Blow to the War Effort

In San Francisco's 1934 dock strike West coast shippers--and then the whole U.S.--suddenly became aware of a gaunt, nervous man who talked with a cockney-like accent and abrupt gestures. He was fast gaining power over organized U.S. longshoremen. Australian-born Harry Bridges was wary, shrewd, and almost telepathically able to guess shipowners' moves before they were made. He led longshoremen with a dictatorial hand, rose to be named West Coast C.I.O. chief.

Sometimes he was seen with known Communists.

In a very short time Harry Bridges was the most hated man in California. Many a shipper thought the millennium and the deportation of Alien Harry Bridges were synonymous. For four years they worked hard to send him away.

Red to Red, White & Blue. But June 22, 1941, date of the German attack on Russia, changed all that. As he once led longshoremen against the shippers, tough Harry Bridges now marshaled his army against the Axis. He did a whale of a job.

Now the thing to do instead of tying up shipping, was to load ships with war supplies and load them fast. When Army-Navy bickering caused top-heavy loadings, sent empty beer bottles to Batavia instead of planes, Bridges scurried to Washington. He wangled appointment of a labor-management board, got a Navy tribute for record shiploading.

The gaunt, nervous-smiling man with the tapir nose became a local hero. Politicos, businessmen, shipping bigwigs stopped him on the street to chat. He was invited to talk at San Francisco's snooty Commonwealth Club. Now that Russia's war and the U.S.'s war was one, Harry Bridges was doing more than most men on the Coast to help smash the Axis nations.

Why Now? When word got out last week that Attorney General Francis Biddie was ready to rule on the Bridges deportation charge, newshawks' best guess was that the Administration, having let Communist Earl Browder out of jail "to promote national unity," would drop its grievance against new hero Bridges. Much to everyone's surprise, the decision of Attorney General Francis Biddle was that Harry Bridges has been a member of the Communist Party, must be deported to Australia.

Rich and independent, with liberal leanings, Francis Biddle has developed a sudden passion for the letter of the law. Since war's start he has mystified his liberal friends by his hesitant handling of sedition and alien cases--but not those friends who know that to him the word "tolerance" is more than a word.

Now, brooding alone over the voluminous Bridges record, he looked at the law and the facts, made up his own mind. He. could have waited for months or years--or forever--to give his ruling. Washington wondered why he had acted now.

Bridges-baiters rejoiced. Labormen fumed. Said one labor leader: ". . . The first major victory of Hitler's spring offensive." In San Francisco Harry Bridges took the news with a smile. His lawyers readied an appeal to the Supreme Court, which (in a year or more) will finally rule on the real and thorny question: Does the Communist Party advocate the overthrow of the U.S. Government by force and violence? In short, is it really subversive?

Harry Bridges, in no danger of being deported until the Supreme Court rules on his case, sent a patriotic telegram to WPB Chief Donald Nelson. Its gist: no slackening in the war effort.

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