Prodigal's Return

"I have neither the time nor the inclination," said John Lewis when he quit A.F. of L. in 1935, "to follow the peregrinations of the council from the Jersey beaches in the summer to the golden sands of Florida in the winter."

But this week the Old Lion followed the A.F. of L. council to the golden sands of Miami on important business. Ahead of him he had sent a check for $9,000, representing January dues for his 600,000 United Mine Workers. After a decade of wandering, first along the riotous road of C.I.O.'s early marches, then on the thorny path of isolation, the prodigal was back.

He roared into the fold on his own unrepentant terms. He will sit on the A.F. of L. executive council (with the hilarious title of 13th vice president). His daughter Kathryn's catch-all District 50, the most vertical union in the world, fresh from a new conquest of some 1,000 former Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen members on the Long Island Railroad, will have full membership--A.F. of L.'s craft-union tradition notwithstanding.

When tired, lonely William Green, president of A.F. of L., got up to make the.announcement at the Miami Colonial Hotel, he seemed to have taken on a surprising amount of bounce. He was even dressed for the occasion--in a shep-herd's-check suit much gayer than his Baptist tastes usually permit. With Lewis back, A.F. of L.'s membership topped 7,000,000 once again, and C.I.O. could take warning.

Orderly House. "Mr. Lewis comes back with full membership," said Bill Green. "It might be interpreted as a move ... to place the house of labor in order." Bill Green had decided to forgive & forget--even to the point of ignoring Lewis' famed 1940 comment: "I have done a lot of exploring of Bill's mind, and I give you my word, there is nothing there." He bludgeoned the hotel management into finding a suite for Lewis, said he might take John to the beach.

Until John Lewis burst onto the scene, the Miami council meeting had followed the familiar, doldrum-ridden pattern. The members--whose ages average 63--met only until noon, then sunned themselves (fully clothed) on the roof garden or the second-floor veranda, where they watched Biscayne Boulevard's traffic, talked about old times, and cursed C.I.O.

Bill Green, never one of the boys, often sat alone in the hotel lobby, at dinner time hunted out an obscure restaurant where he could eat in solitude. For the benefit of newsmen he declared: "I have no fear whatsoever that Mr. Lewis will try to displace me. . . . The story that I will retire is false."

A.F. of L. was on the road to change. Where the road would end, its president and the first twelve vice presidents could hardly say. But the 13th vice president doubtless had some ideas.

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