On the March

"Get out of the picture, you louse. You have not been a workingman for 30 years. Either stop your movement against a progressive action or you will not only be killed but tortured to make you human." This remarkable threat, scrawled anonymously on the stationery of a Houston, Tex. hotel, was received in Washington last week by John P. Frey, pedantic president of A. F. of L.'s Metal Trades Department and angriest Labor foe of John L. Lewis' C. I. O. Mr. Frey boldly announced that he would go right ahead with his plan, to head up a mass meeting in Houston this week: start an A. F. of L. oil organizing drive in competition with the C. I. O. campaign which got under way last week.

All along the Labor front last week, the forces of A. F. of L. and C. I. O. were at last coming to grips in the internecine war foreshadowed by last summer's historic split. But while a united C. I. O. drove forward under Leader Lewis' command, A. F. of L.'s scattered armies seemed headed for certain brawls among themselves. Prime reason for the Labor split was John Lewis' threatened industrial-union encroachment on A. F. of L.'s jealously guarded craft union preserves. Yet last week, in a panicky rush to head off C. I. O., many an A. F. of L. union was bursting its craft boundaries, adopting the enemy's industrial union tactics.

In the Northwest, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners was scrambling for members everywhere from lumber camps to furniture factories. Out to enlist every Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. employe, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers adopted a system of Class B memberships for non-members of its craft. Machinists, streetcar and other craft unions were spreading out on the same lines, working up to a first-rate Federation family quarrel. The president of C. I. O.'s United Electrical & Radio Workers, also out to organize Westinghouse, cheerfully noted that to achieve its aim his A. F. of L. rival would have to trespass on the jurisdictions of no less than 37 of its fellow craft unions.

Meantime in Texas, President Harvey C. Fremming of C. I. O.'s Oil Field, Gas Well & Refinery Workers was less concerned with prospective A. F. of L. competition than with his testy reception by hot-tempered Texans. Loosing a warning blast against the Sit-Down last fortnight, young Governor "Jimmy" Allred barked: "We are not going to permit the transfer of disgraceful episodes in other States to Texas. In other words, we are not going to play 'Michigan.' " President Fremming, a bulky onetime University of Washington footballer who knows that a Sit-Down in an oil field would be an uncomfortable if not wholly impracticable affair, promptly assured the Governor that C. I. O. contemplated no Sit-Downs in its oil drive. "Gladly" he furnished the names & addresses of all his organizers. Last week, still anxious to conciliate Texas officialdom and public, he followed up with an astonishing telegram inviting the Governor to make a thoroughgoing investigation, "purge our organization of any member subversive to American institutions."

At last week's end, C. I. Organizers met trouble that they did not expect. For Sunday they had scheduled a mass meeting at small Picher, Okla. in the midst of a rich lead & zinc region to talk tough miners into deserting the independent Tri-State Metal, Mine & Smelter Workers' Union. Before the meeting could assemble a mob of 4,000 Tri-Staters marched in armed with pick handles, clouted every C. I. O. man they could find in town, wrecked the meeting hall. Looking for more C. I. O. meetings, the mob crossed the Kansas line. One section went to Treece, wrecked the C. I. O. headquarters there, another went on to Galena, marched up Main Street. As they came abreast of the C. I. O. headquarters, a volley of shots broke their ranks. When the sheriff got there he found nine Tri-Staters writhing in the street, C. I. O. headquarters deserted, no one to charge with the shooting.

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