National Reports
RYAN, STEPHEN P. & DANISH, MAX D. & ROMER, SAM
National Reports Atlanta: Joseph R. Fiszman. Boston: Courtney R. Sheldon. Chicago: Albert N. Votaw. Dellas: Bicknell Eubanks. Minneapolis: Sam Romer. New Orleans: Stephen Ryan. Richmond: Lawrence...
...Why a State Voted By Max D. Danish Miami Florida, a one-party state for all practical political purposes, proved late last month, in its Gubernatorial primary, that the Democratic party here is split right down the middle, just as in 1952...
...Bernard Engert, who represents New Orlean's 11th Ward in the Louisiana Legislature, is a sandyhaired, pleasant-looking man in his early thirties, and this is his first venture into politics...
...As a matter of fact, they did not use what they had...
...It pictured his colorless opponent as a paragon of all the civic virtues, while portraying the Acting Governor as an evil political genius in charge of a ruthless state machine...
...There was a cutback in mining payrolls of more than one-third...
...Informed estimates of total production for the year put the annual cutback at about 60 per cent—barring a war...
...It is also apparent that some union members who voted for Collins failed to recall that he was a sponsor of Florida's "right-to-work" law, which, though still without an "enabling act," hangs like a Damoclean sword over the state's unions...
...The victorious faction is carrying the colors of LeRoy Collins, a youngish corporation lawyer from Tallahassee whose roster of clients includes some of Florida's biggest utility companies and industrial bigwigs...
...Engert says that he went home after the meeting and was unable to sleep all night as he turned the problem over and over in his mind...
...he offers a refreshing relief from the professional profundities of many liberal spokesmen who have, to put it as kindly as possible, lost the common touch...
...Later, this timid attitude was somewhat revised, but a warm contact between the trade-union campaigners and the Johns brain-trusters was lacking throughout the campaign...
...Even more galling to Labor's League for Political Education (AFL) campaigners here was the revelation that Miami and Tampa, the state's largest industrial centers, where the bulk of Florida's trade-union membership resides, had virtually clinched Collins's victory...
...The beaten faction fought the battle of Acting Governor Charley Johns, a former railroad worker and at present a medium-sized businessman in a mid-central county...
...In speech he is simple and direct...
...Why Miners Worry By Sam Romer Virginia, Minn...
...But the companies began tapering off shipments in November and eliminated December hauls altogether...
...The 84 who voted for the resolution followed a pattern which one must expect politicians in their position to follow, but the 3 dissenters displayed unusual courage...
...The story of his conversion to his present stand on the race question begins with a meeting of a Catholic organization a few years ago, when he heard another white Southerner speak on the evils of racism and intolerance...
...This meant that no ore-laden boats followed the ice-breakers down the lakes as they have done for 15 years...
...gone is the overtime week with checks of $100 and more...
...The Range is processing the low-grade ore, previously too expensive for use in steel furnaces, into all-iron pellets through magnetic separation of the rock from the iron...
...The obscene and anonymous phone calls, the taunting of the children by their schoolmates, the slurs of the neighbors—all this and more have made the family's life a nightmare in recent weeks...
...It was based on his Senate vote, some 10 years ago, against a "de-hooding" bill—a vote which he had long since completely and frankly disavowed...
...3. A whispering campaign was started (it later developed into an open smear) to the effect that Johns had been a Klansman...
...Taconite is the Iron Range's answer to ore imports from Labrador and Venezuela...
...He is not an "egghead," an intellectual, or even a "liberal" in the commonly accepted sense of the word...
...However, a tour of the area discloses no great distress and even much optimism...
...Engert's wife and children have suffered from his stand...
...Richmond: Lawrence King...
...Johns's labor partisans found the May 25 runoff results all the harder to swallow because their candidate, for 30 years a member of the Order of Railway Conductors and Trainmen, had led a three-man field by some 35,000 votes in the original May 5 primary and figured to be an easy winner...
...Whether it will last until steel demands pick up is a question both miners and businessmen are asking...
...What he does possess, however, is something which he shares in common with few other politicians—a highly developed sense of the distinction between right and wrong...
