National Affairs

Strikes of the Week

Five months ago began the onslaught of insurgent Labor upon Motors and Steel. Corporation by corporation John L. Lewis' organizing drive captured positions in these two great open-shop industries. By last week it had gained about two-thirds of Motors, better than half of Steel. Last week the United Automobile Workers were storming at the gates of Motors' inner citadel, Ford Motor Co. The Steel Workers Organizing Committee, having captured biggest U. S. Steel and most of the small fry, was pounding at three big steel independents: Republic, Youngstown, Inland. On both fronts there was blood and brutality.

Men with queasy stomachs had no place one afternoon last week on the overpass--across the street to street car tracks--at the No. 4 gate of Henry Ford's great River Rouge plant. The union had opened its Ford campaign by hiring two vacant bank buildings near the plant, as headquarters. Next step was to print handbills calling for "Unionism not Fordism," demanding a basic $8, six-hour day for workers, better not only than Ford's present $6, eight-hour day, but better than the terms obtained from any other motor company. Third step was to distribute the handbills to the 9,000 River Rouge workmen.

By announcing the event to the press an ample attendance of newshawks and cameramen as well as a batch of clergymen and investigators of Senator La Follette's civil liberties committee was insured. At the appointed time, Organizer Richard Truman Frankensteen, head of the U.A.W. Ford drive, accompanied by his lieutenant, Walter Reuther, appeared. Leader Frankensteen, a husky 30 and onetime football player (University of Dayton), led the way up a long flight of stairs to the overpass to supervise the handbills' issuance. He was smiling for photographers as a group of Ford men approached. Someone shouted, "You're on Ford property. Get the hell off here!" Frankensteen started to obey, was struck from behind, turned around to fight. Four or five men closed in on him. He was knocked down and his coat pulled over his head. He got to his feet and grabbed one of his attackers by the ear. Others slugged him fore & aft. Cameramen snapped these early stages of the battle, then fled before their plates were seized. Said Frankensteen: "It was the worst licking I've ever taken."

TRANSPORT

"Oh, the Humanity!"

"Toward us, like a great feather . . . is the Hindenburg. The members of the crew are looking down on the field ahead of them getting their glimpses of the mooring mast. . . ."

Radio Commentator Herbert Morrison was chattering thus idly into his microphone at the Naval airbase in Lakehurst, N. J. The Hindenburg had made ten round trips to the U. S. in 1936 and this arrival was being "covered" by radio only because it was her first of 1937, nothing sensational.

"It is starting to rain again. The back motors of the ship are holding it just enough to keep it--terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It is in smoke and flames now. Oh, the humanity! Those passengers! I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen! Honest, it is a mass of smoking wreckage. Lady, I am sorry. Honestly. I can hardly--Few seconds later Morrison recovered his voice, went on with his transcription. But by that time the worst and most completely witnessed disaster in the history of commercial aviation was over, the 803-ft. Hindenburg was gone, destroyed in precisely 32 sec. before 1,000 appalled spectators. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.