Labour in the U.S.A.
Governor Landon's speech of acceptance as Republican candidate came rather late in the summer. As a conse- quence it marks the opening of the vacation rather than that of the election contest. Politics are largely sus- pended until September, when the final two-months campaign will begin in bitter earnest. In the interval two movements will be of particular interest. The Coughlin-Townsend alliance of discontents is the first. It cannot but be dangerous to Mr. Roosevelt, all the more so because, as is well known, the more unscrupulous of the reactionaries will be ready to give financial aid to Father Coughlin and his associates in the hope of splitting the popular vote for the President. The second movement falls within the world of organised Labour. Mr. John L. Lewis, of the United Mine Workers, who has put himself at the head of an aggressive effort towards industrial unionism, is directly challenging the autocracy of the American Federation of Labour, which controls the 4,000,000 members of the existing craft unions. It may be taken for granted that Mr. Lewis's followers will have reached a considerable total before the November election, while there is a fierce conflict between the old and the new unionism, as well as between the latter and the great industrial corporations. But these developments do not portend the making of a political Labour Party. Organised Labour as a whole will be content to vote for Mr. Roosevelt.
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