Workings of Peace

Streaked with silver by last week's end was the darkling sky over the U. S. textile world as it emerged after its three-week strike. In the South many a mill owner still kept his heart and door closed to returning strikers and there were faint rumblings of a new walkout. But in Washington three tried & trusted mediators went soberly to work on the strike's cause and consequence with bright prospects of success.

To create a new Textile Labor Relations Board, superseding both his own Winant Board and the National Labor Relations Board, President Roosevelt last week simply extended the sway of his Steel Labor Relations Board, created last summer when a steel strike threatened (TIME, July 9). Its members: 1) aloof, judicial Walter P. Stacy, who expected after a fortnight as temporary chairman to return to his job as Chief Justice of North Carolina's Supreme Court; 2) grim, grizzled Rear Admiral Henry A. Wiley, U. S. N., retired, ardent Big Navy man, arbitrator of two railway labor disputes; 3) liberal James Mullenbach, longtime mediator in Chicago's clothing industry.

Counting on the same fair, vigorous treatment, everyone expected the Board to handle Textile's troubles as successfully as it had handled Steel's. It was to have much the same powers in its new capacity--to hear all disputes on unions, wages, hours and working conditions, to supervise employe election's for collective bargaining purposes, to arbitrate if requested. Except for disputed cases involving the collective bargaining clause of the National Industrial Recovery Act, which may be passed on to the National Labor Relations Board, its findings and decisions will be final. Last week it plunged into its first, most urgent job--getting strikers back to work.

Strike Leader Francis J. Gorman was "very well satisfied" with the new setup. Mill owners seemed less pleased. Only after President Roosevelt had summoned him to a White House heart-to-heart in mid-week did George A. Sloan, Cotton-Textile Institute's president and spokesman for employers, issue his first statement since the end of the strike. He and his cohorts were willing to "cooperate" with the new Board. Like Leader Gorman he read victory for his cause in the Winant Board's report (TIME, Oct. 1). It had found working conditions vastly improved under the textile code, had recommended no change in hours or wages, had turned down blanket recognition of United Textile Workers Union. Leader Gorman judiciously let these points pass, pounced with fury on a statement that strikers who had engaged in "lawless violence" would get no jobs back.

With his union strengthened, its complaints well-aired and machinery in motion to deal with them, Leader Gorman had won by the strike all that Labor could reasonably have expected. Last week sympathizers reviewed with admiration his smart generalship--his impressive sealed and numbered strike orders, his effective innovation of "flying squadrons" of picketers, his strategic concentration on drawing out irreplaceable loom-fixers.

Last August, President Roosevelt ordered the cotton garment industry to down working hours from 40 to 36 per week, up wages 10%, beginning Oct. 1. Protesting that they could not afford the change, manufacturers hotly threatened to shut down rather than obey what amounted to a unique White House command. Last week, with the order's effective date only four days off, shirtmakers announced definite plans to shut down, throw out 25,000 workers, whereas 50,000 cotton garment workers were primed to strike to enforce the President's order. But President Roosevelt was not yet ready to force this issue of his own making to the fighting point. Abruptly he announced a two-week stay of his order, asked the new National Industrial Recovery Board to appoint a three-man committee to investigate and recommend changes.

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