Dixie Battleground

The muffled tread of labor, marching, beat in Southern ears. The C.I.O. was already on crusade (TIME, May 13). This week, in Asheville's cool mountain air, the A.F. of L. mustered its ranks for the torrid tramp through Dixie.

Old soldier George L. Googe, the A.F. of L.'s Georgia-born Southern sergeant major since 1930, formed up the delegates representing 1,800,000 Federation members. They passed in review before A.F. of L. President William Green. (The lines were somewhat thinned, owing to a transportation tie-up occasioned by the coal strike called by the A.F. of L.'s 13th vice president, John Lewis.)

Fires at the Asheville encampment burned feebly in comparison with the torches of C.I.O. No special funds had been appropriated for the A.F. of L.'s push for 1,000,000 new recruits. No new organizers would be hired. The cadre of A.F. of L.'s new legions would be built around platoons now in the field: building-trades locals, truckers, printers, longshoremen, tobacco workers.

C.I.O.'s wild-riding cavalry was galloping toward the outworks of the South's weakly organized mass industries: oil, textiles, lumber, chemicals, steel. A.F. of L.'s slower moving infantry hoped to bulge through the same defenses with less show, more power. Said William Green's order of the day:*

"Our purpose is to raise the standard of living of the millions of Southern workers and create a new era of lasting prosperity in the land of Dixie. . . . We come here not as invaders from the North but as old friends. . . . Nothing can stop us, neither the opposition of reactionary management nor the rivalry of the Communistic dual movement. . . . The workers of the South are going to organize. Employer resistance will only redouble our efforts. . . . Let me give Southern industry this warning--cooperate with us or fight for your life against Communist forces."

* Scheduled for broadcast on an NBC hookup, it was heard no farther than Asheville's auditori um. Just after the A.F. of L. president had been introduced, someone snipped circuit wires in a basement spot only 20 feet from where the Asheville Chamber of Commerce was serving corn likker to the press.

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