the political meaning of our movement which will rise again, strengthened by adversity.... To the Russian workmen who contributed 61% of our entire strike fund the miners of Great Britain send their heartfelt thanks.... From 1,000 British miners' wives I bring this gift, a lighted miner's lantern. May this twinkling flame never go out!"