Weir of Weirton

A Depression paragon is National Steel --only major steel company able to keep its plants running profitably throughout the dark days. Its presiding genius is Ernest Tener Weir who also chairmans subsidiary Weirton Steel of Weirton, W. Va. Last week white-crested Founder Weir got a sizzling telegram from NRAdministrator Johnson: ''You are about to commit a deliberate violation of Federal laws and ... if you do so, I shall request the Attorney General to proceed against you immediately." Founder Weir proceeded to commit the "violation," then settled down in his Pittsburgh home to read (for the lost time, he said) that sentimental masterpiece, David Copperfield. Would the Attorney General indict him? The steel business is currently improving, has little grudge against the Government. President Roosevelt has told friends: "I've gotten to like that fellow Myron Taylor [U. S. Steel] since I've seen so much of him." Only last week Donald B. Gillies (Corrigan-McKinney Steel) told the American Mining Congress that his industry "whole-heartedly approves the President's Recovery program." Steelman Weir was himself one of the first to fall in line last summer. But so long as U. S. steelmasters have an ingot to their names they will resist detested outside (A. F. of L.) unionization of their business. On this issue Founder Weir gave battle. In Washington last October, it was agreed between Weirton Steel and the heads of its Employes Organization and the NRA's Labor Board that Weirton's 12,000 striking workers would elect a new batch of employe representatives "during the second week in December . . . procedure to be prescribed by the Board."

When, two days before last week's Weirton primaries, the "procedure" rules came from the Labor Board, Founder Weir grew warm under his collar.

Mr. Weir was willing to consent to having "non-employes' " names on the ballots, so that A. F. of L.'s Amalgamated Iron, Steel & Tin Workers Union delegates might be eligible, but he drew the line at voting "ex-employes." He also refused to abandon the secret ballot in favor of the petition system. Deeming that such procedure rules would give outside A. F. of L. men undue advantage, he brusquely notified the Board: "We must consider any arrangement with you terminated."

At Weirton and Clarksburg, W. Va. and Steubenville, Ohio, four days later 9,000 Weirton steelworkers, slightly bewildered at the solicitude shown their voting rights by both their employer and the Government, quietly filed to the ballot boxes. Watched over by company officials and Department of Justice agents, they represented 81% of all eligible to vote, a showing Weirton was proud of in view of the report that Amalgamated organizers had been urging the men not to take part in the election. As no Amalgamated candidates presented themselves, the company union representatives were overwhelm ingly elected. Under their breaths, every steelman in the country approved Weirton's heroic stand, although some thought it needlessly uncompromising. Now that the Ford case had washed out as a test of NRA's labor policies, the Weirton case loomed large. The Attorney General, apparently, was at last ready to have a legal showdown.* So was adamant Founder Weir, who calls his only serious hobby "finding out what makes the industrial world tick." For this he has co-managership of a $10,000,000 trust fund created by Maurice Falk, National Steel associate, to be used "in 35 years" for the betterment of mankind. Part of it went to Brookings Institution to find out "what causes depressions."

*But will try to avoid the hot question of NRA's constitutional!tv.

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