APPEALS LODGED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22198, 7 December 1946, Page 7

APPEALS LODGED

CONTEMPT CASE WARMING FROM A.F.L. MINERS’ HOSTILITY WASHINGTON, Dee. 5. Mr. John L. Lewis’ lawyers have lodged an appeal to the United States Circuit Court against his own and the U.M.W.A.’s conviction for contempt of court in not averting the coal miners’ walk-out. The lawyers also lodged with the Federal Court a bond for Mr. Lewis’ personal fine of 10,000 dollars and the union’s fine of 3,500,000 dollars pending the result of the appeal.

Simultaneously, the president of the American Federation of Labour, Mr. William Green, who is now a close associate of Mr. Lewis, issued a statement urging a conference between the soft coal mine owners and Mr. Lewis in an effort to settle the dispute.

“The nation’s coal miners will interpret the heavy penalty imposed on them and their leader as an attempt to wreck the union,” he said. “This will serve to develop a more hostile psychological condition throughout the nation’s mining areas. The resort to the use of an injunction violates the Norris-La Guardia Act. Labour is confident that Judge Goldsborougli’s decision will be reversed.

“Force and punishment and involuntary servitude do not square with the principles of justice and democracy. Working men must, be free. They are determined to remain free.” C. 1.0. Supports Appeal

The president of the C. 1.0., Mr. Philip Murray, announced that the C. 1.0. was joining with Mr. Lewis in the appeal against the contempt convictions, stating: "We have learned through bitter experience of other countries that liberty is indivisable and that a blow at the miners’ liberties is a blow at the liberties of all of us.” Mr. Murray described Judge Goldsborough’s decision as “a shocking attempt to force American citizens to work against their will through economic coercion.”

Mr. Murray and Mr. Lewis had been bitter enemies as a result of Mr. Lewis’ breakaway from the C. 1.0. after Mr. Murray succeeded him as president. _ The newspaper P.M., in an editorial on the Lewis case, says: “Whatever legal victory the Government has won has been purchased at a monstrously high price. If the strike continues for several more weeks, industry and transport will be paralysed, labour further embittered, and the nation’s hysterical tension deepened. It is unthinkable that America ghould continue along this tragic path, because it is caught in a feud in which each side has gone too far to extricate itself.” A report from Oakland, California, says that the municipal government and American Federation of Labour leaders have reached an agreement to end the general strike which has strangled the commerce of Oakland for two days. The union conditions were that the police should not be used in breaking picket lines and that city officials should remain neutral in labour disputes.