...Nevertheless, Engert stands on his vote and on the speech he made in defense of his position...
...Engert is a devout Catholic, and he believes in putting into practice the principle of social justice taught by his church...
...The next day, he began a serious study of the situation and, within a short time, had reached definite conclusions as to its solution...
...This hurt Johns badly in Greater Miami and Tampa...
...The first shadow of things to come fell late last year when the ore companies, which had been spurring the miners toward a goal of 100 million tons, sharply reduced shipping to 96 million tons—itself a new record...
...Construction already is under way on the eastern end of the Range, with some 4,000 jobs available this summer and up to 6,000 for the next two years...
...Now that the dust of this unprecedented upset has settled, the search for causes—and alibis—has turned up several plausible explanations: 1. While Johns has had a glittering labor record since he entered the Florida Legislature 16 years ago, Senator Collins's voting record on key labor measures in 1953, the year he decided to enter the Gubernatorial contest, was pretty good and offered the unions no special target...
...callbacks of miners from winter layoffs were delayed week after week, and, when they finally came, it was at the reduced rate...
...In the early stages of the primary drive, they did not seem anxious for open labor support, obviously not wishing to identify Johns too closely as labor's candidate...
...Winter stockpiles of ore at lowerlake docks (necessary to keep steel furnaces operating when the lakes are ice-locked) were already bulging with 55 1/2 million tons, and the steelmakers just did not want any more...
...Minnesota's Iron Range, which produces the ore which produces the steel which produces the machines which produce the consumer goods which keep the American economy alive, is worth looking into these days...
...But the real shock-absorber has been an immense program of industrial construction for exploitation of taconite, or low-grade iron ore...
...His central conclusion was that segregation is inherently evil and must be destroyed...
...The mining companies have blueprinted a half-billion-dollar construction program for taconite processing plants, shipping facilities and even a railroad...
...4. The Johns campaign tacticians proved outstandingly inept and feeble in labor liaison...
...San Francisco: Frank Mankiewiez...
...2. The "big press," with the Miami Herald, Miami Daily News and Tampa Tribune in the lead, practically ganged up on Johns...
...In a sense, taconite construction is to the Iron Range what public works may be to a depressed economy —a shot in the arm...
...This group could pass anywhere in the East or the North for a middle-of-the-road Republican outfit...
...What makes a legislator stand up on the side of right and decency when he knows that his sentiments and his vote will be used against him and his family...
...Why a Man Voted By Stephen P. Ryan New Orleans Aresolution condemning the Supreme Court's anti-segregation ruling and affirming Louisiana's unwillingness to integrate its publicschool system was recently passed in the State Legislature's lower house by a vote of 84-3, with 10 legislators either absent or not voting...
...Instead of dwindling rapidly down to its normal size, the ore stockpile as of May 1 still was 5 million tons above last year's figure...
...What kind of person possesses that peculiar form of heroism which impels him to move away from the crowd, brave the insults and threats of his associates, and do what he knows to be right...
...Part of this is due to the cushioning effect of unemployment insurance...
...Under most conditions, the Range could not have taken this kind of jolt without disastrous effects...
...Those with jobs are working the once-normal 40 hours for a $76 paycheck...
...The number of miners at work has been cut to 16,000 from last year's 19,000...
...Louis: William Wyant Jr...
...Actually, the original goal was within reach, because the lakes remained open until well into December and the ore was there for the digging...
...It roughly represented the forces which in former years clustered around ex-Senator Claude Pepper, including the large farmer groups and the trade unions...
...Although many skilled jobs on these construction projects have gone to the "boomers" who follow contractors from state to state, there have been enough to take care of hundreds of unemployed miners who normally would have been forced on relief...
...Here is what you find: ?Ore tonnage shipped this year from upper lake ports is running at 56 per cent of last year's total...
...normal during winter layoffs and usually running out only after springtime mining operations have begun...
...I got the answers to these and a number of other questions when I met one of the three "rebels" shortly after the house voted on the resolution...
Vol. 37 • July 1954 • No. 28
