Word: wsb
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Wrote Lewis: the contract for a $1.90 wage boost is not inflationary-"it is pure as a sheep's heart." The WSB ruling is "contemptible." WSB Chairman Archibald Cox, "the little Harvard professor," and his associates formed a "cabal to steal 40? a day from each mine worker." Economic Stabilizer Roger Putnam, who applauded the WSB ruling, shows a "sadistic trait," for he is "robbing miners' babies of life-giving milk...
...coal mine operators, urged on and joined by Lewis, petitioned Putnam to overrule the WSB and grant the full $1.90 raise...
...made Lewis guess wrong was WSB Chairman Archibald Cox, a Harvard Law School professor. Explaining his. board's action, Cox said: "The real issue before us, in this case, is whether we shall now abandon the fight against inflation . . . Our decision is against such a step . . ." The coal miners, he added, could not justly claim larger wage increases than those granted to steel, rubber, auto and other workers...
Economic Stabilization Administrator Roger Putnam, who had tried vainly to get the WSB to postpone its decision for further study, put the best face on the decision when it came and acclaimed the board's "real courage." Lewis lumbered into a strategy huddle with his top aides, lumbered out again to deliver his pro-Democrat oration as promised ("cast aside and push away . . . the alluring Republican names"), without a mention of the WSB decision...
Lewis' only comment on the decision was to say later: "This is a solemn day." And it was, for this week 300,000 of the nation's 375,000 soft coal miners walked out in protest against the WSB's decision. Having lost two months' steel production, the nation was now faced with the prospect of another crippling shutdown of defense industry (though the prospect was not immediate; the amount of coal above ground is larger than usual). The coal strike, even more clearly than the steel strike, was the result of unsuccessful Government interference...